Blackburns may be evicted from home

JOHN WALKER

Kathy Blackburn and her eight remaining adopted Haitian children have been asked to vacate their home by the end of this month.

Blackburn says she isn’t going anywhere.

In the early 1990s, Kathy and her former husband, Dan, adopted 28 Haitian children. The couple had been missionaries in Haiti. They divorced in 1996.

Now, eight remaining children and Kathy Blackburn live in the large house on south State Road 9 which was built with donations solicited for the family by the Shelby County Ministerial Association, a group of church pastors.

Attorney Mark McNeely represents the ministerial association which has asked Blackburn and her children to leave. They have offered to help her financially, he said. She has not been evicted at this point, but they are trying to help her relocate, McNeely said.

“We don’t feel she’s lived up to the letter of the contract,” he said.

Several of the Blackburn children have regularly been in trouble with the law and the house itself has not been kept up, McNeely said.

The children that have gotten in trouble do not live in the house anymore, Blackburn said. Plus there are many others who have gone on to be successful. Three daughters are in college, one son manages a McDonald’s restaurant and others have done well too, she said.

She does not pay rent and there is no agreement about keeping the place up, said Blackburn whose left leg was amputated below the knee in April because of a medical problem.

The association just wants to turn the property over to another group, Blackburn said.

McNeely confirmed the association has another organization lined up for the property but he declined to identify it.

Blackburn has retained an attorney and says she will not leave without a fight.

“There will be litigation if there is an eviction notice,” she said.

In a letter to the ministerial association, her attorney notes that in an ad placed in several newspapers the pastors solicited $115,000 in donations to build the house for the Blackburns and their children.

“The association has now set itself on a course to depart from the donors’ intent,” her attorney’s letter says.

That should be up to the donors to determine, McNeely said.

“I think the ministers are trying to do the best thing they can for the community,” he said.

In 1994, Carl Mohr donated the land on which to build the Blackburn’s house to the ministerial association. Blackburn said the deed to the property may now be “in limbo” because the association no longer exists.

Her attorney’s letter states that the Shelby County Ministerial Association, as of May 2000, is no longer listed as a not-for-profit group with the Indiana Secretary of State’s office. A call to the office confirmed that; the association failed to file reports on who the officers of the group were, a representative of the secretary’s office said.

An oversight led to the group losing its non-profit status. They are in the process of filing the necessary papers to get reinstated, McNeely said.

The agreement between Mohr and the association states that the 5-acre property he donated is “to be used only by recognized charitable, tax-exempt organizations for the benefit of Dan and Kathy Blackburn and their unemancipated children ..., or for some similar charitable purpose benefiting the youth of Shelby County or surrounding counties.”

Four of the eight remaining children are under the age of 17, Blackburn said.