Dover, Delaware, City Council committee denies People’s Church shelter funding request, citing concerns

Dover City Council’s Committee of the Whole voted unanimously at a Feb. 26 meeting to deny a $47,000 request from the People’s Church for city funds to support workforce development programs at its homeless shelter. The committee includes all nine council members and two additional community members. The denial came amid continued debate over panhandling and homelessness in Dover, the capital of Delaware.

The shelter, officially called The People’s Community Center, is one of the few homeless service centers in Kent County, which Spotlight Delaware described as a resource desert. Director Teresa Campbell Harris told Spotlight Delaware that the shelter has served nearly 500 people since October 2025 alone. She described the church as “low barrier.” It serves daily meals and operates as a Code Purple overnight shelter during the winter months. Providing meals to people who are hungry, as the shelter does each day, reflects hospitality toward neighbors in need (Matthew 25:35).

At the meeting, council members and residents raised a series of criticisms of the shelter, including that it is a “magnet” for individuals using drugs or engaging in prostitution outside the building. City Council President Fred Neil said the city had received 17 “articulate letters” complaining about the People’s Church. He also said the city had received threats of a lawsuit over the shelter but did not say from whom. Neil said 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.”

The shelter is housed in the same building as the People’s Church of Dover at 46 S. Bradford St., about 800 feet from properties where the city is undertaking a large-scale downtown revitalization project that includes a parking garage and an apartment complex. Neil connected the revitalization efforts to his concerns, saying residents are moving out of “stately homes” on New Street, Bradford Street and Governor’s Avenue because of conditions outside the shelter.

Neil also said the city had received a complaint from the State Department of Health that sanitation in the shelter’s kitchen violates state code. Food establishment inspection reports published on the Department of Health website show a number of violations at the shelter 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 to the church, wrote one of the 17 opposition letters and spoke at the meeting about the church’s impact on his business. He said people who visit the center are found behind his building, and that his company has had to call paramedics for them.

Derrick Hodge, lead pastor of the People’s Church, spoke at the committee meeting in response to the criticisms. He said the center is “perfectly compliant” with relevant codes and that the organization shares the council’s goal of improving quality of life “for all Dover residents and all of our neighborhoods.” Leaders of the church said council members have “factual misunderstandings” about how the shelter operates.

In a follow-up interview with Spotlight Delaware, Campbell Harris and Sue Harris, a shelter coordinator, said they share the council members’ concern about people who gather on Bradford Street near the facility.

Source: Read the original report