When the Rev. Larry Rice speaks to the NAACP's political affairs luncheon today, at least some members of the audience will be sympathetic to his proposal to use the federal building as homeless shelter.

Deborah Young, president of the recently revived chapter of the civil rights organization, said she has gathered signatures among residents in southern parts of Cape Girardeau to show that the poor and homeless here are underserved. Rice sent staff from his New Life Evangelistic Center ministry to Cape Girardeau last week to help.

"We want to be part of this decision, and we are going to give him a chance to explain his mission to us," Young said.

The opposition to Rice, which she said has focused on his personality and his methods rather than the need for added help to the homeless, has angered Young. "Now it has taken a different route and it has become personal to me," she said. "It seems like personal attacks and people telling me where we belong, where black people belong, where poor whites belong, where veterans belong, and they are telling us we don't belong in the federal building and I don't agree with that."

The luncheon will begin at 11 a.m. at Joyful Praise Ministries, 1507 S. Sprigg St. Rice will speak, then hold a news conference to discuss his plans for the courthouse.

On Friday, Rice was told the Department of Health and Human Services had turned down his request to obtain the federal building. Rice's New Life Evangelistic Center sought to use a federal law giving homeless service organizations priority in the use of surplus federal property. Rice said after the decision that he will challenge it in federal court, arguing the process became politicized when Cape Girardeau city officials organized a campaign against the proposal.

Opponents included both of Missouri's U.S. senators, Claire McCaskill, a Democrat, and Kit Bond, a Republican, as well as U.S. Rep. Jo Ann Emerson, a Cape Girardeau Republican, and city and county officials. Other groups enlisted to oppose the shelter proposal included civic groups, veterans groups, social service agencies and religious organizations.

"The need is there, that is what I want to prove," Young said. "I got signatures from the homeless, people living with no address except Cape Girardeau. We need to find out how to make those individuals productive adults and contribute positively to this community. That is what the NAACP is here for."

One criticism of Rice is that neither he nor the staff that prepared the application for the federal building visited Cape Girardeau's monthly housing task force meeting chaired by Roy Jones of the Community Caring Council. Jones said he intends to attend the NAACP luncheon to hear directly from Rice.

The city does not need a shelter as large as the federal building, which has 47,000 square feet of space, to deal with any problem that exists, Jones said. A shelter that size would draw people from a wide region seeking services, Jones said.

"That would have been unhealthy in terms of the resources we have to help the homeless people, if we had a huge number to come in on us in a relatively short period of time," he said.

A positive development from the debate, Jones said, is that the city has begun looking for federal grants to create transitional living residences for the homeless. While those plans were floated before Rice made his application, no progress in achieving the goal had been made.

"We do have some needs where we can improve on our service to the homeless people," Jones said. "We have discussed some of those in our meetings as we prepared our expression of concern on Larry Rice's plans. I think we will be better able to service the needs of a variety of homeless people over a year or so as a result of the thinking and discussion."

rkeller@semissourian.com

388-3642

Pertinent addresses:

339 Broadway, Cape Girardeau, Mo.

1507 S. Sprigg St., Cape Girardeau, Mo.