Coalition working for a better City View

Editor's note: This story is part of ongoing coverage by The Greenville News focusing on neighborhoods in the shadows of our community and the people who live there. Largely bypassed by economic progress that is transforming Greenville and facing challenges of transportation, economic opportunity, education, health care and gentrification, they are the Unseen Greenville. Learn more at UnseenGreenville.com.

The City View that Pastor Joe and Debra "Lady Dee" Garrison see is not the one that exists.

The Garrisons, pastors of New Hope Outreach Center in City View, envision a community that's flourishing with new and renovated homes, playgrounds, a place where residents feel empowered.

The reality is a City View with maybe more than its share of dilapidated houses, empty buildings, overgrown lawns, trash in the streets, drugs, and crime.

That community three miles northwest of downtown Greenville has no safe places for its children to play.

What City View does have is people like the Garrisons, who not only have faith that change is coming but are working to ensure that it does.

The Garrisons are part of a new coalition of church leaders and residents pushing for revitalization in City View. With the support of Bon Secours St. Francis Health System, the nearly 1-year-old coalition is already seeing some progress.

Mounds of garbage have been hauled away, dilapidated houses are being torn down, a GED program is under way, and the Hispanic Alliance is reaching out to Spanish-speaking residents.

The Garrisons sparked change.

Evangelist Jeannie Simpson with City View's Christian Fellowship Church sees them as a godsend. When they came in last year, Simpson said, "it was like God did a whole new thing."

Coalition members would like to see City View revived as other neighborhoods that have fallen on hard times have been — Green Avenue, Viola Street.

City View has 637 housing units, 565 of which are occupied and 72 vacant, according to a Community Needs Assessment and U.S. Census data compiled by Bon Secours. The survey noted that 73, or only 12.9 percent, of the housing units are owner-occupied while 492 are rentals.

Although surrounded by growth from downtown Greenville, the West End and Monaghan Mill, 53.2 percent of City View residents live below the poverty level, and the median household income is $16,904.

Simpson, who provides community outreach services through First Christian Fellowship, said City View has been dead for a long time.

At one time, the 3-square-mile area was its own municipality, home to nearly 1,500 people. Later, financial and personnel problems plagued the city's elected officials, and disputes erupted among council members.

As a result, in 1995 City View residents voted to surrender the town's 35-year-old charter. The town then became an unincorporated area of the county, much like the former mill villages adjacent to it.

Pastor Nancy Clark, who leads Joy of the Lord Ministries, moved to City View about five years years ago. The community was in "terrible" condition then, she said, and little has changed.

Clark said the problems she's reported include an abandoned house that was falling down, stray dogs, limbs in the roadway. Those kinds of things are still going on now, she said. But there has been some improvement since the coalition was formed.

She would like to see the area completely revitalized, with "an environment that's conducive for everyone to live in and feel comfortable."

Many residents in City View are struggling and seem to have given up on hope, said Simpson, who has attended church in the community for nearly 20 years. "In other words, they think nobody cares," she said.

First Christian Fellowship shows it cares with an outreach program that provides food, clothing, counseling and a shoulder to cry on when residents need it.

"We cry with them, we pray with them, we encourage them," Simpson said. And, "we're trying to get the people to help themselves."

She said many of the people she sees are young adults who are homeless. She also sees many senior citizens. Few have access to transportation. Some have been without a job for years, she said.

"Many of them need help, not just with housing and beautifying the community," she said. "They've got so many emotional problems."

When you hear their stories, Simpson said, "you can't help but shed tears. We let them know what God's got coming — homes, community centers, parks, businesses.

"A lot of times you might hear them say, 'Well, I don't see nothing happening,' but we tell them to be patient. It's coming and it's in the works," she said. "I've seen them come and go. I've seen some of them die without seeing the vision come to pass, but wanting to see something happen."

Simpson was part of an effort years ago that tried to rejuvenate the community. Without a collaborative partner, there was no progress, she said..

The Garrisons got the ball rolling and churches started collaborating, she said. "It's been rolling ever since."

Garrison, a process planner at BMW, and Debra Garrison, an admissions counselor at Greenville Health System, co-pastored a storefront church on Cedar Lane Road before moving their church to City View.

They weren't looking to purchase another sanctuary at the time, Debra Garrison said, but when they saw the vacant church on West Morgan Street, they saw potential.

Then, when God made a way for them to purchase the church building — the price started at $120,000 and dropped $49,000 — the couple said they knew City View was where they were supposed to be.

"We came over really to make a difference. Our ministry is based on Isaiah 58:12, which is that we should be the repairers of the breach. So we've come over here with a vision to build up, to encourage people to do better so they can come out of the situation they're in right now," Garrison said.

Mrs. Garrison said they'd been in the community for four months and noticed a mound of household trash nearby, at least nine feet wide and three to four feet high, that was never moved.

She told her husband, "We own property there. We need to take ownership of that community. I said, that community has been forgotten."

Mrs. Garrison looked up the Greenville County Council representative for City View and gave her a call.

"I said, 'Why do we have so much trash and nobody is picking it up?"

Councilwoman Xanthene Norris encouraged the couple to get involved and take the issue to the full County Council, Mrs. Garrison recalled.

Garrison took photos of the mounds of trash along the streets in City View. He gave them out to County Council members on the night he and his wife made their first plea for help in City View.

Before the meeting was over, a County Council member and Elizabeth "Liz" Keith, senior vice president for missions at Bon Secours, expressed an interest in meeting with the couple about concerns in City View.

Keith and Deb Long, director of Healthy Community Initiatives at Bon Secours, and Anna Vukin, the faith communities organizing coordinator at Bon Secours, toured the neighborhood and determined it was one that Bon Secours could work in.

On the tour, they found the area "blighted," Long said. "There seemed to be a lot of garbage, a lot of dumping, a lot of overgrown foliage, a lot of blighted homes, and street signs were missing.

"We counted, at one point, at least 40-something homes where either no one was living, glass was broken, doors were open or there were no doors," Long said. "There's nothing like a community center there. Children are playing in the streets or they've been noticed in some of these abandoned houses."

Bob Mihalic, spokesman for Greenville County, said cases handled by the codes-enforcement department are complaint-driven.

The community needed a voice — and the coalition gave it one.

Since the coalition was formed and residents began meeting monthly to address problems, the county has stepped in to help with abandoned buildings.

A county codes official has been proactive in attending the monthly meetings, Mihalic said. "Because we're going out to the meetings there, we certainly have been in the community so we have our eyes on a few things as well."

At the July neighborhood meeting, Teresa Barber, deputy director of Greenville County Planning and Code Compliance, said the department has 15 active cases involving abandoned houses in City View.

The codes department has provided dumpsters and other tools to help clean up the area, Mihalic said. Residents and volunteers collected 5.2 tons of garbage during two neighborhood cleanups.

Because illegal dumping is a problem in City View, Mihalic said, the department is installing "No Dumping" and "No Littering" signs in the area. Missing and damaged street signs also are being replaced.

To help with revitalization efforts, New Hope Outreach Center in City View has started a GED program and a newsletter for residents and churches.

The Hispanic Alliance has partnered with the community to reach Hispanic residents, to make sure their voices are being heard, and a Greenville County deputy attends monthly neighborhood meetings to discuss safety issues and to provide information.

Through its Healthy Communities Initiative, Bon Secours develops collaborative relationships with people in neighborhoods and with other local organizations that can help them, all with the goal of improving quality of life and health.

"Our mission is to be a good help and to go out and work in communities that are impoverished, communities that need to be revitalized," Long said. "But we don't come with our own agenda. We document and help people get the resources they need to help their communities become a better place to live."

As part of the City View community assessment, residents were asked to share opinions and ideas about how to make City View a better place to live. They were asked to list the community's strengths, what they like about the community, its greatest needs, issues that need to be addressed and ideas for improvements.

In the 110 surveys completed, residents cited a safe place for children to play, help for the homeless and increased police presence as the greatest needs in the community.

Garrison said his "soapbox" is the dilapidated houses. With those torn down and removed, "there's so many things we can do with just bare land," he said. "We can have a park, a community garden, a community. It's just so many opportunities."

One of the challenges, Garrison said, is to build trust with people who live in City View. The Garrisons said they plan to continue to engage residents to let them know "we are here to stay. We are here to help."

Bon Secours also will be in City View for as long as it takes to help the community reinvent itself, Long said.

This summer Bon Secours worked with Councilwoman Norris to secure county funding for children in City View to attend a summer camp. The community partnered with LiveWell Greenville to bring the mobile-rec van into City View to provide activities for children unable to go to camp.

Next year, the community will undergo training through United Way's Greenville Dreams leadership program in order to become a neighborhood association, Long said..

Also, Long said, "we're going to look at establishing a coalition of organizations that will help provide resources."

Among those resources is a much-needed playground. A representative of Palmetto Pride, a non-profit public/private partnership, shared information with coalition members this month about the organization's greenspace grant, which includes playgrounds.

"The idea that Palmetto Pride might have an opportunity for us to apply for a grant if land can be secured would be a huge win," Long said. "The whole idea is that you can't have a healthy community without healthy people and you can't have a healthy people without a healthy community."

Editor's note: This story is part of ongoing coverage by The Greenville News focusing on neighborhoods in the shadows of our community and the people who live there. Largely bypassed by economic progress that is transforming Greenville and facing challenges of transportation, economic opportunity, education, health care and gentrification, they are the Unseen Greenville. Learn more at UnseenGreenville.com.