ST. LOUIS ADVOCATE OPENS HOMELESS SHELTER IN CAPE

A new homeless shelter in Cape Girardeau, which opened last week, already has put up two transients, an indication of the city's "overwhelming" need for homeless services, says the center's St. Louis director.

The Rev. Larry Rice, director of the St. Louis New Life Evangelistic Center, opened the facility at 713 Morgan Oak to house homeless people and provide assistance to the city's poor.

Rice, a long-time Missouri homeless advocate who has similar facilities throughout the state, says Cape Girardeau is like many Missouri cities with a real, if not readily seen, homeless population.

"We believe that ... about 1,500 to 2,000 people in a given year will find themselves homeless in the Cape Girardeau area," Rice said. "I didn't know how critical the need was until I got here."

Rice said the homeless estimates are based on a formula his organization uses to compute the St. Louis homeless population. The formula is based on a percentage of people whose utility service is disconnected during the year. He also said many of the people are transients who need a place to stay and transportation to St. Louis.

But Cape Girardeau Police Chief Howard "Butch" Boyd said he knows of no homeless people in Cape Girardeau. He said the police department routinely deals with people who have been "thrown out" of their homes by relatives due to alcohol or drug use.

"I can't speak for the whole area, but for the city of Cape Girardeau, I find (Rice's estimate) far in excess of the homeless people in the city of Cape Girardeau," Boyd said.

"Generally, the people we run into have a home to go to, they just can't go home because their relatives won't let them in. As far as people that are actually living on the street, I know of no homeless in Cape Girardeau."

Rice admitted it's difficult to compute accurate numbers of homeless people. He said that one function of the center will be to try to keep poor residents from becoming homeless, through food and utility bill assistance.

"There are a lot of people living in a house with no lights, no water and no gas," he said. "They might as well be living in an abandoned house.

"People may not be houseless, but in the broader sense of the definition, they're certainly without a home."

Rice said Cape Girardeau is unique in the state in that one company, Union Electric, provides all the city's utilities. He maintained that when residents can't pay their single utility bill, all services are disconnected. He also cited the recent lack of bus service to the city as a need to provide transportation to allow transients to get to larger cities.

"Cape Girardeau is the only city of any size between Memphis and St. Louis," he said. "When people are traveling and see signs for Cape Girardeau, they assume that a city of this size would have services for the homeless and bus service.

"When they get here, they get stuck and the longer you end up on the streets in a particular community, the more apt you are in order to survive, to get locked into the cycles of the streets where people get notorious in a community.

"It develops a permanent underclass of homeless people."

But Boyd said the police department already provides shelter for transients through a program administered by the Salvation Army.

"The Salvation Army cooperates with us and provides night shelter for the people who are truly needy," he said.

Boyd also said the lack of bus service in Cape Girardeau has little effect on the transient traffic here.

"The truly transient, generally don't come in on transportation they've paid for, they generally come in on a train in South Cape or Scott City and walk to Cape Girardeau," he said. "So I don't know how the lack of bus service has anything to do with those people."

Boyd said there are already several organizations in Cape Girardeau that assist the poor with food, medicine and money for utility bills.

"I'm sure there's always a need for it," he added. "But I'm sure the problem's not nearly as big as he's reporting it."

Russell Faust, a volunteer with Fish Volunteers of Cape Girardeau, said that organization does a lot of the things Rice is planning.

"We basically started to provide emergency help with food," he said. "We help a lot of people that are broke down on the highway. We give them money for gas, for as far as $15 will take them.

"We give them bus tickets on certain conditions, but it has to be some type of emergency. We try to help the needy, but you got to watch the greedy."

Faust said Fish also provides money to help with utility bills for residents who have received disconnection notices.

Rice said that although there aren't people sleeping on Cape Girardeau park benches, there are homeless here.

"If they want to see homeless," he said of skeptics, "they can contact us and we'll take them to them. We're going to be investigating a report of a family living in an abandoned house outside of Cape Girardeau for the past two months."

Rice said the shelter will be open Sunday through Thursday nights. Food and utility assistance can be sought Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

He said the center will match residents $35 utility payments with $35. If a person doesn't have the $35 match, the center encourages them to sell a homeless newsletter to raise the funds.

"There are people in every community that can't pay their utilities and can't pay their rent," he said. "But one thing that's unique in the Cape Girardeau area is that people have a lot of pride.

"They won't come in for a handout, but when push comes to shove, they'll take a helping hand. We don't want to take the pride and dignity away from the poor.

"We're giving them a helping hand, not a handout," he said. "We also will distribute school supplies for needy children."

Rice said the center is run entirely on donations and doesn't receive any state or federal funds. The center can house up to four people, he added.

The Free Will Evangelical Center has homeless programs in several Missouri cities, including Springfield, Columbia, Kansas City, Jefferson City and St. Louis.