Some neighbors wish shelter was elsewhere

"Not in my back yard" are words city officials often hear from people complaining about something in their neighborhood. Some Revival Center neighbors who live in the 1000 block of Anna Street in Jackson mean those words literally. Their back yards butt up against the back yard of the homeless center and church.

Katherine Elfrink won't let her 12-year-old daughter go into her back yard and won't allow her 5-year-old son go outside at all unless she accompanies him.

"I have had people looking in my windows," she said.

Elfrink said she has talked to some nice and polite people who have stayed at the Revival Center. She said others have heckled her when she barbecues. "One night I just left the food on the grill and let it burn," she said.

She attributes some thefts in the neighborhood to Revival Center residents and points out that most of her neighbors are retirees.

The 36-year-old Elfrink is surrounded by neighbors at least a generation older. Moddy Jaco and his wife, Virginia, live across the street from her. He has no complaints about the Revival Center. "They don't bother me," he said.

But Bill Carnell, who lives next to Elfrink, said his wife, Mabel, spends less time in her garden than she used to because she's uncomfortable about some of the people at the center. "I wish it was in somebody else's back yard," he said.

Next-door neighbor Jim Slinkard said Revival Center director the Rev. Joyce Hungate seems to be keeping an eye on things now that the city has cracked down. "Before, they ran wild," he said.

He realizes that homeless people need someplace to live but doubts Hungate knows everything about the people she's lodging.

"We don't trust them," Slinkard said. "It's as simple as that."

Hungate says she screens out sex offenders, substance abusers and people with mental problems.

Elfrink said she asked Hungate to erect a privacy fence. That hasn't occurred. "I don't feel she's protecting the neighborhood," Elfrink said.

She says homeless people do need a place that offers help but points to the Teen Challenge drug rehabilitation center located in a rural area on Cape Girardeau's northern end. "They're not in the middle of a residential area," she said.

She moved to her house in 2000, a year before the Revival Center located in the neighborhood.

"The whole point of moving into this neighborhood is that it felt safe," Elfrink said.

Does this affect you?

Or just have a comment?

Log on to semissourian.com/today