GLOVERSVILLE, NY (NEWS10) – A pastor in Gloversville has an empty code blue shelter – Center of Hope – this year after it was closed by the city code due to commercial zoning restrictions. The Gloversville Free Methodist Church has no options after filing a complaint against the Gloversville Zoning Appeal Board.

Pastor Richard Wilkinson said the hardest part is when people show up at the gates of 33 Bleeker Street asking for shelter for the night and he has to refuse them.

Currently, the Center of Hope operates a soup kitchen on the first floor and provides meals to hungry people in the community. Upstairs, there are forty empty beds and hundreds of donations for a shelter they can’t manage. Wilkinson said his church has identified more than 80 people living solely on the streets of Gloversville.

“One is too much. If a person has to sleep in this [cold weather] that’s one too many, ”Wilkinson said. “We know at least two families with rough sleeping children in there.”

Wilkinson and a team of citizens set up a shelter in 2020 in a former YMCA at 33, rue Bleeker. However, prior to the winter opening, Gloversville City Code Enforcement Officer David Fox informed Wilkinson that the shelter was “not an acceptable use for premises located in the neighborhood. commercial and in the form overlay district ”.

“But we went back and forth and eventually the mayor agreed to give us a temporary occupancy permit for that year,” Wilkinson said.

The following year, the zoning council did not budge when the Hope Center appealed the decision.

“The reason we have these rules is that the developers, the contractors, the people who develop these buildings can trust these ordinances,” said Mayor Desantis.

The city’s solution was to partner with Wilkinson and the Interfaith Partnership for the Homeless and open a separate refuge at 144 East Fulton Street.

“The problem we ran into was that we didn’t have operational expenses,” said Gloversville Mayor Vincent Desantis.

Additionally, Wilkinson said the Fulton Street location had fewer than 10 beds and was too far from the downtown core for those without a home to walk with all of their belongings.

The Center of Hope board said it didn’t need the money to open the blue coded Bleeker Street shelter this winter, it just needed permission to open. .

Currently, no Code Blue shelters exist in Fulton County. Wilkinson has been tasked with sending those in need of shelter to social services in Johnstown several miles away.

“Their minds think, well, we want to beautify this community, we want to make it grow and the homeless don’t fit into this mix,” said Dolores Fleischut, founding board member.

According to Fulton County Social Services, those in need can contact Social Services and they will be staying in a hotel overnight.

“In 2021, Gloversville received funding from the federal government as part of the American Recovery
and Restructuring Act and city council voted to submit a use plan which included $ 200,000 to renovate
a building intended to serve as a permanent emergency shelter for those in need, ”Desantis said in a statement to News10 ABC. “It would provide more comprehensive services in terms of stabilization rather than just overnight rescue. An informal search was conducted for a possible site.

Center of Hope organizers have said they support the mayor’s shelter plan but hope the city will make an exception in the meantime.