When a rich white guy decides he doesn't want to deal with homeless people in his area, it isn't some sort of righteous crusade that deserves to be sensationalized by the media.

Andrew Martello is not concerned with cleaning up the city for the children, he is concerned with ridding the city of the homeless in an effort to raise property values and give himself a convoluted sense of security, but not from the homeless. The kind of security someone gets from not having to explain to their children why some people have to live on the streets.

Mr. Martellos plan to shut down the New Life Evangelistic center is not the answer to the homeless problem in Saint Louis. If this goes through it will be a huge set back to all of the homeless citizens of downtown Saint Louis. The New Life Evangelistic Center provides beds for over one hundred people a night during the summer and twice that during the winter. If Larry Rice is forced to close his doors, where will these people go?

Here is the link to the Riverfront times article about Mr. Martellos "crusade."

http://www.riverfronttimes.com/2008-08-06/news/fried-rice-lucas-park-residents-are-fed-up-with-the-rev-larry-rice-and-the-homeless-shelter-he-runs/1

Here is one particular quote from the article I found especially ridiculous.

Patricia Clark, a surgeon whose loft overlooks Lucas Park, says the situation has her thinking about moving away. "I'm exactly the kind of person the city and developers marketed this area to," comments Clark. "I'm affluent. I'm independent. I bought into the whole 'let's revitalize the city' idea. And what do I get? I'm paying an extra $7,000 in taxes to live downtown and be awakened by drunks screaming 'motherfucker' at each other all day long."

Worse still, says Clark, are the weekends when outside church groups show up to feed the poor in Lucas Park. "It's like a tailgating party for the religious," she says. "They set up these feeding stations and don't clean up any of the litter. It serves as a magnet for the homeless. I've even seen Larry Rice on his television station telling people that there is an urgent need to come down and feed these people. That's not true! There are already organizations here that provide that service."

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