Six years after St. Louis city forced it to close, New Life Evangelistic Center will stay shuttered despite an effort to bring the former homeless shelter back as a church.
The city’s Board of Building Appeals unanimously sided with neighbors of the former shelter in Downtown West, who appealed the city’s decision to grant New Life a building permit to renovate the space at 1114 Locust Street.
Reverend Larry Rice, who founded the shelter in 1976, is trying to reopen New Life Evangelistic Center as a church with a food pantry, office space, a free store, internet and counseling for the unhoused. It would only keep day-time hours.
Numerous building code violations and overcrowding, as well as vocal complaints from neighbors, led to the shelter’s closure in 2017. With a 32-bed hotel permit, more than 300 people were staying at the shelter during cold winter months, and the city has struggled to maintain access to a 24/7, no-barrier shelter to house them since forcing New Life’s closure.
But Downtown West residents and developers see New Life as a magnet for crime and violence. They don’t buy New Life’s claim that things will be different this time.
“They’re trying to say it’s going to be a day center, or a church, or something that’s not a homeless shelter so they can get around the zoning and property maintenance code prohibitions at that location, ” says Matt O’Leary, a real-estate developer and member of Citizens for a Greater Downtown St. Louis.
The board of building appeals deliberated New Life’s fate for an hour on Thursday. Board member Gene Cullman described it as an “attractive nuisance.”
“Where are these homeless people going to come from, and after these hours are closed, where are the homeless people going to go again?” Cullman said.
On Monday, Rice told reporters he spent thousands of dollars to bring the building up to code. He vowed to file a federal lawsuit against the city if the appeals board rejected his bid. It wouldn’t be the first time Rice challenged the city in court — a judge previously dismissed a suit in which Rice argued the city’s attempts to shut down New Life violated the center’s religious freedom.
We reached out to New Life Evangelistic Center for comment and will update this story if we hear back.
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