Rice

St. Louis officials have sparred for years with the Rev. Larry Rice, whose New Life Evangelistic Center downtown caters to the city’s homeless population.

Though Rice brings a preacher’s zeal to helping the homeless, City Hall and other social service agencies have criticized the shelter as poorly run, more a problem in itself than a solution to chronic homelessness.

Now, officials in Southeast Missouri are having a row with Rice — and Sen. Claire McCaskill has joined their side.

As Post-Dispatch scribe Adam Jadhav reported earlier this month, Rice wants to put a homeless services center in the old federal courthouse in Cape Girardeau.

The Southeast Missourian reports today that McCaskill has written a letter urging against Rice’s plan to convert the sprawling courthouse into a homeless shelter and treatment center.

“It is clear that the application of the NLEC to acquire the excess federal courthouse in Cape Girardeau, while laudatory in intent, should be rejected,” McCaskill wrote. “Cape Girardeau and the surrounding area have a relatively small homeless population, in part due to the outstanding work of local agencies and nonprofits. The scope of the proposed project is not in proportion to the demand for services.”

The letter is to McCaskill’s old friend, former Kansas governor Kathleen Sebelius, now head of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which would have to endorse Rice’s proposal.

Rice is seeking use of the space under a U.S. law that gives homeless aid agencies priority to use empty federal buildings. A few years ago, Rice attempted, unsuccessfully, to gain control of the Abram federal building in downtown under the same provision.

Both Sen. Kit Bond and Rep. Jo Ann Emerson also oppose Rice’s Cape plan.