Haven for Homeless Robbed

HOUSTON - When you've been in the vicinity of rock bottom and working hard to get back on your feet, getting ripped off can feel like a kick in the gut.

"They will be held accountable, if not in this life, than the next," says Joseph Harrison to a gathering of fellow residents at the Turning Point, a Spring Branch residential non-profit aiding the once homeless.

"I know it wasn't anybody around here who done it," chimes in David McKinnon of a crime that has all sixty plus Turning Point residents angry and concerned.

"These people didn't have a conscious to begin with and I'm not saying they are going to have one later on, but it will come back and get them big time," insists one time resident Susan Digelman.

Because the people who call the non-profit Turning Point Center home have often been without one, this haven of shelter and support has become both precious and worthy of protection.

"I see how they look when they come in off the streets and how they progress and change. It's amazing and it's all due to this place," says a resident named Sean who asked that we not use his last name.

Sometime during predawn hours Sunday this place of reprieve was robbed of vital air-conditioning in the swelter of a Texas summer.

Many who count on the Turning Point's community center struggle with physical frailty and mental illness.

"Do you think they know who they were stealing from?," Fox 26 asked program director George Gomez.

"No, I don't think they care, they really don't," he answered.

The thieves made off with five five-ton units, ripped from their concrete slab and hauled away undetected.

Gomez says those responsible took much more than just $60,000 worth of property.

"Our residents have endured emotional abuse, mental abuse, physical abuse and now they can't have that feeling of emotional security of being safe in their home anymore," said Gomez.

48-hours after the wires were cut and near-new air conditioners stolen, Houston Police still hadn't assigned an investigator to the crime.

That's left the folks at Turning Point feeling robbed by crooks and ignored by cops.

Not exactly an esteem builder on the rough road to getting better.