Officials with the Augusta Fire Department conducted an inspection on May 1 of the Mercy Ministries homeless shelter and thrift shop located at 2034 Broad Street and found more than enough code violations to shut the shelter down.
Fire Marshal’s Office inspectors also conducted a surprise inspection of The Salvation Army’s Center of Hope shelter on Greene Street and found no major issues.
Volunteers of Mercy Ministries were setting out tables in front of the Broad Street property on Saturday, May 13, but manager Larry Johns confirmed that the building was not open to the public and said he had no information as to when or if the facility might reopen.
The closure of Mercy Ministries has caused a surge in homeless people wandering the streets at night and is taxing the already thinly stretched resources of other aid agencies.
At the Broad Street site, inspectors found emergency exits blocked, non-functioning emergency lights, open electrical panels, exposed wiring, missing ceiling tiles and inoperable smoke detectors, according to documents obtained by an open records request.
The decision was made by inspectors Jermaine Jennings and John Payne to shut the shelter down immediately despite the protests of the group’s Executive Director Fran Oliver, who claimed that persons were staying overnight at the non-profit business due to a lack of any other organization that would allow them to stay overnight, according to the fire marshal’s report.
However, Derek Dugan, director of development for The Salvation Army, which runs the city’s largest homeless shelter, says that claim is not exactly accurate. Dugan says that it is the Salvation Army’s policy not to allow certain offenders is being waived in some cases for now.
He is referring to the policy against allowing violent offenders or sex offenders into the Center of Hope shelter so as to protect the other people seeking relief, among those people are families and children.
Other people may be banned for aggressive behavior or continued drug or alcohol issues and those are the only ones being given a bit of leniency and allowed to re-enter the Center for Hope.
“We have had people that have been banned in the past for their behavior, but we don’t want them to be stranded on the street due to the closing of Mercy Ministries. We are allowing those folks, with the exception of violent offenders and sex offenders, back in as long as they agree to begin casework within ten days,” Dugan said.
Because Mercy Ministries receives little to no government funding, the organization is not required to vet the people offered temporary housing.
Now that the Broad Street location has been shut down, other aid agencies are being inundated with homeless people seeking aid.
Nomi Stanton, executive director of the faith-based GAP Ministries, says that at last week’s Thursday Morning Services, the relief agency was flooded by a “different kind of crowd.”
“We normally see people lining up outside around 30 minutes before we open at 9 a.m. Last Thursday there was a crowd that extended through the parking lot starting at 7, and many of them were clearly high on something. It was kind of scary at times,” Stanton said.
According to Dugan, caseworkers from Mercy Ministries have been bringing entire families to The Salvation Army’s shelter.
Mercy Ministries has, over the past two decades, been accused of enabling drug abusers and even the criminal element through its shelters and boarding houses according to past media reports and residents living in the Harrisburg neighborhood.
Harrisburg resident and community activist, Lori Davis, says she has battled for years to get Mercy Ministries to adhere to code ordinances and abide by community standards.
“I did everything I could do. The city just would not act when they had the power to. It took a judge to get that boarding house on Crawford Avenue shut down. Then (Oliver) sold the building for over $115,000, and the new owner has boarded it up, so it remains an eyesore,” Davis said.
According to property records, Oliver and Mercy Ministries was gifted the 20 acre former Castleberry’s factory located on 15th Street by the owners in 2010. The nonprofit then sold the building and property in 2014 for $500,000. The property was purchased by former Georgia Sen. Don Cheeks, and he later resold it for $1.14 million after making improvements on the property.
Oliver and her nonprofit have also come under the scrutiny of law enforcement. According to former Augusta district attorney and now Columbia County Assistant DA Natalie Paine, the Crimes Against the Vulnerable and Elderly Task Force (CARE), while it was up and running, launched an investigation after accusations were made that Oliver required boarders to turn over their Social Security checks directly to her.
“They were our primary target. There were a lot of complaints that had substance, the investigation was active when I left the Augusta DA’s office,” Paine said.
Paine also confirmed that she faced political pressure not to prosecute Oliver, and she ignored the attempted strong-arming.
After the 2020 election , which ushered in the administration of Jared Williams, the CAVE unit folded because all of the staff on the task force were not going to be staying in the District Attorney’s Office.
Williams then created the Special Victims Unit to replace CARE. The investigation may still be ongoing, but Williams says he cannot comment on whether the investigation remains active.
Despite repeated attempts, Oliver could not be reached for comment.
Scott Hudson is the Senior Investigative Reporter and Editorial Page Editor for The Augusta Press. Reach him at scott@theaugustapress.com
