Neighbor complaints and frequent 911 calls threaten future of Loris-area Recovery Ranch
During the past three years, many of Horry County’s forgotten and downtrodden, suffering from longstanding addiction and mental health issues, have found a home on a sprawling farm in the Loris area.
But frequent complaints from neighbors and habitual emergency services usage have recently led to increased scrutiny from the county that threatens to hamper the Recovery Ranch moving forward.
Christa Reynolds has been operating the ranch since 2018 on Liberty Church Road, primarily taking in recovering addicts who wanted to focus on their sobriety and housing them in campers while leading daily meetings and helping connect them with jobs and resources.
Each resident is also given responsibilities on the farm, including landscaping or taking care of the ever-increasing crowd of animals that range from horses and dogs to chickens and goats.
County officials have kept an eye on the ranch since its inception, according to Reynolds, but they really began cracking down earlier this year, citing Reynolds for numerous code violations related to structures on the property without proper permits.
“I’m definitely concerned the county doesn’t want us here,” Reynolds told The Sun News in June.
The issues came to a head in July, when county code officials shut power off to several of the ranch’s mobile homes, forcing Reynolds to scramble to find alternate housing for more than half of the approximately 70 residents, some of whom relapsed due to the stress of moving, she said.
“It was a little bit of a logistical nightmare, ... but they were rock stars being so flexible and grateful,” Reynolds said.
Neighbor complaints
For neighbors of the ranch, including Buddy Vaught, the recent code enforcement efforts are a welcome sight after years of complaints to county officials fell mostly on deaf ears.
Vaught said he doesn’t have an issue with living near a recovery residence, but he just wants them to follow the laws and be more organized. His complaints included people wandering in the middle of roads and excess trash.
Stephanie Vaught Little, his daughter and a North Myrtle Beach attorney who has helped the neighbors communicate their complaints to county officials, said the general concern is that Reynolds isn’t doing enough to ensure the safety of the ranch’s residents or the neighbors.
Horry Councilman Mark Causey, whose district includes the ranch, said he asked county staff to check into the facility after recently coming into office to ensure they were up to code and providing safe, sanitary living conditions.
He said he’d like to see the ranch closed — though he doesn’t want to put anybody on the streets — and some regulations placed on recovery residences.
The Sun News has previously reported that South Carolina does not regulate recovery residences, and states that have tried have often run into issues due to federal disabilities laws, though state agencies have been working to prop up private efforts to create uniform safety standards.
911 calls
Aside from the community complaints, Causey also said a deluge of calls to 911 coming from the ranch was shaping his desire for increased scrutiny.
Between the beginning of 2020 and June 2021, more than 150 calls for either law enforcement or EMS were made from the Recovery Ranch, according to a county 911 log acquired via Freedom of Information Act request.
Among the calls were several reports of residents threatening suicide, assaults stemming from fights among residents and possible overdoses, including one who died this April, according to police incident reports. Very few of the incidents resulted in arrests, as police often faced uncooperative witnesses.
Reynolds said a majority of the 911 calls came from a single former resident, who is no longer allowed on the property. She also pointed out the call volume equates to less than 10 per month, which isn’t unreasonable considering the amount of people living on the property.
“At the end of the day, if they want to call 911, we can’t stop them,” she said.
Reynolds said the tragic overdose death was a man she’d known for many years, but he was only at the ranch because he was supposed to marry one of the residents the next day and wasn’t a resident himself. Recovery Ranch does have the opioid overdose-reversal drug Narcan available on site, she added.
Future of the ranch
Since the power was shut off, Reynolds has had to scale back operations at the ranch, moving 22 residents to another property she owns in Dillon County, while 15 remain on site in previously permitted campers to help take care of the animals. She said the off-site residents will come back to the ranch three days per week to participate in the program.
Reynolds hopes the changes satisfy the complaints of her neighbors and the county, which she said initially threatened to file a nuisance complaint against her, which could’ve forced the ranch, which includes a house where she lives, to close for a year.
“I was just a farm girl that saw a need, and a desire to create a solution,” she said. “It’s worked for some, given hope for some.”
One of those it’s worked for is Andrew Bethae, who fellow ranch residents refer to as “AB.”
Suffering from addiction for more than 30 years, since he was 14, Bethae said he ended up at Recovery Ranch a couple years ago after a four-day binge abusing methamphetamines and alcohol on the advice of a peer support specialist who knew he’d grown up on a farm.
“I was at the lowest point of my life, ready to give it all up,” he said. “I’d probably be back at an institution or dead without this place.”
Bethae is now one of the few residents remaining on the ranch and feels like he’s on safe footing in his sobriety, but he’s concerned about the others.
“There’s a lot of sick and hurt people that need help,” he said.
Barbara Clemmons, a volunteer who helps residents at the ranch connect with resources, questioned where the county expects these residents to go if the Recovery Ranch has to close.
“Rather than hinder (Reynolds), we should be asking what more we can do to help,” she said.
Reynolds said she’s committed to correcting all the code violations, but she’s not ashamed of anything she’s done.
“Most of the people criticizing me wouldn’t do a tenth of what I’ve attempted to do,” she said.
This story was originally published September 2, 2021 at 12:00 AM.
