The lawyer for the City of Tallahassee says that the shelter staff at City Walk Urban Mission let three dead bodies stay on the land for days.
After taking City Walk to court because it didn’t have a fire sprinkler system, the city’s lawyers wrote this claim as a legal response to City Walk. They also looked at past problems with permits and fire codes.
Renee Miller, who runs City Walk, said that they will move once they have a place to go and the money to make it happen. But Miller said that talking about these deaths is like putting salt on an open wound.
Miller said, “It’s disgusting that they would try to use the people who died and their families to get their way in a court case that has nothing to do with fire safety.” “There have been three people we cared for until their last breath, and we did it with pride and love.”
Miller said that her center is one of the few that takes in homeless people who are very sick and about to die.
But the operator said that the City of Tallahassee’s claim that the three dead bodies were left for days is not true.
Cassandra Jackson, the city attorney, said that this claim is scary.
“It relates to the hearing we had because it shows how carefully things are being handled and whether or not different rules and procedures are being followed,” Jackson said.
The court back-and-forth began in 2021 when the city said that City Walk didn’t have the right permits to be used for living.
“We have been trying to work with City Walk almost since the day it opened to help it become in line with the city’s laws,” Jackson said. “The city is very helpful when it comes to giving information on how to change the use of a building.”
But Miller said that the city hasn’t been helpful and has made it almost impossible for her to get the right permits she needs to put in sprinklers.
“We don’t have the change of use, and getting a building permit for that change of use is kind of a catch-22,” Miller said.
Miller is asking people to shop at City Walk’s thrift store and give money through their online gift portal to help pay for the new building.
