Gladys Tiffany, Director Omni Center for Peace Justice & Ecology
Fayetteville could have handled things differently. She still can.
The short , unvarnished version of our perspective on these lawsuits is this: there is manipulation going on behind the scenes from people who want to take over our property, which has become valuable. They’re exploiting a situation that we should have handled differently. Richard is actually trying to deal with it responsibly, in cooperation with the city’s Code Compliance Department, and with care for the low-income renters living there. He’s doing what he can in spite of city pressure and manipulation from self-interested parties.
There’s more than one self-interested party, but the primary one is the foundation that acquires land for the National Cemetery adjacent to our property. They’ve asked us to donate it to them, and offered us a very low-ball offer a quarter of the current value of the property. In 2020 when covid started, and desperate people started camping willy nilly on the back of our land, it became visible from the National Cemetery. Not the look they want
We’re not the only people who let homeless people camp on their land. Several Omni people have quietly mentioned to us that they do the same. People have asked us why we let them stay there when it was causing us trouble, and it’s complicated. In 2019 there was one person who’d been there for years. After covid lockdowns started it went to a dozen in a few months time. To look in the eyes of a frightened person with NOWHERE to go is a sobering call for help that was difficult to ignore.
If you’ve never talked to someone living rough like that you might think they’re criminals or worse. But what you meet when you talk to most of them is somebody who had a catastrophe. The number of people on our street because of medical emergencies is alarming! There are also a growing number of senior citizens with fixed incomes and no way to pay the rising rents. Like the very recent outrage to senior housing at Wedington Place Senior Apartments, whose rent for a one bedroom went from $520. to $900 in a short time. Where are those seniors now?
Here are some figures from the most recent Point in Time Count for our area that city council should be taking note of:
Age 2022 PIT Count 2023 PIT Count
55-64 52 80
65 and above 15 28
We all agree that veterans deserve a nice cemetery. Their service to the country was valuable and important. We feel the need for low-income housing is equally important, Our future plans for this property include taking down the old building and rebuilding a new, attractive 6 unit facility for low-income people who are ALIVE. Wouldn’t that be even more beneficial to the needs of people than a further expansion of the cemetery?
The charges against Richard and Gladys were made because Richard wasn’t prepared to cope with the situation when a dozen people were camping there. The mess got to be too much and the general disorder was unmanageable for one person by himself. The camp closed on August 6 2023, and since then it’s taken time to fully clean the property and reset the actual renters’ thinking about keeping it orderly. They’d gotten into a habit of dropping stuff randomly, which got messy. They now understand that by keeping the property clean, they have a role in keeping their home, .
Reports of crime and drug dealing have also been lodged at us and the renters. Which is crazy. We will be presenting evidence through the courts that clarifies this weird set of claims and shows there’s no wrong-doing on our part or by our renters (who are mostly sickly and disabled people not very capable of that kind of behavior).
A primary motivation for the entire scenario seems to us to be the need from the cemetery foundation to acquire our property. Otherwise so much of it makes almost no rational sense. It needs a“follow-the-money” analysis to understand what’s going on in the smokey back rooms we didn’t know Fayettevile had.
In this case, the harms mostly come to the eight simple folk who now have plain, warm, dry and safe places to live. If the city wins the lawsuit against us their plan is for us to cease operations, and to force all of the renters out of the house. For virtually all of these people that will mean the streets. Who does that actually benefit? Only the cemetery. Certainly not the people of the city.
What we ask of the city is that we be allowed to continue to house low-income renters as we work on the building and make the grounds cleaner and more “acceptable”. At a time in the hopefully near future when regulation and financing become more amenable, we’ll take the next step to replace the old house with something better, still addressing low-income housing needs to the level we can. We’ll do our best to accommodate any reasonable requests from the apartment management and staff, who seem to be the most nervous about the presence of poor people across the street.
A primary concern to me is the way Omni people see this challenge. After 23 years as a peace, justice and environmental presence in Fayetteville, for its director to face charges like this must be alarming and confusing. It certainly is to us. I want to reassure members and friends that this isn’t a challenge to Omni. It’s purely on the Tiffany’s to demonstrate to the court and the neighbors that we’re the same kindly community activists and simple Quaker people we’ve always been. Since that’s the truth for us, we feel confident we’ll succeed.
We’re grateful for the support and encouragement Omni folks have offered already. It means a lot. If you’re someone who we haven’t visited with about it yet, don’t hesitate to email me at omni@omnicenter.org, or stop in and chat. It’d be great to check in.
Right at this political moment our community needs to connect in confidence, and this situation is a sad distraction. We hope things can be resolved in ways that help strengthen community for the certain challenges ahead.