Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, April 9, 1990 TAG: 9004090377
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B3 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Medium
City officials admit there is little room for tradeoffs when it comes to choosing between the resort area's image as a tourist mecca and the needs of the homeless, whose numbers continue to grow at the oceanfront.
"While we have a public policy to revitalize the beachfront, it is not an appropriate place to put things that are opposite to the public policy," Hector A. Rivera, assistant city manager for human services, said during a recent City Council meeting.
"You don't open up community action agencies . . . at the beachfront. That may sound controversial, but that has been the policy," he said.
Resort-area activities should be geared instead toward tourists and families, he said.
Cypress Gardens, an abandoned oceanfront motel, had been used for shelter by up to 30 teens and young adults for the past three years. It was razed March 29, the latest of a series of efforts to reach that goal.
In the spring of 1988, homeless advocates protested plans to raze the old Marlin Manor motel on Pacific Avenue to make way for a road project. The city had it leveled after denying a request to use the building as a shelter. The city cited its liability, the cost of renovating and incompatibility with the resort area.
Also in the spring of 1988, the city refused requests that the old Arts Center be used for a day program for the homeless. The building was a fire trap, the city said. It became a parking lot.
Last winter, an emergency day center was established on Pacific Avenue to offer shelter from wintry temperatures. The program was extended through the spring, but a new home was found four miles from the oceanfront.
Two weeks ago, the Fire Escape on 17th Street said it would no longer allow homeless ministries to use its building for a soup kitchen or other activities for the homeless. Starting next month, free meals will be served at Virginia Beach Christian Outreach's dining hall, one mile inland.
"It's no secret," said Alice Taylor, director of St. Columba Ministries, which operates day and night shelter programs in winter. "The city thinks it doesn't bode well for them to have homeless where the tourists are."
Some businessmen were so eager to see the soup kitchen leave the oceanfront that they offered the landlord more than what the Fire Escape was paying to rent the building for storage space.
"It doesn't look good for the city or for the businesses," said Bill Margaritis, owner of the Puritan Steak & Seafood restaurant, on Atlantic Avenue at 17th Street. Margaritis said his main complaint was that patrons of the soup kitchen, located around the corner, brought their plates out onto the street, sat at the curb to eat and tossed their garbage in front of his restaurant.
"It gets worse and worse every year," he said. "I know we can't take them and dump them in the ocean, but where are we going to put them? I feel bad for them. They need someplace to go."
Richard H. Powell, an advocate for the homeless, sympathizes with the merchants' plight and agrees that the resort strip is not an appropriate environment for the homeless.
"It's not very helpful having a bunch of homeless bums hanging out in the middle of the resort area," said Powell, who runs a new shelter, The Shelter for Virginia Beach Christian Outreach, a mile from the beachfront.
Not only are the homeless a bad influence on the resort, Powell said, but the resort is a bad influence on the homeless. "There are too many opportunities to panhandle, steal and drink down there," he said.
The homeless also gather in the resort area for reasons other than the bars and the money they can collect from tourists with bulging wallets. The biggest reason is the huge market the resort creates for unskilled labor each summer.
Jeff Cantrell of Mothers Inc., another non-profit group that helps the poor and homeless, describes the labor vs. living conflict as an apartheid system.
"We want you the person to work here, but we don't want you the person to live here," Cantrell said. "That's South African. That's not American."
by CNB