Planning commission on Thursday will reconsider request to operate 806 N. Union as a children’s home

NATCHEZ — The city’s planning commission will re-hear a request to operate 806 N. Union St. as a children’s home on Thursday at 5:15 p.m. at the Council Chambers, 115 S Pearl St., across from City Hall.

The reopening of the facility as a children’s home does not sit well with many residents who live near it. Natchez City Planner Frankie Legaux said her office has received more than 60 letters opposing granting a special exception to allow the facility to operate as a children’s home again.

The building operated as the Natchez Protestant Home, then the Natchez Children’s Home, from the time it was built in the 1950s until the Children’s Home closed in 2009.

Bishop Stanley Searcy of the New Hope Missionary Baptist Church, which owns the property, requested the planning commission re-hear the request for a special exception to again operate the facility as a children’s home after a motion to deny that request ended in a 3-3 tie at the planning commission’s meeting on June 6.

New Hope Church purchased the building and, at one time, hoped to use the facility as a school.

In late 2022, Dr. Tina Bruce leased the building from New Hope and operated it as a crisis stabilization unit for troubled children until January 2023.

A number of incidents at the facility concerned neighbors, who questioned whether the unit was properly authorized to operate there. The facility closed shortly after it was discovered Bruce did not apply for nor was she granted the proper approval for operating that type of facility.

Most opposition is rooted in a number of incidents that occurred during the short time Bruce operated the facility for troubled teens.

Some opposing the re-opening of the facility as a children’s home have asked Searcy and his attorney whether Bruce will again lease and operate the facility. Neither have answered that question directly.

“The reopening of this site to a similar purpose without substantial improvements to security, staffing, and care of residents would be an egregious miscarriage of responsibilities of all involved,” wrote Elise Mophett in a letter objecting to the granting of the special exception.

Herbert Arnold of 804 N. Union and 804-½ N. Union St., wrote a letter of objection to another children’s home, writing that he would no longer feel safe in his home.

Arnold described in his letter a number of issues with some of the teens housed in Bruce’s facility while it operated.

“On Jan. 6, 2023, the church’s lessee had a teenage woman break a glass light fixture, glass front clock, and glass framed picture in the entryway of 806 N. Union building. This young woman was in a medical and mental crisis, and the two women supervising the inpatients that evening were not able to control or subdue the patient. Six Natchez patrol cars were called to the scene, and ambulances were to control the patient-resident,” Arnold wrote.

“The majority of the privately owned and occupied National Historic Register Homes in the area of 806 N. Union house senior citizens. We are an aging community ill-prepared for at-risk youth with violent mental health problems living in our neighborhood,” Arnold wrote.

Jennifer Latetia White of 815 N. Union St. wrote in her opposition letter about the project that her understanding is that it would again be used as a “residence for emotionally disruptive youth who cannot be placed in foster care due to their disruptive and often violent behavior.

“Several of these youths have on numerous occasions (documented in police records) banded together ‘escaping’ their residential facility, running through neighborhoods where they vandalize, and attempting to break into homes to steal whatever they need. This type of ‘crisis facility’ should never be located in a residential area!” White wrote.

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