Why Should Delaware Care?
Dover leaders denied a funding request by the People’s Church, one of the few homeless shelters in the city, at a recent committee meeting. The denial comes on the heels of extended controversy over the state of panhandling, drug use and homelessness in Delaware’s capital city.
In the midst of continued debate over panhandling and homelessness in Dover, city leaders have turned their ire toward the People’s Church Community Center, a homeless shelter in the heart of the city.
Dover City Council’s Committee of the Whole – a committee made up of all nine council members and two additional community members – voted unanimously at a meeting on Feb. 26 to deny the church’s request for $47,000 in city funds to be spent on workforce development programs at the shelter.
The shelter, considered to be one of the few homeless service centers in the resource desert that is Kent County, has served nearly 500 people since October 2025 alone, director Teresa Campbell Harris told Spotlight Delaware. The church, which Harris described as “low barrier,” serves daily meals and operates as a Code Purple overnight shelter in the winter months.
But city council members and residents in attendance at last week’s meeting waged a series of criticisms against the shelter, including that it is a “magnet” for individuals doing drugs or engaging in prostitution outside the building.
City Council President Fred Neil railed against the shelter during the meeting, saying the city received 17 “articulate letters” complaining about the People’s Church. He also said the city has received threats of a lawsuit over the shelter, but did not say from whom.
“The services offered at the center have become a magnet for individuals whose actions are systematically destroying the quality of life and devaluing the property of residents,” Neil said at the meeting.
But leaders of the People’s Church rebuked these attacks, saying at the meeting that council members have “factual misunderstandings” about the way the shelter is run.
The shelter, officially known as “The People’s Community Center,” is housed in the same building as the People’s Church of Dover at 46 S. Bradford St. That address is a mere 800 feet away from the properties where the city is currently undertaking a large-scale downtown revitalization project, including building a parking garage and apartment complex.
Neil drew an explicit connection between the downtown revitalization efforts and his concerns with the People’s Church, saying people are moving out of “stately homes” on New Street, Bradford Street and Governor’s Avenue due to the conditions outside the shelter.
He also said the city has received a complaint from the State Department of Health that the sanitation in the shelter’s kitchen is violating state code.
According to food establishment inspection reports published on the Department of Health website, the shelter has had a number of violations between February 2024 and January 2026, including improper cleaning of tools and cross contamination concerns.
Cameron Llewellyn, who runs a construction company with an office next door to the church, wrote one of the 17 opposition letters. He gave an impassioned public comment at last week’s meeting about the impact the church has on his business.
“People that show up at that center, we find them in the bushes behind our building,” Llewellyn said. “And the next day we have to call the paramedics because they have a needle hanging out of their arm and they look like they’re dead.”
The church responds
While city council members and residents in attendance were aligned in their opposition to the shelter’s operations, organizers of the People’s Church defended their efforts both at the meeting and in a follow up interview with Spotlight Delaware.
Derrick Hodge, the lead pastor at the People’s Church, attended the council committee meeting and spoke in response to the accusations waged against the shelter.
Hodge said the center is “perfectly compliant” with relevant codes, and that he believes the organization has the same goals as the city council, to improve the quality of life “for all Dover residents and all of our neighborhoods.”
In a follow up interview, Campbell Harris, the shelter director, and Sue Harris, a coordinator for the shelter, said they, like council members, are upset by the people that gather on Bradford Street near their facility.
But the people congregating outside are not using the shelter’s services, they said.
“We are victims, just like the neighborhood,” Harris said. “The people standing like zombies around the streets, they don’t come to us. We don’t let them inside.”
Harris added that these people used to hang around other areas downtown, like Governor’s Avenue and Queen Street, but they were “squeezed” out of those areas, so now they happen to gather in the alleys near the People’s Church.
She acknowledged that the shelter has gotten some criticism in the past for not requiring sobriety to use their services, but she feels committed to being “low barrier.”
Harris added that many of the people utilizing the shelter’s meals and overnight housing already have a job, or are working toward other goals, like getting mental health counseling.
While Campbell Harris and Harris said receiving the $47,000 grant from the city would have been helpful, the pair said they will be able to stay afloat with other funding sources, including a $350,000 grant they are slated to receive from the next round of Prescription Opioid Distribution Settlement Commission funds.
Brad Owens, director of the opioid settlement commission, said his committee is working to ensure there is a “rigorous budget and oversight framework” in place before they allocate the funds to the shelter.
Harris said the People’s Church is already working on ways it can set the record straight with the city, including filming a documentary about the shelter and bringing “hundreds and hundreds of supporters” to testify in front of the city council.
“There’s so much misinformation,” she said, “and people do not understand all sides.”
Maggie Reynolds is a Report for America corps member and Spotlight Delaware reporter who covers rural communities in Delaware. Your donation to match our Report for America grant helps keep her writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by visiting https://spotlightdelaware.org/support/.
