EAST MISSOUR ACTION PURCHASES WISER BUILDING

East Missouri Action Agency has purchased the building formerly used by the defunct Cape Girardeau WISER Inc., and plans to relocate its Cape Girardeau operations there.

Agency Executive Director Nancy Williams said the move is planned for the first week in August. The building is at 1111 Linden and neighbors the Cape Girardeau County Public Health Center.

The agency has searched the last five or six years for a building to rent where it could pull its local activities together, Williams said Friday from the agency's central office in Flat River.

She said agency officials first started discussing the purchase of the building, which has sat vacant, with its board of directors in February or March. It was determined, Williams said, that the agency's payments after buying the building would cost as much as its rent.

The building's price tag was $675,000, said Williams. Williams said the agency bought the building on April 24 from the former First Exchange Bank of Cape Girardeau.

East Missouri Action Agency is a multipurpose agency designed under the Economic Opportunity Act of 1965 to assist low-income people, including the elderly, Williams said.

The agency currently operates out of two places in Cape Girardeau. The agency's Head Start center is on North Middle Street, Williams said, while the rest of its operations are at 1301 N. Kingshighway.

Williams said the building, at 21,000 square feet, will boost the agency's available space and offers a lot of good possibilities.

"We've got triple the space of what we've got in our two facilities right now. There's room for expansion on our Head Start programs."

"We're really excited about it. Maybe (we'll) tap into some resources we haven't been able to do before."

It's possible, she said, that a food pantry might also be started at the building. That's something the agency has in other counties, Williams said, but not here.

Williams said one wing of the building would have to be remodeled for the agency's family planning clinic.

Charlotte Craig said East Missouri Action Agency would be perfect for the neighborhood along Linden, which she described as a small community-service area. Craig is director of the county public health center.

Also located in the neighborhood is the Gibson Recovery Center for men, Parkview State School for the Severely Handicapped, and a high-rise apartment complex for the elderly, she said.

"We're thrilled to death because we've been doing things with them for several years. It will be nice to have them as neighbors and be able to walk next door," said Craig.

East Missouri Action Agency offers job training for teen-age mothers and is one of the agencies that joined up with the health center, Lutheran Family Services, and Southeast Missouri Hospital, among others, to network their services to help teen-age mothers stay in school, she said. Craig said the health center and the agency have no overlapping programs.

WISER, an acronym for Women's Information Service, moved out of the building in August 1990 after three Cape Girardeau banks froze the financially-troubled center's accounts. A WISER official at that time identified one of the banks as First Exchange.

WISER provided shelter and treatment for women and children, including treatment of drug and alcohol problems. The center had also offered programs for adolescents and domestic violence, but had shut those programs down previous to closing.