Are free bus tickets causing a surge in the unhoused population in North Myrtle Beach?
“The large homeless population that is in Myrtle Beach has been able to get on the bus for free and ride up to North Myrtle Beach,” said North Myrtle Beach City Manager Mike Mahaney at a July 6 council meeting.
Mayor Marilyn Hatley and city spokesman Donald Graham said Mahaney was referring to a fare-free policy by Coast RTA in place the last two years that’s led to a four-fold uptick in the city’s counted homeless population.
“Mr. Mahaney did mention the fact that since last year, there was no fee for the homeless to ride Coast RTA, and we have seen an influx of homeless since that program was put in place,” Hatley said.
In 2020, Horry County had the highest counted population of homeless in South Carolina with 807 sheltered and unsheltered people, according to a state report.
New Directions CEO Kathy Jenkins said only clients are given bus tickets through her organization so case workers can verify their whereabouts.
“I’m not really sure why somebody who’s homeless would go from Myrtle Beach to North Myrtle Beach when the services aren’t available,” she said.
The remarks came near the end of a closely watched City Council meeting that included Mahaney showing police body camera footage of an encounter with the owner of a local business being fined for setting up rented beach equipment without a franchise.
During deliberations, a resident asked if North Myrtle Beach had regulations about people staying overnight on public beaches, prompting Mahaney to explain current laws and then mentioning an increased homeless population.
It’s illegal for anyone to sleep on the sand in Horry County or Myrtle Beach from 9 p.m. to 8 a.m. North Myrtle Beach prohibits it from 9 p.m. to sunrise.
Graham told The Sun News city officials counted a reported 20 homeless people in the city in 2019, compared to 73 this year.
“The increase in the homeless population in the city of North Myrtle Beach can be directly attributed to the Coast RTA bus transportation system,” Graham said. “The Coast RTA bus transit system provided free transportation which allowed transient people to travel to areas not previously available.”
Coast RTA currently runs 10 fixed routes through Georgetown and Horry counties, servicing more than 2,000 daily riders. The agency’s finance committee meets July 14. Spokeswoman Lauren Morris said RTA will resume fares within a few weeks at pre-COVID rates of $1.50 for single rides and up to $40 for multi-use passes.
Its Route 17 runs through retail-heavy portions of North Myrtle Beach, with stops at Barefoot Landing and Coastal North Town Center.
Further details about the comment and the context are hard to come by for the public. North Myrtle Beach stopped broadcasting its meetings coming out of COVID protocols and minutes of the July 6 session had not been posted to the city’s website as of July 13.
South Carolina’s open meetings law doesn’t require communities to broadcast any of their deliberations, but nearly all of North Myrtle Beach’s neighbors do it anyway: Conway, Myrtle Beach, Surfside Beach, the Horry County Council and Horry County Schools among them.
But when it comes to sending people from Myrtle Beach elsewhere, city officials have no role in that but work through area nonprofit New Directions and the transit authority, spokesman Mark Kruea said.
“New Directions does provide transportation out of the area for people who wish to reconnect with their family support groups. And I believe they use some city-provided funding for that purpose – specifically bus tickets – but it’s not a frequent thing,” Kruea said. “And we certainly aren’t sending people to any nearby communities via Coast RTA or any other means.”
Editor’s note: This story has been updated
This story was originally published July 14, 2022 at 5:00 AM.