“Mr. Atkins, aren’t you a recovering alcoholic?”

I didn’t see the inquisitor, but the pointed question came from a woman in a crowd of middle-class homeowners, moms and dads, little league coaches and Sunday school teachers. A typical neighborhood in a typical American town. Most of the 100 were good people, I suppose, none perfect.

Nonetheless, I cringed at the insensitivity. The question was, in reality, a loaded accusation, a bullet looking for blood.

“I am a recovering alcoholic. I’ve been sober 12 years,” Atkins replied.

The honest answer was delivered with the slight hesitation that is normal for those using hearing aides. What happened next was almost unthinkable: demeaning laughter, people turning their backs with a “that explains it” expression.

Atkins is the executive director for the Haywood Restoration House, and he and board members had come to the Oak Park subdivision in Clyde to discuss their plans to build a Christian-based home for men trying to recover from problems. According to supporters, residents would be recent inmates, those recovering from chronic substance abuse, or those who are homeless.

“These men are carefully screened for admittance to the house and are not a threat to themselves or others,” the brochure reads.

The neighbors disagreed, and their sometimes raucous pleas were, at least, sincere. They were upset, there was no faking that. A police officer and his wife, along with their small children, are next door neighbors to where the house was going to be built.

“I put those kind of people in jail. Who do you think they’ll go after?” the police officer asked.

Others complained about property values. They said realtors would be unable to interest families in their homes if this kind of home and its eight occupants were in the neighborhood.

And then there was the question of sincerity. As neighbors and Haywood Restoration Home board members faced off, a foundation ready for floor joists waited behind them. Why did you try to sneak it in without telling us, they asked? Why go this far before going public?

That single question to Atkins, though, stuck in my mind. I thought of those in my own family and close friends who have wrestled with the demons inside a bottle or with the lure of drugs. I’ve had men who never spent a minute in church confess face to face meetings with God as they fought to get back control of their own lives. For those without strong families, and even some of those lucky enough to have loving relatives, group support homes like the one proposed by this group provide the means to come back to life, the means to hold a job and eventually buy a home. Many of these men will, one day, become residents of neighborhoods like Oak Park.

The plan to put the house in that neighborhood was scrapped. Too much controversy from neighbors also means little chance for residents to succeed. The organization will find another site, board members say, because there is a need.

As I left the meeting that evening, I thought of the line that goes something like, “Judge not, lest ye be judged.” I’m not even going to go online and find where the words (or something close to them) appear in the Bible, or even ask some friends and family who would surely be able to point me to the page. I don’t pretend to know the Bible very well.

But I kept thinking about the words because I knew I was guilty. I had passed some kind of judgment on those good people who decided the neighborhood was no place for this home, slowing its construction and delaying the help it will provide. I had passed judgment on those who had snickered at Atkins. Perhaps I would have felt the same as those homeowners had this project come to my neighborhood, but I still couldn’t help myself. Forgive me.

(McLeod can be reached info@smokymountainnews.com)

 

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