The Attack On Homeless People In Akron Ohio

I put this information together in a post on Facebook but thought I'd organize it all here for future reference.

First, I posted this document showing the housing code violations the Houseless Movement house has recently acquired.

For the record, we received this notice earlier.

My official response on social media was:

Dear City of Akron, Ohio - Mayor's Office and I'm copying my attorneys who you described as the "recently transplanted, slick, out-of-town lawyers from the Institute for Justice"
Please let this serve as my official response to your letter demanding that I "remove all tents."
I will happily remove all tents when no more Akronites need tents. Until then, I will continue to offer emergency shelter to those who need it on my property owned by Houseless Movement.
Sincerely,
Sage Lewis

I then showed this picture saying: "This is the "Garbage/rubbish/refuse" they are referring to."

Then I started showing some pictures of the property we own and what is owned around us.

"And if you are wondering what neighbors I'm offending with my broken trim here is a picture of the house in question. The house is boxed in blue and the red lines represent either property I or the Houseless Movement (the charity I am the executive director of) own."

And here it is zoomed out a little more. Our house again is in blue and there is one house you can't see around the corner from us. The city repeatedly comes down our street to impound cars from our neighbor who can't afford tags all the time and to antagonize our camp. YOU COULD NOT BE MORE ISOLATED.

And of all our neighbors, the one who hates us the most is the Catholic church on the corner. They fought us the hardest in court. I've circled them in red.

Here I've circled in red what the church owns (who hates us), Vulcan Machinery (who also hates us) is in yellow. And what I own is in blue. Annunciation and Vulcan both have super tall fences around all of their properties. But it doesn't matter. They don't like homeless people even being near their property.

And here is one last picture. This is Kent Court circled in red. This street is filled with drug dealers and murderers. AND it's right behind the church's elementary school. I have a lot of friends on Kent Court and there are good people on that street. But if the city actually gave a shit about our neighborhood they would be less focused on my 2 tents and focused on Kent Court and ALL the other dealers around the neighborhood.

Here's the testimony of the manager of Annunciation Terrace speaking out against our village. This is from the documentary "Inside Akron's Tent City."

On August 24, 2020 (our camp closed in January 2019) the church sold the building to "Wallick Companies" aka Annunciation Terrace Limited Partnership as seen here. But the church clearly owned the property during the fight with us.

I think it's worth documenting all of this simply because of the human rights atrocities all of this amounts to. Land and land rights matter absolutely more than the fact that fellow Americans are living unsheltered in the richest most Christian country in the world. And it is the CHURCH who fought us the hardest.