By the time you read this, there could be a lot of hungry homeless people in Pinellas Park.
The Suncoast Haven of Rest Mission, a soup kitchen for the homeless and a staging area for several poverty-reducing programs, is embroiled in a battle with the city over a zoning ordinance. If the mission loses, it will have to stop serving the nearly 100 meals a day that feed the majority of homeless in Pinellas Park.
The controversy began in 1990 when the Pinellas Park City Council denied a request by Dr. George Good — then executive director of Haven of Rest — to open a soup kitchen at the mission. Good sued and the two parties eventually settled: Good was given permission to open the soup kitchen if the mission satisfied a city zoning code requiring at least 25 parking spaces. Though there was no space for a parking lot, a St. Petersburg Times substation two doors away allowed the church to use its parking lot during normal business hours.
But the Times sold its property this year and, in a Sept. 20 letter to Haven of Rest, Assistant City Manager Thomas Shevlin instructed the mission to find new parking spaces, file a zoning variance or cease all soup kitchen activities.
To Reverend Lionel Cabral, executive director of the mission since 1997, it all seems ridiculous.
"They say there are parking problems, but these are homeless people," he says, exasperated. "They don't have cars!"
Cabral says he has filed two 30-day extensions since the Sept. 20 letter, but the city will not allow any additional extensions. If he does not find parking by Dec. 20, he must discontinue feeding the homeless. He says it's just the latest attempt by the city to shut down Haven of Rest.
"This town is coming down on us because they don't want homeless people in Pinellas Park," he says as volunteers serve 40 street people a pasta casserole. "If it's not parking, they'll find something else and get us on that. They want us to leave."
Assistant City Manager Shevlin says it has nothing to do with how the city feels about the mission — it's just a matter of following the law.
"There was an agreement, and they need to live up to that," he says, adding that if Haven of Rest does not comply, the city may impose fines or take them back to court.
Shevlin admits the mission has caused numerous problems in the area since opening in 1988. Business owners complain the homeless destroy their property and create a seedy atmosphere. Earlier this year, a homeless man punched City Councilman Rick Butler, who owns a funeral home adjacent to the mission.
"It's a two-edged sword," Shevlin says of the mission. "There is a positive — they are helping poor people — but they are also creating problems with the surrounding businesses."
But Homeless advocates caution that eliminating services will not get rid of Pinellas Park's homeless; it may even make the situation worse.
"Their goal is to push the homeless people out," says Dave Terhune, a pastor at Pinellas Park Wesylan Church who preaches at Haven of Rest once a week. "If they think they are going to make them go away by not feeding them, they won't. The homeless population is growing."
He pauses for a moment and warns, "A hungry man is a desperate man."
This article appears in Dec 20-26, 2006.