FOURTH WARD HEALTH AND EDUCATIONAL
CENTER FOR YOUTH, INC.
1415 Taft Street, Houston, Texas 77019
713 / 524-2857 <4dyouth@freewwweb.com
Darrell J. Patterson, Executive Director
TO THE HONORABLE DAVID M. PATRONELLA
JUSTICE OF THE PEACE, POSITION 2
RE: BUTERA V. TAYLOR
AMICUS CURIAE BRIEF
March 4, 1998

TO THE HONORABLE JUDGE OF THIS COURT:

We, Darrell J. Patterson and Emily Nghiem, as volunteers with the Fourth Ward Health and Educational Center for Youth, Inc., file the attached statements as Friends of the Court, in the interest of protecting the health and welfare of our elderly and low-income residents in Fourth Ward, as well as the interests of the community as a whole, and our ability to survive. As stated in the following pages:

(1) We feel that the continuing threat of eviction creates a life-threatening health risk to our elderly and low-income neighbors. Specifically, we feel (a) that such harassment and threat to the safety, well-being, and life of our residents puts them under undue duress, therefore impeding the legal process, censoring negotiations, and obstructing justice; and (b) that such harassment and disregard for our health and safety is part of a long-term conspiracy to deny our community the same basic human and public services as provided to other neighborhoods, thus constituting geographic discrimination.

(2) Because of this failure by local officials to provide equal access to service, facilities, and funding to Fourth Ward, our resident have for years stepped in and volunteered their time and resources instead. Thanks to local residents such as Willie B. Taylor, Claude Jackson, and Tony Flaniken, each named as defendants in eviction cases, our neighborhood program has been able to serve our youth and low-income families otherwise denied the help they need to survive. We, therefore, have written the attached statements petitioning for the right of these residents to remain as a critical part of our community, which could not continue to exist and operate without their help.

(3) Because we feel that our right peaceably to assemble and to petition as a community is necessary in making decisions that affect our entire community, we ask the following: (a) That all Fourth Ward and Freedmen's Town residents and community leaders affected by or concerned with these cases be allowed to participate freely in a group mediation between our self-chosen leaders and representatives and those of the landlords, developers, and other city- or publicly-funded organizations; and (b) that the focus of the mediation be to negotiate a fair price for residents to purchase their own land, homes, and/or property in dispute, and a fair time-frame to raise these funds. Considering the attached, please order group mediation without undue duress as before.

Thank you,
[signed]
Darrell J. Patterson
Darrell J. Patterson, Executive Director
Emily Nghiem
Emily Nghiem, Secretary, 713-867-5998


Invest in the Youth Master Plan for Fourth Ward:
http://www.houstonprogressive.org/4thwardresolution.html
[Fourth Ward Petitions][Fourth Ward Index][Fourth Ward Song][Math Poem][Main Index]