Hayesville could face legal action over homeless shelter

The proposed New Life Women's Center would need a zoning exception to operate.

The Town of Hayesville could face legal action by preventing a zoning exemption requested by the New Life Women’s Center.

The town council received letters from law offices in Chicago and Washington, D.C. after Hayesville’s planning and zoning board unanimously recommended that no zoning exception be made for the proposed homeless shelter.

The shelter would accommodate women with addictions and drinking problems, or “disabled” individuals.

“The [Fair Housing] Act demands that municipalities, such as the Town of Hayesville, change the manner in which its zoning ordinances are applied to afford the disabled the same opportunity to housing as those who are not disabled,” wrote Steven G. Polin, Attorney at Law.

Brenda Cormack, the shelter’s executive director, submitted a bevy of documents to the town on April 9, including the letters from attorneys, local letters of support, and a petition with 144 signatures. Of the signatures, only nine represent Town of Hayesville residents, Zoning Administrator George Schaaf said.

“…We urge you to consider…the risks to the Hayesville community of ruling against the New Life Women’s Center contrary to federal law,” Attorney John Mauck wrote. “The consequences for depriving the New Life Women’s Center of their federal right could include a claim for damages and attorneys’ fees in Federal District Court.”

The law offices learned of the case by reading a Sentinel article on the Internet, Cormack noted.

“I did not even ask for help,” she said. “I did not seek this; they came to me.”

Polin said he first became involved in the case three weeks ago.

“I was contacted by Brenda Cormack,” he said. “She’s the one who contacted me.”

Cormack emphasized Polin’s statement that municipalities refusing to make a “reasonable accommodation” in zoning policies violates specific laws.

Mauck said that the zoning board faced “apparent pressure from other social service ‘competitors’ in the community,” and could be facing a “zoning discrimination” suit.

“Federal law and the North Carolina Constitution protect religiously motivated ministries of individuals and institutions that are restricted by zoning laws…” he wrote.

The homeless shelter is also considered a dwelling under the law, Cormack said.

“I don’t think my opinion matters because at this point we have two letters from lawyers that cite a lot of things that I know nothing about,” town councilman Harry Baughn said.

At Baughn’s encouragement, the council tabled the issue so that the town attorney, Merinda Woody, could inspect the legal case.

“Hopefully, the will of the residents here will get to be heard and it will not be just a decision made by lawyers,” he said. “But at this point, I don’t know.”

Too much help and not enough need?

The town council paused for story time Monday.

School board candidate John Martin told of a modern-day good samaritan who helped a traveler after his car broke down and a brutal fight had left him for dead.

Yet Hayesville tells a very different story, councilman Harry Baughn responded.

“If you broke down on the side of the road here,” he said, “the only fight that almost breaks out is from all the people trying to help you.”

Indeed, the town council listened to heated controversy from representatives of two women’s shelters April 12, each fighting to offer services to a seemingly invisible homeless population.

Sheriff Joe Shook said he asked every deputy and officer if anyone had been seen sleeping under cars or bridges.

“They say, ‘No, we don’t have anybody. We haven’t seen anybody,’” he said. “If we’ve got somebody here from Clay County, we’ll help them. But if we bring somebody here from [another] county, I’m afraid they’re not going to want to leave. Does that bring crime to our county? Yes, I think so… Then, it starts pulling on our social programs.”

Shook indicated that he was asked to talk to the town council by representatives from Reach, the county’s currently existing shelter.

After facing complaints from the town’s planning and zoning board that a homeless shelter would bring problems from across the state line into Clay County, Executive Director Brenda Cormack told the town council that she would no longer accept women from other states at her proposed New Life Women’s Center.

“Originally, my mission was to help any woman that was in need,” she said.

Since the issue first arose, she said, a woman in Towns County decided to open up a shelter for women from both Towns and Union Counties. Nevertheless, Cormack’s shelter would still serve individuals from Cherokee, Clay, Graham and Macon Counties.

“We’ve been sending our homeless women to Cherokee County for the past 15 years….with not one penny of assistance to help,” she said. “So I’m not concerned about the fact that I’ll be caring for women that are coming from Cherokee or from Macon County…”

Cormack said the New Life Women’s Center would be faith-based, but nondenominational.

“We believe that with the Word, it makes a difference in the women’s lives,” she said.

Judith Alvarado, executive director of Reach, Clay County’s current women’s shelter, said she believed New Life would duplicate services, despite the emphasis on faith.

“We have Bibles in everyone’s room and if the clients want, we will transport them to church and also take them to events,” she said.

Reach is never full, Alvarado said, noting that three women are currently at the shelter which can hold up to ten.

Baughn said the town council is charged to be compassionate to Hayesville residents first and foremost.

“One of these attorney’s letters indicated that this would not be a financial burden on the town, but guess what? It’s become a financial burden,” he said. “I don’t know what it’s going to cost us for the town attorney.”

Citizens say the need is real

“Homelessness does exist in Clay County,” local real estate broker Debbie Woody told Hayesville’s Town Council Monday. “I’m telling you it’s coming, it’s getting worse, and some of it’s already here.”

Woody said people have pleaded with her that they’re about to lose their home.

“We need to get prepared now,” she said. “I don’t think the Lord gave us a vision for this homeless shelter for nothing. It sure wasn’t something that I wanted to take on. I needed this like another hole in my head. I’ve got enough to do… You can wait until they’re camped out here on the courthouse lawn or you can try to prepare a facility to take care of some of this.”

Local resident Robin Miller said she wondered if the shelter would go back “to the drawing board” if any residents were harmed by its participants.

“It sounds like a great idea by sincere people,” she said. “I’m wondering about the execution of the idea in this county instead of in a larger city where the problem is right there. Instead of bringing the problem to us, wouldn’t it make more sense…to take it to a larger county?”

Michelle Updike said the sheriff’s office was familiar with a homeless family that stayed in a camper trailer she provided on her property last year. Updike aid she placed dozens of people in homes last year.

“Some of these agencies rejected these people when I called,” she said. “I took a handicapped boy in my home for six months. I didn’t ask for food stamps, welfare, nothing. He stayed in my home and I paid for everything.”

Many local churches are getting involved in the effort, Updike said.

“Sometimes it’s easy to say they’re problems, but they’re not problems if we’re here to help,” she said. “There are a lot of kids in our school systems who have no families… It’s here.”

Sheriff Joe Shook said he was worried about people who would abuse the system.

“There’s not a more compassionate guy in this room than I am,” Shook said.

When his daughter was 18 she became a heavy drug user and told every church in the county that she had no money, Shook said.

“She had plenty of money and she had a bedroom to stay in and a house to live in,” he said. “Just like her there’s other people who won’t do what their mommy and daddy says.”

Shook said he pays his daughters bills every month, even today.

The central problem is determining how many people are just taking advantage of local programs, he said.

“There’s nobody who’s had any more problems than I have with children and drugs,” Shook continued. “How many people are going from place to place to try to get something and then move on to the next place? My own daughter done that, right here in this county.”

Living Word Revival Center Pastor Valerie Swisher said she wasn’t at the meeting as a representative for Brenda Cormack.

“I get phone calls every day of women with children who have nowhere to live and they beg me to sleep in my [church's] gym,” she said.

Swisher said the shelter was simply a good thing.

“We’re fighting to open a place to help somebody,” she said. “We should really go home and ask God to forgive us.”

Cormack is the one offering to do all the work, Swisher said.

“She’s getting the grants, she’s going to take care of it, she’s getting volunteers, she’s doing whatever needs to be done and we’re putting it in your hands to make a decision,” Swisher said. “I really wouldn’t want to be in your position.”

“How can you say ‘we have one place that takes care of people?’” resident Mary Ables asked the town council. “Does that mean we could only have one bookstore? And, praise God, maybe only one bar?”

Editor’s notes:

• Sheriff Shook said “I was asked by these ladies here…” in response to questioning about if he was at the meeting in an official capacity. Shook later clarified that no one asked him to attend the meeting and he volunteered to come.

• Brenda Cormack clarified that Mauck contacted her without her prompting. After that time a local suggested she contact Polin, she said.