Safe Haven

Four years ago, the burned-out rowhouse - barely standing, with its beams destroyed and its walls charred - was a constant reminder of one of Baltimore's most brutal crimes and a symbol of how the drug trade terrorizes city neighborhoods. City and state leaders who were gathered on the corner of Eden and Preston streets said yesterday that they hope the renovated Dawson home - soon to have new life as a community center and "safe haven" for children - will symbolize new hope for the Oliver neighborhood.

With the ceremonial ribbon just cut and its rooms mostly empty but for the scent of new paint, the Dawson Family Safe Haven Center hasn't yet become whatever it is destined to become. And yet, on its corner of Preston and Eden in East Baltimore, one thing is clear. This is hallowed ground. This is, as Mayor Martin O'Malley repeated several times yesterday, "a holy place." In a neighborhood with numerous boarded-up rowhouses and a police camera blinking a harsh blue eye, 1401 E. Preston St. is not an obvious Gettysburg, or a Ground Zero.

State officials have awarded almost $230,000 to Knox Community Development Corp. for the creation of the Dawson Safe Haven for Children, Youth and Families. The Dawson Safe Haven will be a community center that provides safe activities for children and families, state officials said. The check - presented in a ceremony Friday at Knox Presbyterian Church with Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele and State Housing and Community Development Secretary Victor L. Hoskins - comes from Maryland's Community Legacy program.

The same group that challenged in court the security of Maryland's new electronic voting machines went to court again yesterday, this time saying the state is unjustly keeping it from installing poll watchers in hundreds of precincts on Election Day. The federal lawsuit comes a week after state election officials had agreed to a plan to allow TrueVoteMD members to stand silently inside polling places and watch for potential glitches with the state's oft-criticized...

An eight-year struggle ended yesterday, when Carroll officials cut a red ribbon to signal the official opening of Safe Haven, a multipurpose homeless shelter in Westminster. The $1.2 million facility, which opened to residents about a month ago, houses three programs, a long-term home for mentally ill men and women, a temporary home for men and a cold-weather shelter that will be open between November and April. Carroll officials said they are not sure how large the county's homeless population is. The old Safe Haven served 373 people last year, and all but two of the 33 available beds in the new building are occupied.

An eight-year struggle ended yesterday when Carroll officials cut a red ribbon to signal the official opening of Safe Haven, a multipurpose homeless shelter in Westminster. The $1.2 million facility, which opened to residents about a month ago, houses three programs - a long-term home for mentally ill men and women, a temporary home for men, and a cold-weather shelter that will be open between November and April. Carroll officials said they are not sure how large the county's homeless population is. The old Safe Haven served 373 people last year, and all but two of the 33 beds in the new building are occupied.

An eight-year struggle ended yesterday, when Carroll officials cut a red ribbon to signal the official opening of Safe Haven, a multipurpose homeless shelter in Westminster. The $1.2 million facility, which opened to residents about a month ago, houses three programs - a long-term home for mentally ill men and women, a temporary home for men and a cold-weather shelter that will be open between November and April. Carroll officials said they are not sure how large the county's homeless population is. The old Safe Haven served 373 people last year, and all but two of the 33 available beds in the new building are occupied.

DOUGLAS F. Gansler, the Montgomery County state's attorney, just wanted to do a good thing. Anybody out there against doing a good thing? Of course you're not. In Gansler's case, he just wanted to save the lives of newborn babies. It started with a case he prosecuted three years ago. Tanisha Montague was an 18-year-old Jamaican who had entered the country illegally. She gave birth to a baby girl in her Germantown townhouse an hour before midnight Jan. 25, 2000. While a snowstorm raged outside, Montague lay in bed with her baby.

Carroll County broke ground yesterday on a $1.2 million homeless shelter in Westminster, a much-needed project that has taken eight years to reach fruition. Safe Haven has made "a long journey from concept to concrete," said Jeanette Berger, associate director of the county's Human Services Programs Inc. "Three levels of government have come together to make this possible, sharing in the planning and the financing," said Stephen G. Mood, executive director of HSP, a nonprofit corporation that operates several homeless programs under contract with the county.

After waiting nearly a year, the Carroll commissioners learned yesterday that state officials have given the county a $608,872 grant to build Safe Haven homeless shelter. The county had been awaiting word on the grant since April. Officials with the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development refused to release the grant money until a copy of the winning bid was forwarded to the state Board of Public Works. "The money the state gave us will allow us to move forward with the new homeless shelter," said county budget director Steven D. Powell.