ST. LOUIS — The owners of a shuttered downtown homeless shelter sued the city Monday, saying officials have illegally blocked them from reopening as a church and resource center for the poor.
The Rev. Larry Rice, of New Life Evangelistic Center, said the city has revoked permits he needs to reopen simply because it doesn’t like the homeless.
“This has been a direct discrimination against our clientele,†Rice said on Monday. “We’re going to move this all the way to the Supreme Court if we have to.â€
"Where is the humanity in evicting people at this hour," said an emotionally and physically exhausted the Rev. Larry Rice of the New Life Evangelistic Center, with eyes welled up in tears as he prays for the residents of a homeless tent encampment as they were threatened with imminent eviction on Tuesday, Oct. 3, 2023, in front of City Hall in St. Louis.
Nick Dunne, a spokesman for the city, declined comment on pending litigation.
Rice and his lieutenants have cast their new plans for 1411 Locust Street as a clean break with the old days, when they packed hundreds of people into the building each night, attracted complaints from neighbors about vagrancy and public urination, and got shut down for code violations.
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They say they just want to offer church services, a food pantry, free supplies and counseling. And maybe a place for people to go when it’s cold. They say they will only be open during the day and that closing time will be well before bedtime.
But neighbors don’t believe them. Shortly after New Life got its latest permit to renovate their century-old building on Locust and bring it up to code, neighbors represented by longtime downtown resident and advocate Matt O’Leary filed an appeal.
Their attorney, Elkin Kistner, told a city review board that that even with the renovations, the building wouldn’t be up to code. Kistner argued that if the city allowed Rice to reopen at all, he’d eventually restart the old shelter operation.
The Rev. Larry Rice prays with Gino McCoy, who is living in the tent camp in front of St. Louis City Hall with his pregnant wife and three dogs, as tent residents were threatened with eviction on Monday, Oct. 2, 2023. McCoy, originally from Phoenix, arrived in St. Louis three weeks ago.
The city review board ultimately revoked New Life’s permit. Board members said that if Rice wanted to open a shelter, he should follow the city’s rules for doing so.
Those rules require operators to turn in signatures from a majority of registered voters or property owners within 500 feet of their operations — a tall order for New Life given its history with the neighborhood.
Instead, New Life is accusing the city review board of misinterpreting the building code, relying heavily on unsubstantiated evidence it shouldn’t have, and violating its religious freedom.
Longtime homeless advocate Rev. Larry Rice of the New Life Evangelistic Center reflects on the removal of the tent encampment outside St. Louis City Hall. Video by Laurie Skrivan, lskrivan@post-dispatch.com
