100+ RESIDENTS GIVEN TWELVE HOURS TO GET OUT OF VILLAGE INN AFTER CITY CONDEMNS

More than 100 residents, some children and elderly, were given 12 hours to leave their living quarters at Village Inn Wednesday morning.  Crossville Police along with the City Fire Department and Codes Division converged on the Village Inn in Crossville Wednesday morning. The City Police were there to serve a narcotics warrant.  Once entry was made, it was discovered the living quarters and most of the rest of the Inn was in violation of city safety codes.  The officials observed areas of overhead walkway concrete deterioration and missing/falling concrete were observed. Handrails and support posts were found broken, loose and hanging. Water standing in the floor of an occupied unit requiring residents to walk on boards to stay out of the potentially hazardous water. The tenants were given until 8pm, or twelve hours from the initial raid, to vacate the rooms. In a press release from the Crossville Police Department several local and state agencies were named as providing help to the tenants in finding an immediate but temporary place to live.  Services from the Cumberland County Good Samaritans, the Homeless Advocacy for Rural Tennessee (HART) and Crossville Housing Development Corporation, and Cumberland County Emergency Management, were made available to assist the displaced residents.  According to Fire Chief Chris South, upon the investigation of most all of the 64 one-room units, they found multiple fire & life safety code violations inside and outside making it very dangerous to life & health conditions. So, due to this, they have closed the business until the time that it would be brought up to code.