The Closing of the
Clubhouse of the Rising Sun
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Notes
refer to photo above them.Click on the picture
Facing Atlanta Road
Left from back
Back of Building
Back of Building
Right Side Rear
Dumpster
Neighbor
Main
Construction
Donations
Safety Signs
Kitchen
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EVICTION REPORT A long standing agreement among parties has been the basis of the effort to rebuild the house at 890 Atlanta Road. This agreement cannot be dismissed. Photos exist to show the extensive deterioration that prompted the remodeling. Without the understanding that the donations would help people, the work would never have gotten support. It was not donated to the landlord or the rent fund. So the people who gave the support are feeling very left out of the decision making process while those who contributed little are credited with a valid opinion. This is a matter of great concern to us. Because while we want to keep faith with Mr. Alexander's memory, we also have to look to our members and represent their interests and concerns. If enough time elapses between meaningful conversations, gaps occur between and among individuals. These information gaps based on unshared perceptions can lead to fascinating or awful problems. Those of us who helped start and maintain the Sun over the years had an ongoing investment in the place that seems to have become lost. When I am told that a meeting took place wherein some members affirmed a position to have the owners sell the property, it completely leaves out hundreds of other people who would have come forward to help in someway. Perhaps the members who did this never actually met some of these people and having no personal knowledge of them, they didn't exist. Because no one came to me with alarms or serious concerns except at the last moment, I never put out the word to members around Atlanta and other states. Therefore, these people are going to be quite surprised by the changes. Addicts, even in recovery retain a degree of the self-destructive aspect. An NA group once voted that Quaaludes were ok. Most of the members made it back to NA. Even if you have trouble seeing the other side, consider: we were allowed us to proceed on a gentleman's agreement to do a large repair job with only volunteer effort and funds. It reveals why some things have taken so long. We are people of the spirit now, and God keeps us safe in the spirit. It may seem unkind to bring up all these things now, but if not now, when? Surely, you will want to know that our integrity was not based on ignorance or an inability to process reality. We will be more careful to secure a binding contract before we undertake unsecured improvements. One big item of concern is the extensive nature of the repairs - that we went too far in the repairs - beyond what was agreed to or known about by the owners. Well, even though I lived in Pennsylvania in 1997, I recall visits where I could see that the kitchen and bathroom were quite rotted out and unusable, not due to negligence, but to the leaks in the roof. Both the flooring and the ceiling was damaged. Surely Mr. Alexander didn't mean we had to deal with repairs of this magnitude. The main meeting room to the right facing the building could hardly hold the crowds we attract in NA today. The left side wasn't ever in use for a period of years. Opening that room up into one great room with a hallway to the outside, a nursery and the bathroom seems like an excellent plan for an ongoing arrangement with the basis of our tenancy the ability to provide a meeting place for addicts seeking recovery. The old chimney and wall had no more function, since it was unsafe and never used for burning. The wall dividing the front room from a middle room and another wall dividing the middle from the kitchen were taken out. The bathroom was moved to the solid floor on the other side and a new nursery, cloak room and short hallway was studded in to provide for large meetings. Removal of these walls turns out to be a major bone of contention. Why would anyone do the extensive repairs we were undertaking and leave useless and non-functional walls in place. If the idea was so that the building could be rented or sold to someone else, that doesn't quite fit in with the notion of our having a solid relationship, even after twenty years. Hospitals are able to attract major funding yet the best thing about them is the little - free - NA meeting down the hall. With the Sun, we had an alternative to always meeting under someone's roof. If it took time to do this, it should have only been a matter of great concern to us, the discomfitted tenants. We have been meeting in a hot building without air-conditioning or a wash basin. The other bathroom rotted out due to roof deterioration. Where I am going with this it to define exactly how different our perspectives are and how we reached a point where reconciliation is beyond reach. Instead of a new exterior with vinyl siding, new wiring, vastly improved furnace, central air, complete sheet rock, repainting, decking on both side and a gas grill for events, we have to halt. And move. With all our money in the supplies, we are not even allowed to sell the uninstalled material that was donated to help addicts to get money to move on. We were so broke, we couldn't get the siding, so now we have to move and abandon all our resources put into the building on the basis of our trust. Stressing how long it took us to perform actions we had very limited resources to perform, rather than the fact that we got the insulation and even two weeks after the eviction notice, some of the insulation was installed by volunteers! It is obvious that we would have gotten the job done. Volunteer resources just take time. Progress on the repairs never really stopped. Would then, our position have been safe if an offer to buy the property came along after the building was looking better? The United Way required a lease be drawn before we could receive funds to repair so as to protect our position. I asked for that lease and was told that we don't even have a copy! The oldest clubhouse where NA meetings are held in the world is at an end because we couldn't do the impossible fast enough and an offer of $75K for the property, sweetened by the donated building materials. I understand the selling price was increased to $100K with the notion that if they agree to the increase in the purchase amount, it must be God's Will. How convenient. $100K will not get even one addict clean. Each addict in active addiction costs our society more than $100,000 per year. A month of treatment costs $20 to $30K, depending on the hospital. And we have many clean addicts. The jails of America are stuffed with human fallout from the strains and pressures of the profit motive forcing both parents to work and producing a series of well fed, well informed, totally confused people. We put our faith in the Lord. Re-zoning from mixed residential to something like commercial/industrial is going to raise the property taxes on 890 Atlanta Road. No specific amounts of the estimated increase have been mentioned, just that they would be high. The assumption is that this would be too expensive to pay. No one has given any real figures. I went by and couldn't get figures from County Tax office. The donations our officers arranged for, including the sheet rock, brand new doors and windows, and other goods may have extended our time at the Clubhouse. None of these were paid for by the United Way donations. In hindsight, if the offer on the property had come a year earlier, we would probably have been evicted then, if it was enough money. It is going to leave a bad taste in my mouth that while the inheritors of the property are getting a tidy sum, we are getting nothing but conversation. We put in a lot more than the rent over the years. Our agreement was overturned without proper notice. Probably wanting to sheild those who love the Rising Sun Clubhouse, word of the offer for the Rising Sun corporation to buy the property did not come to us until it was too late. My efforts to contact the owners was hindered by non-returned phone messages. Members feel their trust was violated where an array of people had put time, donations and money into building up the place. Earlier incidents over the past several years may have prompted resistance to further repairs when the owner began to assert pressure for club members to fix up the place. When the roof started rotting out, he did not call a roofer. There was some concern that if we fixed the building up too much, it would attract a buyer and that would place us in jeopardy. We read with dismay the letter of eviction. It was problematic to us that our relationship would be breached after all these years where we were paying the rent and still in the course of remodeling the building as if we were the owners of the property. The value of the improvements must be around $50,000, including rebuilding the roof, installing a new furnace and sewer connection, replacing the rotting flooring and walls with insulation, new structural support and framing, and redoing sheet rock for the whole building. We were intent on doing that along with dealing with the internal conflicts that inevitably arise in non-profit, self-help organizations when the notice came. It would be more fair if the residue of uninstalled material will be sold to help us move or returned to those who donated it. There is plenty of new stuff installed. It is understood that the material we located was donated to help addicts and the eviction notice ends that fact at that address. Efforts on repair have been suspended. Since we are not being allowed to take any of the balance of the donated material, we have no resources left at all. Embarrassed by the loss of the material, I told one of the contributors what had happened, half expecting him to be angry. He said, "Bo, if it will help people, I'll fill up every house you get with sheetrock!" I felt better. We thank Mr. Alexander for being the kind and faithful man he was. It is very difficult to serve God in this world. We will make sure the story of the Rising Sun will be told and that Mr. Alexander's memory will be honored. I cannot imagine what circumstance led to dismissing the wishes of Mr. Alexander, but surely it must have been severe. We have our own troubles now suspending the main effort of doing the remodeling job that has absorbed all our resources for so long. It is hard to stop like this in midstream and find another place for our meetings to be held. And every night for a thousand nights, cars will pull into the parking lot, look around in confusion and wonder what happened. No effort is ever lost. If spiritual light shines in this world, every candle counts. Those who have come and helped over the years will carry the memories of their love and devotion as treasures of the heart. - Bo Sewell - August 12, 2000 |
