Insurance Company Sues Battered Women’s Home To Make Way For Hotel, CEO Calls Beaten Women ‘Recovering Prostitutes’

For more than 100 years, the fine people at the Anna Louise Inn in downtown Cincinnati have been offering battered women a safe haven from their abusive boyfriends and husbands. Recently, however, they were told by a judge that they have to leave their home.

Why is Anna Louise Inn being closed? Not because money is owed on its property, but rather because the greedy executives at Western & Southern Insurance Group want to tear the Anna Louise Inn down and put in a boutique hotel.

More than 60 women will be eventually uprooted at the hands of Western & Southern Insurance Group.

Setup as a dormitory-style living facility the home provides women in need with 100 square foot bedrooms and shared bathrooms.

The executives at the insurance company offered to buy Anna Louise Inn several years ago for a price of $1.8 million. The home is worth double that sales price, and Anna Louise ultimately declined the offer but won $12.6 million in federal and state tax credits to renovate the home.

Just as the home was about to begin its renovations, Western & Southern sued over a zoning issue, and a judge ordered an immediate construction halt. The workers at Anna Louise Inn vowed to fight the insurance company tooth and nail but ultimately agreed last week to sell the property for $4 million.

It wasn’t that Anna Louise Inn decided to move; they simply didn’t have the funds to fight the sleazy insurance company.

Based on location and prices, the women will be relocated to a seedy area about two miles away from their current location. Under the deal, the new home will be constructed over the next two years. In the meantime, the women will get to stay put.

If the battle ended there, the women could easily cut their losses and walk away. However, Western & Southern Insurance Group CEO John Barrett simply couldn’t keep his mouth shut. In addressing the home, which is comprised mostly of women who were beaten by their husbands and boyfriends ,he continually called the women “recovering prostitutes.”

Barrett then claimed that beaten women don’t belong in the neighborhood.

In the end, many more women will be served for years to come by the wonderful people at the Anna Louise Inn. Unfortunately, thanks to Western & Southern Insurance Group, those being helped will be required to access a less than desired location.

Haven’t boycotted a company in a while? I have one suggestion…