Religious nonprofit picks up trash to keep north St. Louis homeless encampment open

A local religious nonprofit picked up trash at a homeless encampment in north St. Louis on Wednesday, hoping to keep it from being shut down by the city.

Staff and volunteers at New Life Evangelistic Center hauled off dozens of 50-gallon trash bags from the area, which is known as Pallet Yard, where roughly 30 people currently stay near 10th Street and Cass Avenue.

"It's what's needed right now. I pray that people turn their eyes upon it, and they're able to do something to make somebody else's life better," said Anthony Vote, who's on staff with the nonprofit. "That's all we try to do every day."

Until last week, the camp had a large dumpster, which had been donated. Since then, it's disappeared, and garbage had been piling up, said Kevin Roberts, one of the camp's leaders.

Pallet Yard occupants are in the process of starting paperwork to get a new dumpster from the city, Roberts said. Getting a new one remains a top priority for the advocates too.

"There is a need for a dumpster here — and then to be serviced regularly — so that people can live in decent conditions," said the Rev. Raymond Redlich, the center's vice president.

New Life staff members worry that if trash had continued to pile up, that would give the City of St. Louis a reason to break up the camp, which they said happened recently at another location on Vandeventer Avenue south of Forest Park and north of Chouteau.

"It's the unsanitary conditions," Vote said. "It's just another excuse for them to step in and push them out of this area."

Pallet Yard sits on land owned by Paul McKee's NorthSide Regeneration, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. It's harder for the city to intervene because the encampment is on private property, 14th Ward Alderman Rasheen Aldridge told the newspaper.

A representative of Mayor Tishaura Jones' office could not immediately be reached for comment on Wednesday.

In addition to collecting garbage, New Life said it served sandwiches and donated bottles of water, which staff are observing a growing need for, on Wednesday.

Redlich and Vote said St. Louis could use another homeless shelter — as they're also seeing a growing homeless population in the region.

The city shut down the nonprofit's shelter in Downtown West in 2017. Two years earlier, the city pulled its permit after deeming it a detriment to the neighborhood. New Life leaders have tried since to reopen, but they've been unsuccessful petitioning the city.

Now, they'll focus on keeping encampments, like Pallet Yard, open.

"A place like this is not the best situation," Redlich said. "But what's the alternative right now?"