Marco Lopez came to Austin via Des Moines, where he read a Metro Temp Employment Agency advertisement about the well-paying jobs ($9 an hour) at Quality Pork Processors several weeks ago.

Tuesday, November 02, 1999

Marco Lopez came to Austin via Des Moines, where he read a Metro Temp Employment Agency advertisement about the well-paying jobs ($9 an hour) at Quality Pork Processors several weeks ago. Ricardo Ayala also came from Des Moines. Jose Castillo traveled here from Los Angeles at the urging of an advertisement by Metro Temp. The ads promised jobs in Nebraska, Minnesota and Iowa at $9 an hour, plus free food, accommodation and transport for the first two weeks.

All three men were at the Austin City Council meeting Monday night with several other residents of the Mission, asking for action by the city. Lopez told Mayor Bonnie Rietz and the Austin City Council that there were "a lot of problems" at the shelter located in the former J&J Sports machine shop, northeast of the intersection of U.S. Highway 218 and old highway 218.

City Limit Apartment managers Eric and Beth Johnson want to see something done too. Their apartments are just in front of the Mission, and the couple came to the meeting hoping to see Mission owner Bobbi Gobel. Gobel is president of Metro Temp Employment Agency and founder of the Life and Liberty Foundation, which Gobel said owns the Mission.

Gobel was a no-show, at both the council meeting and an earlier Monday meeting of 13 agencies, charities and organizations that met about the homeless/housing issue in Austin, despite previous assurances in a phone interview last week that she would be in Austin Monday.

"The water is not drinkable; there’s no stove and there’s not enough food," Lopez said. "Before I came they told me I would have a month free, when I got here they said two weeks."

Of the four people who asked to speak about the Mission, Mayor Bonnie Rietz only permitted Lopez and Beth Johnson to speak. She thanked the group from the Mission for coming to the meeting, and said she and the council would be discussing the issue with County Commissioner Richard Cummings, in whose district the Mission is located.

The Johnson couple had already been in touch with county planner Daryl Franklin, as well as environmental services officer Bill Buckley. Beth Johnson said Franklin had sent letters to Metro Temp asking what exactly their intentions were for the Mission. In reply, she said he had gotten an e-mail asking him what they were allowed to do there.

"We have to meet very specific zoning requirements in our business," Eric Johnson said. "We have to pay fees to do what we do – if I tried to put 20 bunk beds in one of our two bedroom apartments, I wouldn’t get away with it. We also go through a lot to keep our water drinkable.

"The workers are here. They need housing; they need drinkable water and a decent place to live. That place needs to be brought up to code. If Ms. Gobel had come in and done everything correctly, according to zoning and health laws, there would have been no problem."