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Cash-Strapped Archdiocese Selling Nuns' Home

Three nuns in a Santa Barbara, Calif., convent are moving because their landlord, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, needs to sell the building that houses them. The Archdiocese says it needs the money from the sale to pay a court-mandated award to victims of priest abuse.

Real estate in the Southern California city best known for its celebrity residents commands top dollar. With the church facing millions of dollars in legal costs, the archdiocese says it needs the money.

Critics of the sale say the nuns are being picked on by the church and may be unable to assist the poverty-stricken neighbors often overlooked in the affluent town.

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Karen Grigsby Bates
Karen Grigsby Bates is the Senior Correspondent for Code Switch, a podcast that reports on race and ethnicity. A veteran NPR reporter, Bates covered race for the network for several years before becoming a founding member of the Code Switch team. She is especially interested in stories about the hidden history of race in America—and in the intersection of race and culture. She oversees much of Code Switch's coverage of books by and about people of color, as well as issues of race in the publishing industry. Bates is the co-author of a best-selling etiquette book (Basic Black: Home Training for Modern Times) and two mystery novels; she is also a contributor to several anthologies of essays. She lives in Los Angeles and reports from NPR West.