North Strand homeless shelter looks to expand

LONGS| -- One day in October with nothing but the clothes on his back, Jonathan Myers went to a North Myrtle Beach church looking for a place to lay his head for a night.

Myers, who walked around aimlessly before he ended up at Our Lady Star of the Sea in North Myrtle Beach, said he knew the church would know of a shelter.

He was right.

The church told him about the North Strand Housing Shelter in Longs.

“This is my first time being in a shelter,” said Myers, who is now the shelter’s housing director. “I fell into that stigma where I thought ‘Oh my God, I’m in a shelter. I’m better than this.”

Myers, 37, quickly came to realize that he’s not any better, he said.

“These are just people down on their luck, people that just needed some help,” he said.

The shelter, which allows 16 people at one time, hopes to help more people as organizers plan to apply for grants to expand.

The 8-bedroom, 5 ½ -bath house that is being used for the shelter currently is at its capacity with 16 residents , including Myers and a family with two children, Myers said.

With the expansion, “we will be able to help a few more people because we are getting calls constantly,” Myers said. “There are a lot more homeless people in this area than people realize or are willing to admit. It would open more people to the programs we have.”

Opened for a year, the shelter connects the homeless with helpful resources, offers them services such as Bible study, mentoring, transportation, group and private counseling, and a discipleship program along with Celebrate Recovery, which works with people that have addictions.

Organizers hope to expand the faith-based shelter with another detached building that would have education, seminar and meeting rooms that can accommodate 50 people, and bathrooms and bedrooms, including two bedrooms that can be designated for families, on the second floor, said Dana Black, the shelter’s director. Black said they also hope to have a state Department of Health and Environmental Control-regulated kitchen.

She said it would cost $200,000 to build the two-story structure, which officials hope to start construction on in 2013.

Their 3-year vision is to expand the shelter to a 30-bed facility and to obtain a facility to offer affordable permanent housing in the North Myrtle Beach area.

“We’re excited,” Black said about expanding. “We have such a tremendous need, so we got to do something. Most times we have to turn people away because of the lack of space.”

Between May and October, the shelter took in 77 new people, Black said. Out of that number, organizers helped 41 find a job and/or housing.

Myers, who lost his job as a truck driver, became the shelter’s volunteer housing director in December.

Myers said he was a truck driver for the past 11 years when he got into an accident in September on Interstate 95 in Georgia on his way to Florida.

He said he was 25 miles from the border when he began coughing, couldn’t breathe and passed out. The truck was totaled after Myers hit several guard rails, traveling at 70 miles per hour, he said. He then lost his job, and decided to come to the Myrtle Beach area with his then-girlfriend.

He couldn’t find a job here, had no money and ended up staying with his then-girlfriend’s friends, until she told him in October to get out.

“Coming here got me to give my life back to God,” Myers said about the shelter. “I probably would have ended up in jail because of the laws here where I would have gotten arrested for sleeping on the beach or in a public place.

“It’s made me a better person and has given me a focus in my life that I wouldn’t otherwise have.”

Residents can stay at the shelter for seven days after which time they can extend their stay up to 90 days if they join the shelter’s Discipleship Program, or up to 60 days if they join its Outreach Program and are job-hunting. After finding a job, they are given time to save up money, Black said.

To help, or for more information on the North Strand Housing Shelter, please contact the shelter at 798-9091 or visit www.northstrandhousingshelter.org.