Cruel eviction of low-income Hilton Head workers hits a hornet’s nest: The church

Hell hath no fury like a bunch of fired up church people.

Watch to see if that plays out on posh Hilton Head Island after 300 islanders in low-income working families were given 30 days to get out of their Chimney Cove Villas apartments.

It’s cruel to jerk that many lives around, but even more so when everyone knows there is nowhere for them to go.

Renters were blindsided by notices taped to their doors Aug. 12. Most of them were told cops would be at the door on Sept. 13 if they were not out. Some said they were told they would not be getting their deposit back.

The little complex built in 1973 for worker housing will be replaced by higher-end condos that no one living there now could afford.

We’ve seen low-income housing wiped out before on Hilton Head: a trailer park razed here, an apartment complex converted to timeshares there.

But this one — maybe because of the pure cruelty of the notices — has struck a nerve.

This housing crisis is not an abstract — oh, there’s nothing we can do; it happens all the time; it happens everywhere. It is personal. Everyone can see the harm it does when everything — home, job, school, bank account, transportation — gets yanked away from hard-working people.

CHURCH POWER

Chimney Cove, which non-English-speaking residents often call Chiminey Cove, lies along William Hilton Parkway, next door to Christ Lutheran Church.

Its pastor June Wilkins is new to Hilton Head, but not new to injustices dumped on what her Bible calls “the least of these” in society.

Churches can quit praying up their respective silos and band together to do as they are commanded to do, and she knows it because she has seen it in previous pastorates in Columbus, Ohio, Austin, Texas and New York City.

“We have a voice in our churches and in our city to say we want people treated compassionately, with kindness,” she told me.

“Churches could have a voice in many things. We have access to people. We have access to funds. We have power as a group. We can shout for the gospel.”

She recited Micah 6:8 from the Old Testament: “And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”

Dumping people on the street is not an act of mercy.

Failing to be compassionate to the people you are making money off of is not just, or moral.

“We’re a better voice together,” Wilkins said. “All religions have the same values. We all have passion for the widow, the orphan, the outcast. We have that mission in our Scriptures, no matter what denomination or religion you are. That’s usually where our focus goes.”

HILTON HEAD POWER

The Town of Hilton Head Island cannot stop the redevelopment.

No zoning is to be changed. And property owners have constitutional property rights.

But is this who we are as a people?

Wilkins has seen gentrification force out workers in Columbus. But there are more housing options in a larger place. Hilton Head is so small, losing one complex causes a crisis.

But that smaller community size could be turned into a strength. Wilkins was stunned to be able to sit down with the mayor and town manager on this topic.

“I tried for five years to get a sit-down meeting with the mayor in another city and he wouldn’t do it,” she said.

Hilton Head’s church pews are lined with people of great expertise and power who can figure out something we can do on housing, Wilkins said. The community depends on it.

“To have a town with nothing in it but rich people is unsustainable,” Wilkins said. “We all need that diversity.”

They may not stop Chimney Cove from being bulldozed, but maybe they can instill some standards for treating people that the city could enforce.

Christ Lutheran Church faced a different type of civic dust-up when a former pastor did battle with Town Hall to prevent a Hooters restaurant with its scantily-clad waitresses from coming in across the street. He lost that one, but Hooters is long gone. Maybe that’s an omen.

This weekend, Christ Lutheran Church will host a gathering of Chimney Cove residents to try to match them up with any resources that may help untangle their lives.

“What I really want right now,” Wilkins said, “is more time for these people. And give them their deposits back.”