Greenville opens its heart to the homeless as agencies strive for long-term solutions

It’s late afternoon on a recent Monday and the men and women of Tent City have built several fires in anticipation of nightfall.

A preacher is walking among the people, talking quietly. Before long, a man drives down the long dirt road and drops off big boxes of food, coats and shoes.

“This shouldn’t be,” he says, and shakes his head, declines to give his name. He says he doesn’t want publicity for doing what’s right.

Then a truck pulls in. And another. Each one bearing something for the homeless men and women who live under the Pete Hollis bridge, not far from downtown Greenville.

It’s been like this since early November after a series of articles in The Greenville News told the stories of Greenville’s homeless. The newspaper’s three-month investigation found a rising population of people who have lost homes due to job losses, illnesses and disabilities. Also, that crime against the homeless is increasing, more women are living on the streets and the population in general is getting younger.

Greenville County has the second-highest number of homeless people in South Carolina, after Richland. Despite the many services provided by various agencies, from mental health counseling to job training to housing, low wages and a lack of affordable housing keep people living under bridges and in shelters.

In fact, in the seven weeks since The News’ series ran, the number of people living under the Pete Hollis bridge has doubled. It is difficult to walk through the maze of tents.

The community has responded with donations of every ilk. The amount is overwhelming, says Steve Payne, who lives in Tent City with his wife, Mary.

Regular deliveries of firewood and water. A man brought a log splitter. Food, clothing, blankets, a mattress, toiletries.

Someone brought a small, decorated Christmas tree, which stands in front of a leafless sweetgum tree adorned with a few sparkling ornaments.

Payne says they have had so many donations, they are sending clothing and blankets to homeless people living in other parts of the county.

“People are not just helping the 40 or so who live here. They’re helping 200,” says Payne, who has become the organizer of donations to ensure everyone gets an equal share. He says he’s also started attending monthly Homeless Coalition meetings and has met with County Council members.

Jim Abbott, the human resources director with the Salvation Army who takes sandwiches to the homeless every Thursday night, says he has noticed a distinct change in the attitudes of the people of Tent City since The News series ran.

“This is bigger than clothing. They’re looking to serve others,” Abbott says.

He says more interaction between Tent City residents and the general public has brought about a feeling of goodwill that he hasn’t seen recently.

“There’s excitement in residents’ voices,” he says.

Church groups and others have set up buffets. Restaurants have brought food. A group has supplied food for an increasing number of pets.

“It’s a blessing,” says Greg Rivenbark, a U.S. Navy veteran who is considered the founder of Tent City.

One group asked each person to list the thing they wanted most for Christmas and their job skills.

“They said they were going to come down here and hire,” Payne says.

The abundant donations concern the Rev. Deb Richardson-Moore, who says providing too much can keep people rooted in homelessness. Richardson-Moore, the pastor of Triune Mercy Center, a church that ministers to the homeless, says sometimes charity hurts.

She learned that as a beginning pastor when Triune gave away food and clothing without expecting anything from the recipient. She stopped the give-aways and now is going one step further. Triune’s clothes closet will close in March.

“It’s been a free store for years,” she says. Clothing will be available only to people who are in Triune programs.

“It will free up all that time for staff to spend on one-on-one conversations,” Richardson-Moore says.

Triune has added another mental health counselor and has gotten through the training portion of a new program called Support Circles. Each participant is paired with a group of people from the community to stand with them as they work to get out of homelessness.

Richardson-Moore says four of the original eight accepted remain in the program, which mirrors the national average for similar efforts.

Conditions

Blankets and sleeping bags crowd the tents at Tent City now that temperatures have dropped. Tarps have been strung over the top to keep the heat inside. Propane heaters provide warmth.

The mounds of trash have been removed. Some of the people who bring firewood leave with trash bags. The Salvation Army has picked up some, too, Abbott says.

There used to be one fire ring at Tent City, used largely in the summer for cooking. Now there are five, ringed with large stones. A few barrels are used for heat as well.

Abbott says authorities have allowed such arrangements as long as the fire is contained and hardwood, not trash, is burned. He is hoping to get students from Greenville Technical College’s welding program to make fire pits.

He has also talked with authorities about the possibility of getting portable toilets out there, but first gravel must be laid on the dirt road to allow access for service vehicles. There is money available for the toilets, but the gravel is another story, he says. The idea also must be approved by the state Department of Transportation, which owns the land under the bridge.

If the agency doesn’t approve, Abbott says it’s possible the owner of adjacent property would. An abandoned warehouse sits next door to the camp.

“This is a basic human need,” Abbott says.

Payne says there’s been talk about possibly buying the warehouse to establish a new shelter, which he thinks is a bad idea.

“How many people could you put in housing,” he says. “It makes me think you’re trying to keep people on the street.”

Payne also says he’d like to see people adopt individual tents, to provide propane and incidentals.

The residents have built a makeshift structure, where excess clothing is stored. Payne says a cold-weather shelter for women is miles away and inaccessible for those without cars, so women use the building when the temperature drops.

On Christmas Eve, Bub Sexton, owner of Sexton Muffler on Poinsett Highway, and quite a few friends staged a cookout at Tent City. He hauled in a grill and cooked 60 chickens to go with a lot of fixings.

“Someone said, why do you want to go to Tent City?” Sexton says. “Because we’re having a Christmas party.”

He hopes the response from the community will continue beyond the holiday season.

“People come down here one time and promise they’ll be back and they never see them again,” Sexton says.

The people

The News featured several people in the series, among them Angela Vandorn. She decided a month ago she needed to get off the street. She has been living at the Salvation Army’s women’s shelter since then.

She says she’s concentrating on getting her GED. Then she wants to look for a job in fast food. At Tent City, she says, she slept all day. That’s not a choice in the shelter. She’s also been able to relax, she says. The fear of what could happen on the street is gone.

And she says it is so nice to be clean and to put on clean clothes after a shower.

“Sometimes I feel I might slip up and go back down there, but then some parts of me say I can do this thing,” she says.

Rivenbark has had a couple of small jobs since the series ran. He built an attic staircase and did some trim work on a house. He once lived in a house in Blue Ridge, and owned a construction company.

A couple weeks ago, someone dropped a log on his toe while they were splitting wood. It’s broken in two places.

In the series, Rivenbark was quoted as saying, “It’s a hard life down here.”

It’s still hard, but it’s eased some.

“We’ve had people to come from as far away as West Virginia,” he says.

Andrew Burgess is the 21-year-old artist and poet who told about a deputy shooting his pit bull, Coco. From the time he was 5 until he arrived at Tent City, Burgess was in foster care, he said in the earlier story, and he feels unprepared for life.

“I don’t know how to lease an apartment. I’ve never driven a car,” he said then. He’s known around Tent City as Ghost. He’s still living there.

After Coco was killed, he got a new dog he named Bella, a pit/lab mix.

Last Saturday, a Greenville County sheriff’s deputy shot and killed her.

Sheriff Steve Loftis says his deputy had no choice.

“The people in the community told us she was tethered, which she was not. It was shoot the dog or be attacked,” Loftis says.

The dog was shot once and ran off, the sheriff says. The officer asked if the owner wanted the dog euthanized.

Burgess says his girlfriend gave permission.

Loftis says once the dog was found she was shot four more times.

He says a supervisor reviewed the shooting as required whenever an officer discharges a firearm.

“It was a justified shooting,” Loftis says.

Three officers were in the camp looking for a suspect in an assault. The other two officers corroborated the shooter’s statement, Loftis says.

Burgess says he was 10 feet away from the dog when the shooting took place. The dog was on a lead, he says, and wasn’t charging the officer.

“It’s hard for me to deal with,” he says. “Two dogs like my children in less than two months.”

Ian Watkins, 22, is still looking for work as a server in a restaurant. In the earlier story, he said he felt people often just looked past him, never seeing him, only his circumstances.

Now, he says, he sees another side of Greenville.

“It makes me grateful,” he says, but his life experience makes him cautious.

“Is it genuine?” he says.

He says he’d like to be off the streets by summer.

“I just want a job.”

What’s next

If Mike Chesser, executive director of Upstate Homeless Coalition, has his way, the community will turn out en masse for a symposium he’s planning for early spring. He says the community needs a robust plan for ending homelessness.

At its core, the idea is to find out where to get money, who can work together and to set a timeline to provide better paying jobs and more affordable housing.

“Can we make it an issue the community cares about?” he says. “If we don’t, we’ll continue to pick at it like a scab.”

The best-case scenario would be to gather in the same room legislators, the congressional delegation, business owners, chamber executives, civic and non-profit leaders, service providers, the general public and the homeless.

“We are looking for systemic changes,” he says. “Homelessness is a community issue.”

Those who work with the homeless say one of the keys to change is to build relationships, not simply drop off a coat.

“We don’t want to enable them,” Abbott says, “but if people are hungry it’s hard to talk about change.”