August 01, 2008 10:56 pm
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By Greg Grisolano
ggrisolano@joplinglobe.com
Four or five days of sleeping outside is all Kahn McLeod said he expects to be able to handle, now that the shelter operation of City of Refuge is closing down.
McLeod is one of about 30 homeless people who have been staying at the converted cold-storage warehouse at 502 E. Seventh St.
Dan Anderson, the pastor at City of Refuge, suggested he will try to make a statement in hopes of bringing public pressure to bear upon the City Council to change the rules prohibiting the use of the building for sleeping quarters, or prompting a church or organization to offer his operation at least temporary quarters.
Anderson said he plans to sleep outside for the time being, and that he plans to ask the City Council to reconsider a request to rezone the property to accommodate an overnight-shelter operation.
The Globe was unable to ascertain Friday night whether any attempt had been made to find other temporary accommodations for the 30 people staying at the shelter.
“At this point in time, we don’t have anyplace else to go,” Anderson said Friday, the city-imposed deadline for the shelter services. “Outside of a church or somebody offering a facility for us temporarily, we’ll be right out front there.”
City officials and Anderson both say that the building will remain open, and services such as a food pantry, kitchen, bathroom and church will continue to be offered. What is prohibited by city ordinances is the use of the building for sleeping quarters.
“Our desire is a reconsideration of the rezoning of this facility,” Anderson said. “We’ve already had work done to it. And we’ve got people who are ready to do more work on it.”
During an interview at City of Refuge on Friday, he indicated that he had made inquiries into other permanent locations for his overall operation, but none fit the needs or the budget of his organization.
The City Council voted 5-3 in March to deny a change in zoning that would have allowed City of Refuge to try to convert its leased quarters in the old warehouse into a shelter. The building was cited in January for numerous fire, health and zoning violations. Anderson’s effort to obtain a variance to the zoning regulations met with opposition from nearby businesses.
But the council granted Anderson an extension to continue offering shelter services in the old warehouse until Aug. 1.
“They are not to shelter people anymore,” said City Attorney Brian Head. “They can still have the kitchen and church and such.”
Head said city officials are concerned that the building-code violations pose a risk to the safety of those staying there.
Head said he did not know how the council would respond to Anderson’s request to reconsider the zoning issue and give the shelter more time to operate.
“When he asks for extensions, essentially we’re being asked to ignore the law,” he said.
Several residents, including McLeod, said they felt safer staying inside the shelter rather than sleeping outdoors.
“We have smoke alarms and we have fire extinguishers,” he said.
Anderson also said his attempt to purchase a downtown Joplin church for $600,000 as a new home is unlikely to be completed.
Members of the First Baptist Church on May 7 voted 132-18 to sell their building to Anderson, but Anderson says he was only able to raise about $2,000 toward such a deal.
“That’s probably passed,” Anderson said. “We’ve been talking to the owner of this building (the warehouse) again, and if we could somehow get a rezoning in this building, we’d probably elect to just purchase this facility.”
Joplin Mayor Gary Shaw said the city had no plans to house or provide services for the residents who have been staying at the Refuge.
“We don’t have anywhere to shelter or house them,” he said. “All we’re doing is trying to protect those people from harm.”
Another summit
Joplin Mayor Gary Shaw said he expects the city to release additional information about another summit on homelessness sometime next week.
“We’re in the process of forming the next level of a committee to work with the information we received from the first summit,” the mayor said Friday. “We’ll be naming those individuals in the coming days.”
A meeting July 8 at Memorial Hall was conducted as the first step toward formulating an organized approach to addressing the problem of homelessness in Joplin.
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