December 12, 2000 Temple Daily Telegram Temple, Texas By Clay Coppedge   "Wife takes over daily operations of Rose Garden for ill husband"   Sherri Slaton has taken over day-to-day operations of the Rose Garden, the unofficial halfway house for the homeless, ex-convicts and the mentally ill started by her husband, Al Slaton, 20 years ago. Mrs. Slaton has been working full-time at the Rose Garden since September, attempting on the one hand to continue the work Al Slaton began but at the same time taking a more diplomatic approach to state agencies and local officials. "I wanted to change the impression people get of this place," she said Tuesday at a newly spruced up Rose Garden office on Avenue A. Much of Sherri Slaton's efforts have centered on public relations, changing people's perceptions of the Rose Garden. Cleaning up the office was a first step in that direction. "This is the office, the first place people saw when they came here," she said. "It was filthy. It was hard to convince people the place was all right when the office was so dirty. I gave it a woman's touch." The Rose Garden, which consists of a string of wood frame houses on Ave A, houses about 30 residents, double the number of people living there at the end of the summer. Everyone who has moved in since that time used to live at the Rose Garden and many were brought there by MHMR officials, Mrs. Slaton said. "We do not administer medicine here," she said. "The residents who need medicine have it administered by MHMR personnel. We don't even have the medicine on the premises. We're doing everything we can to comply with the court order." Lloyd Butler of MHMR said Tuesday he is pleased with the changes he has seen at the Rose Garden. "When I first got to Temple in February, I wasn't pleased at all with everything I saw at the Rose Garden," Butler said. "Sherri and I had a long conversation and I told her what I expected for my clients and she said she would try to comply. There are still a couple of improvements I'd like to see made, but she's trying." The Rose Garden was raided in 1998 by the Department of Human Services and put under the supervision of trustee Wesley Hill. Al Slaton was charged with running an unlicensed care facility and prevented by court order from providing anything more than room and board for the Rose Garden residents. Though Slaton complied with the order, DHS, acting by and through the authority of the Attorney General's office, asked Judge Paul Davis to close the Rose Garden residences and allow no one to live there. Slaton filed a motion to vacate the injunction, and Judge Davis suspended it in June, 1999. But the state took Slaton to court again following fire safety inspections. The Attorney General's office eventually dropped its case against Slaton, who is suffering from clinical depression and has turned most of the day-to-day operations of the Rose Garden over to Mrs. Slaton. Slaton had tried to file a class action lawsuit against the state on behalf of the Rose Garden residents but he has abandoned that plan. "I don't want to spend years and years fighting the state agencies," she said. "Working with these people and being friends with them is a lot easier and I think a lot more effective in the long run." Mrs. Slaton is currently seeking donations of household repair items, clothing, bedding and personal necessities. The Rose Garden has benefited from a donations account at First United Methodist Church and an annual contribution of $12,000 from Dallas philanthropist Jess Hay.