Women's home fighting insurance giant to stay put

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP-Excite

By AMANDA LEE MYERS

CINCINNATI (AP) - A battle between a Fortune 500 company and a nonprofit home for struggling women has reached a boiling point in Cincinnati.

The fight between insurance giant Western & Southern Financial Group and the Anna Louise Inn has become the most public conflict in the ongoing transformation of the historic Ohio River city.

It's also a stark example of the difficulty of striking a balance between the public benefits of gentrification and the human costs.

FULL story at link.


Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20121011/DA1R6FNO3.html

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The Anna Louise Inn stands near the Great American Tower, left, that was developed by Western & Southern Financial Group, Monday, Sept. 24, 2012, in Cincinnati. Western & Southern wants the 103 year old home for women to leave the picturesque downtown neighborhood that they share in favor of a boutique hotel. (AP Photo/Al Behrman)

[cstanleytech]

1. The article is greatly lacking in details such as what if any compensation is the home being offered

to make it worth moving.

[muriel_volestrangler]

3. Far longer article, by the same author, here:

http://www.businessweek.com/ap/2012-10-11/womens-home-fighting-insurance-giant-to-stay-put

It does sound like business trying to force them out. I can't see why the business thinks it's entitled to own the place.

All 78 women now living there pay about $250 a month for a cramped bedroom with community bathrooms and kitchen, just across a park from large one-bedroom apartments that start at $1,575 a month.

In need of expensive renovations, the inn considered selling a few years ago and got a $1.8 million offer from Western & Southern, less than half the property's value. The inn decided not to sell after winning $12.6 million in federal and state tax credits, allowing it to stay put and give the residents more room and privacy.

Days before the renovation was to begin in May 2011, Western & Southern sued the inn and the city, and a year later successfully won its argument that the inn wasn't properly zoned and shouldn't be allowed to renovate. The Anna Louise's appeal is the subject of a hearing Oct. 30.

So, it's been there 103 years, and it's just across the park from more residential apartments (albeit far more expensive ones), yet they think it isn't 'properly zoned'. How old is the zone? More than 103 years?

[cstanleytech]

9. Thanks. NT

[fasttense]

2. The public benefits of gentrification?????

What exactly is that? In this case, if the hotel corporation wins they benefit themselves and no one else. Because it looks like there are plenty of other big ugly sky scraper type hotel to stay in. Another hotel does what for Cincinnati?

But the benefit to society of a nonprofit home for struggling women is enormous.

I'm sure the dancing supremes ruling on the use of eminent domain will ensure the corporation wins and gets to turn every pretty little spot into just another hotel or shopping mall.

Here's hoping a corporation does NOT want your property.

[kywildcat]

4. I lived at the Anna Louise Inn over 25 years ago.

At that time it was basically a 'hotel' for single women-much like the TV series 'Bosom Buddies" It did cater to low income women and women re-entering life out of prison, but it was also a safe and very convenient place to live if you worked in down town cincinnati and didn't have a car. I had a car-and worked at the airport (12 plus miles away) and living at the ALI allowed me to save a lot of money on a meager check that I otherwise would have been unable to.
It has since become a safe place for women in transition-from prison, or abusive relationships, etc. Many years ago-when my mother was newly graduated, some of her classmates took up residence at the ALI-as it was this side of living in a convent, but allowed young women a safe place to live close to work.

The message that the insurance company has sent is that 'these women' really have no place down town unless it's to clean offices.

I truly truly hope that Union Bethel prevails and the ALI stays as is. It is desperately needed.

[heaven05]

8. well

all the code words are there to let me know what my friend from Cincinnati told me was true. Low income, women in transition from prison, so it must be a place for majority of tenants who are minority women. My friend told me a few years back how the Cincinnati 'gentrification' project was destroying a lot of people's lives by displacing them, eminent domain shit and whites were taking over what used to be minority communities with the people from those communities being recompensed well below property value, eminent domain shit again. This article puts things in perspective. The american money god(s), strikes again and doesn't matter who's destroyed in the quest for profit and 'gentrification'. typical american solution to those pesky minorities standing in the way of progress. Not much is said about this 'gentrification' garbage. I think it's worth looking into.

[Soylent Brice]

5. theyre buying up the whole area,

trying to choke people out. It's fucked up.
There's a map somewhere online my gf and I were looking at the other night. You can literally watch them strategically buying out property all around.

It's sad.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

6. Kelo

Hands-down, this was the worst Supreme Court decision of recent times. Well, maybe one of the worst, considering....

Kelo v. City of New London

Kelo v. City of New London, 545 U.S. 469 (2005), was a case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States involving the use of eminent domain to transfer land from one private owner to another private owner to further economic development. In a 5–4 decision, the Court held that the general benefits a community enjoyed from economic growth qualified private redevelopment plans as a permissible "public use" under the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment.

[mwooldri]

7. Western & Southern Financial should...

1) Take possession of the Anna Louise Inn,
2) Tear down the building,
3) Finds temporary accommodation for the Anna Louise Inn ... hey those nearby condos may work, no?
4) Rebuild the Anna Louise building bigger and better,
5) Hand back that new building to the nonprofit.

Alternatively slap a building preservation order on the building prohibiting demolition and extreme remodeling. So if the finance co. gets the building they can't destroy it, or build their hotel.