Phila. Church Does End Run Around Shutdown Order
A Kensington church running an unlicensed homeless shelter plans to be open tonight despite a cease-and-desist order.
KYW's Lynne Adkins reports that officials at the Philadelphia Department of Licenses and Inspections yesterday told the Rev. Deborah Savage to shut down the nightly homeless shelter at the Hope Outreach United Church of Christ for failure to comply with local codes (see previous story).
So now, says Savage (at center in photo below), the church will be open for worship services from 10pm until 8am every day, through the end of the month.
And she admits that people may be found sleeping in the pews. After all, she admits, sleeping in church is a common occurrence on Sunday mornings:
"According to the zoning commissioner we are zoned to be a church and church assemble, and this is what we do. We worship, we pray. And as I've said before, many times we worship and pray and you fall asleep sitting right there."
She says that to comply with the cease-and-desist order, there will be no homeless men sleeping on mats.
(Photo #1 provided. Photo #2 by KYW's Lynne Adkins)
