Where will homeless go if Myrtle Beach-CCU partnership occupies their downtown hub?
As Myrtle Beach officials consider bringing major changes downtown, they’ll need to eventually confront the potential effect on the homeless population known to frequent that area.
City council is set to discuss a potential partnership with Coastal Carolina University that would turn a former church into a charter school and Chapin Memorial Library into an academic building for the university’s graduate school of education.
The project would also turn nearby Chapin Park into a private playground for the charter school during operating hours, though it will remain open to the public at all other times.
The library and park are both frequented by homeless people during the day, and those providing services to them wonder where the city will encourage them to go instead.
Joey Smoak, executive director of Eastern Carolina Homelessness Organization, which has its main office right next to the planned charter school, said the whole project sounds like a positive for the city, but the elimination of a common gathering space for homeless in the area could definitely be an issue.
More than 1,000 homeless people live in the Myrtle Beach area, according to ECHO’s most recent estimates, and Smoak suggested the changes could lead to more homeless people frequenting the boardwalk and beach, which could impact tourism, or wherever a new library is built.
The city’s downtown master plan calls for building a new library at a vacant lot next to the Train Depot near the intersection of 9th Avenue North and North Oak Street, but Myrtle Beach Mayor Brenda Bethune acknowledged the possibility that CCU could move into the current library before a new one is built.
Bethune said city leaders haven’t discussed how the new project would impact the homeless population, but she said it’s certainly an aspect they’ll need to consider.
City council adopted a resolution last March to create a Homeless Task Force Advisory Board to review successful efforts addressing homelessness in other communities and recommend policies and actions that should be implemented in Myrtle Beach, but that board still has no members, despite the resolution giving the board a March 31, 2020, deadline to report its recommendations to council.
City manager John Pedersen said the answer to where homeless people will go if CCU moves in could lie with a proposal from New Directions of Horry County, which operates transitional housing centers in Myrtle Beach.
Kathy Jenkins, the nonprofit’s executive director, said they have big expansion plans that include the creation of a homeless day center, where homeless people would have access to showers, laundry and service providers.
Jenkins noted that the center would be modeled after the day center currently operating in Columbia, S.C. by an organization called Transitions.
New Directions has been considering the idea for more than a year, as an email to city leaders outlining the nonprofit’s 2018-19 master plan lists the day center as a proposed priority.
“… we have been informed by the (Myrtle Beach Police Department), who are in daily contact with the unsheltered, that a day center would be well attended,” the master plan states.
The plan describes the center as a potential pilot program in a location that can be leased to test the concept before seeking a permanent location with an anticipated cost estimate between $50,000 and $75,000.
Subsequent emails among city officials suggest finding a location for the pilot program has proven difficult.
In December 2018, Pedersen emailed Bethune and then-councilwoman Mary Jeffcoat alerting them of a text he received from councilman Mike Lowder, who was concerned about New Directions possibly locating its day center next to a bike shop off Broadway.
“One of the issues that took me a while to ‘get’ about this proposal is that, ironically, in order to use this day center to help homeless off the streets in the downtown area, it has to be located within reasonable walking distance of the downtown,” Pedersen wrote.
Jeffcoat responded that they should communicate with the rest of council about the importance of having the center close to downtown.
“And, we need to emphasize that, while the building next to the bike shop had been considered, it was taken off the table … ,” she wrote.
Jenkins said the day center now may be built on a piece of property the nonprofit recently purchased. Horry County land records show New Directions paid $200,000 last October for about an acre of wooded land directly behind their men’s shelter off Mr. Joe White Avenue.
The proposal is still in the early stages, Jenkins said, because they still need the city’s approval and funding, while the nonprofit is currently focusing on renovating the second floor of the men’s shelter to add 60-74 additional beds while freeing up room to add 35-40 emergency beds on the first floor.
Jenkins said they currently have 65 homeless men on their waiting list, so the need is present, and they’re hoping complete those renovations by June 1, pending additional fundraising needs.
