Called to help the needy, Myrtle Beach church leaders look outside city limits

Myrtle Beach church parishioners say they are forced to think outside of the city limits when it comes to heeding their religious call to help the less fortunate.

When they fed the homeless in Myrtle Beach parks, they were cited for breaking a city law against large group feedings in parks without permits.

When they moved the meals to private church property officials told them the meals had to meet rigorous restaurant codes. When they opened church doors to the homeless on freezing nights after a homeless man froze to death in an abandoned building last winter, they were warned of housing and fire code violations.

Parishioners say they just want to help, but they are blocked by the city at nearly every turn.

“Most people in a church are willing to help and that’s what’s so sad about all of this,” said Shanna Morascini, an advocate for Citizens Concerned for the Homeless of Myrtle Beach

Myrtle Beach leaders say the parishioners can help, but to do it they need to join Street Reach – one of the city’s three shelters and its only emergency shelter to house the homeless in inclement weather.

The shelters are all operated under New Directions, a nonprofit group formed in 2013 that eventually absorbed the city’s three different shelters at the behest of city leaders, who looked to centralize services and avoid duplications.

But when Street Reach started charging the homeless to stay, in an effort to empower them to move out of their homelessness through its work program, some chose instead to stay on the streets -- even in the bitter cold.

William Henry Jr., chronically homeless and kicked out of Street Reach more than once, froze to death in an abandoned building Jan. 8 as temperatures dipped to a low 17 degrees. A grassroots group started using churches as emergency shelters on freezing nights until the operation was shuttered under a threat of code violations in March.

Outside the limits

Homeless advocates have found a way around some of the stumbling blocks. They hand out food in one of the city’s doughnut holes – spots of county land unclaimed by annexation within the city’s boundaries.

Carol Stallings of Swash Park Ministry had just handed out her last ration of food to one of about 50 who showed up on a recent Sunday when a Myrtle Beach police cruiser slowly pulled onto an adjacent street. She told her volunteers - a host of nearly 20 helpers who came from as far away as Nichols to lend a hand - to circle up for a prayer.

She prayed for the homeless. And she prayed for the city and its police force as the cruiser rolled by again.

Citizens Concerned for the Homeless of Myrtle Beach asked Myrtle Beach City Council in November to change the law and allow churches to operate as emergency shelters. But Myrtle Beach city attorney Tom Ellenburg said it was a building code the city couldn’t change.

The state fire marshal’s office, however, says there is another code on the books that would allow a local building official to approve a temporary use at the church. But local code officers say certain safety standards like having a sprinkler system in case of fires – still have to be met.

The two Myrtle Beach churches that housed the homeless on freezing nights last winter don’t have sprinkler systems because the churches were built before sprinkler systems were required.

The trouble with the codes – which church leaders say are not observed when churches host youth lockdowns or other overnight events – led church leaders to think outside the city limits.

Morascini says that a church operating just beyond the city’s territory is looking to start a local branch of Room in the Inn, a Tennessee-based organization that welcomes homeless people into churches on cold winter nights.

But as for Citizens Concerned for the Homeless, the group’s plan for now is to encourage displaced residents to go to Street Reach on freezing nights.

The group was encouraged to volunteer at Street Reach, which will make room for guests not enrolled in New Direction’s work program during inclement weather.

New Directions Executive Director Kathy Jenkins said that no one will be turned away on those emergency shelter nights. She also said no emergency shelter guests will be charged the fees required of those in New Directions’ back-to-work, back-to-life program.

“We had said we wanted to partner with the city so we’re going to take their advice … and take any people that want to go to Street Reach on any nights when it’s a code blue (freezing night),” Morascini said. “We will not be able to help with volunteering to stay (at Street Reach). We’re not trained to do that and we’re not comfortable asking any of our volunteers to be in that situation.

“For those who will not go, we have a small collection of blankets that we can (hand out),” Morascini said. Volunteers have also offered to stay and walk with the homeless on freezing nights to keep them moving to stay warm.

Tourism promoters spend millions of dollars in advertisements each year inviting people to the sunny shores of Myrtle Beach, she said. “So people come here, get seasonal jobs” when jobs are aplenty and then September hits, the work ends, the paycheck stops and “they have no way of getting back home” if they want to go back, Morascini said. “‘Fun in the sun’ and now they’re homeless.”

Temporary use

Code officials say a bevy of problems could arise when a building not built for housing is used for shelter.

“We do grant temporary uses for certain things and we do allow temporary structures for special events and things of that nature, but when it comes to residential use, we’re not going to make any (allowances) … because of the hazards … that may arise in a temporary structure,” said Myrtle Beach Fire Marshal Bruce Arnel.

Rooms without sprinklers, smoke alarms, fire alarms or easy exits have the makings of a potential fire disaster.

“It’s a safety issue and it’s our job to make sure that people are safe,” he said.

Bruce Boulineau, the city’s director of Construction Services, said the code has extra safeguards in place for housing people even temporarily.

“We never told them they couldn’t sleep the homeless. We just told them they had to meet the codes to sleep the homeless,” he said, adding that a church meeting the fire safety codes could be granted a temporary use permit.

But homeless advocates say other churches in cities across the state are allowed to shelter the homeless without the threat of code violations.

Family Promise of Florence became operational and started housing displaced families in churches Nov. 1.

“I think what really spurred this particular area is the school district identified so many families in the district living in situational housing where they were moving from hotel to hotel or from family member to family member with no permanent address,” said Joellen Schneider, executive director of Family Promise of Florence. The school district identified 340 students with no permanent addresses and the community rallied to help.

“We’re very fortunate to have a mayor and city council that is behind a lot of the initiatives here,” she said.

The program in Florence was three years in the making as leaders rounded up churches to participate, figured out logistics, searched for funding to support the process and gained community support.

City Manager John Pedersen told Myrtle Beach City Council members Dec. 8 that Ellenburg had drafted an ordinance that would allow the churches to house the homeless.

“I have not brought it before you because it’s something I really want to discourage,” he told the board. “I think we can accommodate the folks that need to be accommodated in our existing facilities where they will be dealt with by trained staff as well as volunteers.”

Pedersen said Street Reach can accommodate up to 50 extra patrons on nights that warrant emergency shelter, which exceeds the most they have welcomed during cold weather in the past. He said that the churches even on their most crowded nights had about 30.

“We have capacity for 150 people to have a mat or a bed (at Street Reach),” Jenkins said. Some will be claimed by people in the work program and “there are times when we have 150 in our work program,” she added.

Jenkins said she did not know how many people were in the program on Dec. 14.

But Jenkins cautioned that no one would be turned away on freezing nights, even the ones who show up impaired or even when all of the beds and mats are taken.

“We don’t want anybody left in the streets if the weather is dangerous,” Jenkins said.

‘Preferred route’

Pedersen said that Street Reach is the “preferred route” because its staff is trained in how to deal with the homeless clientele. Keeping the homeless in one centralized area also helps the city avoid the neighborhood complaints the city received last year. Neighbors griped about vagrants walking through their yards and “other behaviors,” he said, when the churches opened their doors to the homeless.

“The goal is to centralize the services as much as we possibly can,” Pedersen said.

Councilman Mike Chestnut asked about using a place like the city’s recreation center for emergency shelter on freezing nights, should Street Reach reach capacity.

Pedersen said he was reluctant to go that route.

“If at some point in time we start to outgrow on code blue nights the number of people (we serve) then I think that, that’s something we can look at,” Pedersen said. “I just think we’d be better off handling folks in a place that’s already set up for that.”

Chestnut said the city needs other options.

“We’ve got to embrace humanity in this case and I’m sorry if they have to use a church to get them out of the cold weather then let them use a church,” Mayor John Rhodes added. “When it gets crowded, when we run out of space, what are you going to do? Are you going to tell them to go freeze?”

Liability or not, the mayor said, the city should shore up other options should Street Reach meet its limits. The council was split on which other locations could be used as back up.

This story was originally published December 26, 2015 at 1:15 AM with the headline "Called to help the needy, Myrtle Beach church leaders look outside city limits."