SHELTER, HISTORY GROUPS ARGUE OVER FATE OF OLD CHURCH
Some want structure removed, others want building preserved.
A nonprofit shelter for TROY — abuse victims and the homeless and a coalition of Troy historical organizations have differing opinions on the condition, significance and the future of an 1830s church in downtown Troy.
The Family Abuse Shelter on East Franklin Street owns the former Trinity Episcopal Church and its land to the east of the Franklin House, home to the shelter operation since 1979.
The shelter’s board is in the final stages of planning what director Barb Holman and board members David Beitzel and Ruth Jenkins said is an expansion badly needed for a growing population that faces more complex problems with the proliferation of drug addiction.
The church property is the proposed site for the expansion. A demolition permit from the city would be needed to remove the structure. An application for demolition has not been requested.
The coalition calling itself the Unity for Trinity Committee is made up of historical organizations along with others interested in preserving and finding new uses for the church, which it says is one of the five oldest structures in town.
The committee said the church is a community asset and historically important as the only structure left with noteworthy ties to the canal era as the site of an 1837 canal dedication speech by future president William Henry Harrison and with ties to the area’s Underground Railroad system.
Shelter board members and representatives of the historical society and other historic groups met in April for the board to tell them of its planning for the future. They met again in November with the shelter board setting a Dec. 15 deadline for submission of alternatives and other information from the unity committee.
Board President Beitzel, a Troy lawyer, said the board has expert opinions from an architect and structural engineer that the building is in a deteriorated condition and from an expert in historical structures it is not of historical significance.
Judy Deeter of the Unity for Trinity Committee said the group disagrees with the opinions obtained by the shelter board, has an expert opinion the structure can be repaired and information compiled by local historians on the church role in the community’s history and the current atmosphere of the city’s downtown area.
Information from the committee was delivered Friday to the shelter, whose board has not reviewed the package.
Deeter emphasized the committee is not against the shelter and its work. “Before the church is torn down, we want to make sure we have done everything we can to preserve it. This church is really precious to us,” she said.
“They have heart and they have passion, but we need solutions,” Holman said. “We are dealing with real life people in crisis. It is not that we don’t appreciate structures, but our mission is people, and their needs. We have
been tasked with ensuring the safety of people.”
Holman pointed out the shelter has brought new life to older structures in the downtown area including the Buckeye House for homeless men south of downtown and a shelter-owned building on the Public Square, both rehabilitated with grant money from outside the community.
Shelter representatives said they would be willing to give the church to the Unity for Trinity Committee if it would move it. Deeter said the concept had been mentioned but the possibility had not been explored by the committee, which doesn’t have money for such a project.
Holman said the only alternative the board has heard so far is to move the shelter operations.
“Relocating is not an alternative for us,” she said, adding many of the shelter clients don’t have vehicles and need to access services including several in the downtown area.
Shelter representatives said they were not ready to disclose more details of the project, for which final plans need to be completed. Beitzel said the cost would run into seven figures and Jenkins, like Beitzel a long-time board member, said plans are to begin fundraising for the expansion and renovation of the existing shelter building starting with foundations and similar sources in January.