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Because of a federal grant to improve the property, holding church services there violates the law, says the city.
By WAVENEY ANN MOORE and BRYAN GILMER
© St. Petersburg Times, published November 24, 2002
ST. PETERSBURG -- The city of St. Petersburg has ordered a landlord who used federal funds to renovate his property to evict a church to which he is renting space.
The order has upset the Rev. Joseph Myrick Jr., 59, pastor of Mount Ebal Primitive Baptist Church. He says he has nowhere to go and will continue to hold services for his congregation of 10 at his storefront church, 1235 22nd St. S. They meet today at 10 a.m.
"I'm not going anywhere, because I have not been given proper notification. I will be in place going about my father's business," he said Friday.
"My understanding is when you have a tenant and a tenant has to move, you have to give him proper time and notification to leave and they haven't done that," he said, referring to the city.
"I got this second hand."
Myrick conceded that his landlord, Raleigh Yates, has told him that he must move from the space he has rented for four years. The Yates property, which includes a barber shop on the ground floor and several apartments, was awarded $115,000 from the federal Community Development Block grant program for renovations. The street on which the property is located is in an area targeted by the city for redevelopment.
In a Nov. 14 letter, Joshua A. Johnson, the city's director of housing and community development, told Yates that federal regulations forbid the use of federal money "for the acquisition of property or the construction or rehabilitation (including historic preservation and removal of architectural barriers) of structures to be used for religious purposes."
Johnson told Yates that he should either "immediately discontinue allowing the church to hold services in the facility" or repay the city the $115,000 it provided to rehabilitate his building. Failure to comply, Johnson wrote, could result in the city foreclosing on the property.
Yates says he is caught in the middle.
"I came down to assist my brother Joe Yates in getting this project completed through the initiative with the city. He was ill. He was the barber, and it was his project," he said.
"He passed away last November. I had just come in to help him out with the legwork. I'm just carrying on and taking care of the business as he asked me to do," said Yates, who inherited the property.
Yates said no work was done in the space Myrick uses for his church.
"The renovation took place in the living quarters and the rear quarters, which were upgraded after being badly misused." he said, adding that he has no lease with Myrick, who only paid rent as he was able.
"I don't like to be put in the middle of it," said Yates, who believes the city handled the matter badly.
"You have to live with people. I don't need a lot of hassle."
Johnson is standing his ground.
"When agencies or people receive assistance from federal funds, particularly CDBG funds, if those funds are used to make improvements to a facility such as a business, one caveat is that once federal dollars are expended in that project, there is a separation of church and state requirement," Johnson said.
"If you receive community development block grant funds, no religious activities may occur. The regulation as it reads does not make a distinction where you can allocate your grant money to only one part of the building and let a church use an unimproved part."
There are times when government money is used to improve buildings used by religious organizations.
The city, for instance, is helping the historic Bethel AME Church, 912 Third Ave. N, to apply for grants to take care of exterior renovation, said Rick Smith, a planner with the city's Urban Design and Historic Preservation Division.
The church can get up to $40,000 from state and federal sources for historic preservation. The use of that money usually is restricted to paying for architectural designs for the restoration of a building or for public education purposes, Smith said.
Before she was elected to the City Council, Virginia Littrell helped her church, First United Methodist, in downtown St. Petersburg, win a $250,000 state grant. That money, though, could be used only for exterior work.
"There is precedence for churches receiving funding as long as they are part of the historic fabric of the community," Littrell said recently.
"(The state has) kind of gone back and forth on this the past few years," Smith said of how the grant could be used. The guidelines currently are that the money could be used for the exterior of a building or when necessary, to maintain the structural integrity of a building, Smith said.
In the case of the Yates property, the city is ordering Myrick's church out of the building immediately, Johnson said.
"All I have been trying to do is to do good," said Myrick.
"We are there in the name of the Lord. We are not there to cause any confusion. We're trying to lift up those who need to be lifted up, the homeless, the children and the widows."