The Warnerville United Methodist Church’s warming center has a date with the ZBA.
A public hearing on the effort is set for next Wednesday, January 4, 5pm at the Richmondville Fire House.
Specifically, the ZBA is being asked to interpret the Town of Richmondville’s Zoning Code and whether it permits things like the warming center.
The WUMC opened the warning center—overnight shelter-only for up to 10 people--in November and was promptly shut down under a cease and desist order alleging it isn’t a permitted use in the hamlet, and so violates the town’s zoning code.
In his request for the ZBA hearing and interpretation, attorney for the WUMC, Frederic Mauhs, said operation of the warming center “falls within its current zoning code authority as a ‘religious institution’ [and] the operation also falls within the Church’s First Amendment Rights.
“Therefore, no further permits from the Planning Board are required to operate the Warming Station and therefore the church may reopen the Warming Station immediately.”
While Richmondville’s Code Enforcement Officer Jay Belifore has also alleged building code violations—different from the zoning issue--Mr Mauhs wrote “Indeed, the Town has never alleged building code violations in writing, and hasn’t even conducted an inspection of the Warming Station.”
Under the state’s Code Blue law, counties must provide at least overnight housing for the homeless when temperatures fall below 32 degrees.
Without some sort of shelter or warming center, the county’s Department of Social Services is placing those people in hotels.
Catholic Charities, which is set to run the warming shelter in the church annex, has trained 20 people to work at the center, County Administrator Korsah Akumfi has said.
They’re now unemployed.
As of last Tuesday, Social Services Commissioner Donna Becker told supervisors, there were 66 people who were homeless here—48 adults and 18 children; the cost of putting them up in hotel rooms averages about $72 per room per night.
The county has been looking into the possibility of turning at least part of the old jail into a homeless shelter—though that’s likely a lengthy process and the county would have to find some non-profit agency to run it—if anyone’s even interested, she said.
All things considered—housing, transportation, and employees’ time—Ms. Becker said in the fall that she expected the bill for the helping out the county’s homeless population to total $1 million by year’s end.