Why the Opposition to Crossroads Outreach Program?

What is Crossroads? According to its Facebook site: 

501c3 non-profit. Crisis intervention, food pantry, by appointment, street homeless services, advocacy, community outreach, workshops, events & referrals.

Crossroads is not affiliated with any one church or cult. No judgments are made here. Everyone is helped equally. Yet this outreach lost its funding over some paperwork...supposedly. We understand the importance of keeping adequate records, but changing the rules in the middle of the game smacks of a premeditated attempt to cause trouble. 

Crossroads is located downtown in the former American Legion building. Is this a factor in the city being less than hospitable to the group? Since we began a series of blogs on the panhandling situation, the downtown area has been often mentioned. Does the city wish to shunt these people to East Florence? It often appears this way. Why not simply buy them bus tickets to Outer Mongolia; that'll solve the problem? No, it won't. 

A series of e-mails between Crossroads and the City of Florence:

Crossroads:

At the city council meeting on Dec 3rd, 2019 you all voted to give Community Action Agency $139,826.67. This amount appears to include $44,826.67 which is the amount remaining on our $60,000 contract, which is minus the $15,173.33 that was paid to us for January- March 2019 services under HESG-18-009. If this in fact be the case we are curious as to how you can vote to transfer money to another agency & our contract is not terminated until Dec 9th. 

Per the contract (section L) we are to be paid for partial work completed under this contract. All of the information cited in the resolution on Nov 5, 2019 for non compliance has in fact been submitted multiple times & we have those items available & the emails with attachments showing where it was submitted. The resolution never indicated that we did not do the work it was a matter of documentation. The last attempt to submit was when we submitted items to Mrs. Borden at her office on a flash drive on Oct 14, 2019. She emailed us back confirming that it was received & that is when the new case note format was added & we were told that ADECA required more case note details. ADECA confirmed with us that was not their requirement asking for more details but the city. The constant changing of requirement was the issue it wss never that we didnt do the work or didnt have documentation. If you will review what was deemed acceptable for Jan-March 2019 expenses & documentation you will see there is a major difference in what was required then vs the requirements that were imposed in the new ESG policy that was implemented in August, 2019. This policy disallowed items that were allowed in Jan-March as well as changed the format & details required for supporting documentation. We should at minimum be allowed to submit for the work we completed & be reimbursed according to the contract. When we reached out to Mrs. Bailey on November 14, 2019 inquiring about what was needed to close out the contract we were told that nothing was outstanding or due. How is this possible when we are still under contract? 

We would love to schedule a meeting to discuss this further with you all, our executive team, media relations & legal representative. There have been so many emails exchanged were thinking this may be a simple misunderstanding or miscommunication. We believe a meeting would help to clear some of this up & resolve these concerns in a fair & peaceable manner that would allow us all to continue to work together for the greater good of this community. I know this is the goal for all of us.

Please let us know when would be a good time to meet.

City:

Melissa Bailey is currently out of the office due to a death in her family.  When she returns I will discuss this with her and reply to you.  In the meantime, please do not send anymore emails because it will not speed up the process.

Thank you,

William T. Musgrove, III

City Attorney

Now Crossroads has commented in a communication to us:

We've tried to mend things & get in compliance & have been met with silence.

Has the City of Florence simply washed its hands of this excellent organization? Are some in Florence simply looking for an excuse to rob Crossroads to give to the Salvationists? If so, why? Citizens are no longer sitting idly by as the stench continues to worsen. 

Even The Florence Homeless