Gastonia fire marshal says pastor can host homeless without beds to avoid fines

Kaci Jones
·4 min read
5
Gastonia fire marshal says pastor can host homeless without beds to avoid fines

GASTONIA, N.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS) — The Gastonia fire marshal says a local pastor can keep helping homeless people in the cold as long as there are no beds on the church property.

Pastor Moses Colbert at Faith Hope and Love Ministries has already been fined $100,000 for letting homeless people stay in and outside the church in recent years. He was served a letter Tuesday printed on Gastonia Fire Department letterhead threatening more fines if he opens an emergency shelter on his property.

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“When I got the letter, my mind went back to when they sued me back in September and I’m thinking they’re building the case so they can sue me again,” Colbert said. “That’s the part that scared me. You know, I got sued for having 200 people on the property back then.”

The city and Gaston County fund law enforcement for an emergency shelter at Salvation Army on Broad Street. It is open for 30 people who must be out by 6 a.m. every day when the temperatures are freezing. 

Pastor Colbert says on cold mornings he waits outside the shelter in the church bus to take people to Faith Hope and Love on Oakland Avenue to feed them and give them a place to stay warm during the day.

“Can you imagine sitting out in the cold at 12 degrees? It’s just not a good place to be, you know, and these people go through this all the time and they’ve all but given up hope,” Colbert said. “I feel like we are the only lifeline they got so we can’t afford to just turn our backs on them.”

The latest data from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) shows 388 people in the Gastonia area were unhoused the night of the most recent count from 2023.

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Colbert is not allowed to let people sleep in his church because the fire marshal says it is not up to code. Violations include a lack of a manual fire alarm inside the church. Gastonia Fire Marshal Chris Stowe says he received named and anonymous tips that said Colbert was planning to open a cold-weather shelter during the freeze this week.

“If somebody is asleep and there was an emergency, how would they get out?” he asked How would they get out safely? How would a fire alarm alert them that something was going on?”

Stowe says people experiencing homelessness can go to the Salvation Army shelter to sleep where the building is up to code.

“They have a building that was designed to be operated like that,” he explained. “It has sprinkler, it has a fire alarm, it actually has a kitchen suppression system to feed as well.”

Stowe says Colbert’s daytime operation isn’t breaking any rules, but any beds or cots could run the risk of another fine.

“I told him you can bring [people] in, you can put them in pews. You can do church activities and keep them out of the cold,” Stowe said. “What you can’t do because of the North Carolina Fire Code and the North Carolina Building Code is housing them in your church, have beds and cots and things like that and the reason is, is because Section 319 in the North Carolina Fire Code.”

In December, Pastor Moses Colbert said there were clear signs someone had been inside Faith, Hope, and Love Community Enrichment Ministries and ruined his food supply for the homeless.
In December, Pastor Moses Colbert said there were clear signs someone had been inside Faith, Hope, and Love Community Enrichment Ministries and ruined his food supply for the homeless.

The shelter at Salvation Army is open from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. It has a capacity of 30 people in the emergency shelter and 64 people at the Center of Hope.

“[Salvation Army] should never put them out in the cold in no 20-degree weather. They are the ones getting all the resources,” Colbert said. “They’re the ones that are getting funded. We’re not getting funded, and they made sure that we wouldn’t get funded. So, they should have a moral obligation to these people and they’re not doing it. The city has an obligation to these people and they’re not stepping up and doing it.”

Moses is brainstorming how to host a service for people when temperatures are freezing. If you’d like to help Colbert and his mission, he says he is looking for churches to partner to help him and he is always taking monetary, food and hygiene donations.

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