By Greg Grisolano

ggrisolano@joplinglobe.com

The pastor of City of Refuge on Thursday announced the kickoff of a 45-day effort to raise $600,000 to purchase a Joplin church building and convert into a shelter for the homeless.

In response to a Globe question after the news conference, Dan Anderson said his ministry would be starting from scratch in the effort.

He said he hopes to raise the money within 45 days, targeting July 1 as the date for closing on the purchase of the First Baptist Church building at 633 S. Pearl Ave.

“We don’t have anything at this point,” Anderson said after earlier telling reporters that he has more ideas for the church building than just a shelter and soup kitchen. He said he hopes to establish a one-stop location for rehabilitating homeless people.

City of Refuge had been looking for a new home for the ministry and shelter since the City Council voted 5-3 in March to deny a change in zoning that would have allowed it to try to convert its leased quarters in an old warehouse at 502 E. Seventh St. into a shelter. The building was cited in January for numerous fire, health and zoning violations, and Anderson’s effort to obtain a variance to the zoning regulations met with opposition from nearby businesses.

Shortly after it was disclosed that the ministry was hoping to acquire the building at Seventh Street and Pearl Avenue, residential and some downtown-business opposition to the proposal surfaced.

Members of the First Baptist Church on May 7 voted 132-18 to sell their building to Anderson for $600,000. The church is planning a new building in south Joplin.

“This is going to be our kickoff,” Anderson said Thursday. “We couldn’t really do anything until the church had their vote, and that’s what we’ve been waiting for.”

The ministry on May 5 had secured an extension until Aug. 1 on the deadline to halt using the old warehouse on East Seventh Street as a shelter in violation of the zoning code.

Jon Tupper, former Joplin mayor and current councilman, was one of the participants in a panel discussion at the City of Refuge’s news conference Thursday.

Tupper is one of the council members who voted 5-4 on May 5 to extend the shelter deadline.

“The money was not a concern,” Tupper said. “One concern I do have is I don’t want the same situation to happen that happened with the warehouse. We want to make sure the new building is up to code.”

Councilwoman Melodee Colbert-Kean said she, too, was under the impression that City of Refuge had the money and was only waiting on approval from the church congregation to complete the sale.

“Wow, I’m at a loss,” she said Thursday afternoon. “The way I understood it was they had funds ready and were just waiting on the church.”

‘Center of hope’

Anderson said that if he secures the $600,000 to pay for the building, he plans to turn the church into a “center of hope” that would provide additional support services beyond the food pantry, ministry and shelter.

“There’s a lot of room in this facility,” he said at the news conference staged at the church building. “Rather than sending somebody across town to go locate somebody, we can say, ‘Go right down the hall.’ If you can give people easy access, they will find that the resources are much easier to attain.”

There are at least 409 homeless people in Jasper and Newton counties, according to figures released in March by the Jasper/Newton County Homeless Coalition.

Tupper said he was particularly disturbed by figures that indicate 21 percent of those homeless are children and 29 percent are veterans.

“You can’t build a shelter and just shelve children in there,” he said. “We need services to address children. We need services to address women. We need services to address veterans.”

Tupper said he believes finding money and volunteers will not be a problem for the ministry.

“Money and volunteers in this community is not an issue,” he said. “Putting those dollars and those volunteers in the right position, focused the right way to solve a problem, is the issue.”

Tupper said educating and uniting Joplin’s various outreach and support services is key, something on which other members of the panel agreed.

Kathy Lewis, executive director of Crosslines Churches, an organization that coordinates with more than 60 churches in the Joplin area to provide food, clothing and other support services, said communication among organizations is critical to ensuring that the resources reach people in need.

“If we don’t come together and know what each other is doing, we aren’t going to help folks,” she said. “Because the folks in need are going to slip through the cracks, and the folks that are taking advantage will continue to go from place to place.”





Summit still out



Councilman Jon Tupper said the city is still working out the details of a proposed summit on Joplin’s homeless situation. No date has been set for the summit, which Tupper proposed in March.