A city zoning enforcement action prompted by citizen complaints threatens to slash services at an award-winning day shelter for homeless people in downtown Roanoke.

Residents and businesses frustrated by the activities of people without homes are pitted against a community provider offering services designed to help them, in this case The Least of These Ministry.

TLOT, as it is called, remained in normal operation Tuesday in spite of being ruled out of compliance Feb. 25 for having a portable toilet, lockers and wintertime “warming” buses outside its facility at 422 Luck Ave. SW. From the city’s perspective, what began as a food and clothing bank a couple of years ago morphed into an unauthorized housing provider with clients sleeping in buses.

Zoning Administrator Phillip Moore wrote in a five-page zoning determination letter that the operation has been the subject of “ongoing complaints from neighboring property owners and businesses.” There is at least one organized group that pushed the city to intervene.

The TLOT shelter started out as a supply pantry, a classification that applies to food banks and clothing banks, with an office, according to Roanoke officials. A certificate of occupancy was issued in January 2023 — a document Moore signed. 

A certificate of occupancy is a legal document that proves compliance with zoning regulations, building codes and similar mandates.

TLOT has since expanded, exceeded what it was originally permitted to do and now meets the definition of a regional housing provider, defined as a temporary housing site with support services, Moore wrote. The regulations don’t authorize that type of provider to operate anywhere downtown.

To get back in compliance, TLOT must curtail services, limit itself to indoor activities and obtain a new certificate of occupancy, the letter said. 

Executive Director Dawn Sandoval said in recent days she is talking to city officials and an attorney to formulate a formal response on behalf of her Christian ministry. Her initial response, she said, included surprise. The certificate the city granted back in 2023 ought to cover the operation today, because TLOT disclosed each core service — including the warming bus — to city inspectors at the time and “we haven’t expanded anything,” she said. 

If the services complied then, they should comply now, she argued. Rather than curtail, TLOT would like to expand the shelter's hours from three days a week to five days a week, she said. About 100 people living on the streets visit regularly for assistance, she said.

As it opened for the week Monday, clients enjoyed spaghetti, green beans and garlic bread for lunch. Some fiddled with the contents of the lockers, while others used the toilet. Hot showers were available, and the staff ran loads of laundry. 

The specific services being challenged provide community benefits, Sandoval said. The lockers provide people without homes secure storage for their personal property, reducing theft and loss. Fewer loose articles of clothing and bedding become trash for the city to pick up, she said. She argued that TLOT’s toilet is the only toilet in all of downtown that’s accessible 24 hours a day. It reduces public urination and defecation, is regularly cleaned and emptied and does not require a permit, she said.

Its warming buses provided a heated space for seated sleeping this winter to more than 332 different individuals before going out of service for the season in early March, according to the organization’s figures. 

“The warming bus program is something that the city has actually advertised on their citywide website over the winter as a crisis emergency shelter for unsheltered people,” Sandoval said.

Moore told her he was sticking to his original position when the two of them spoke after the 25th, Sandoval said.

“Short of getting legal counsel, I don’t know how else the situation will be resolved,” she said. She sees “differences in perception of what we’re doing.”

Moore stopped short of telling TLOT to close but gave TLOT 10 days to suspend the locker program and remove the toilet, a deadline that passed without apparent repercussions. Moore also set a 30-day deadline to petition the Roanoke Board of Zoning Appeals for relief if TLOT wishes.

The board hears appeals of zoning decisions and by majority vote can overrule Moore.

Sandoval was still consulting with her attorney Tuesday on whether to appeal.

The action against TLOT stems from vagrancy, loitering, trespassing and trash, all familiar quality-of-life concerns associated with proximity to homelessness. The city previously shut down camping near Roanoke-Blacksburg Regional Airport and on Church Avenue in front of the U.S. Postal Service. A bench sometimes used by homeless people outside a Crystal Spring restaurant was removed last year.

This time, a service provider with an established track record, and several awards, is in the crosshairs. A group of residents and business people from downtown’s West End and Old Southwest petitioned city leaders for relief from what they describe as conditions harming their neighborhoods attributable to TLOT. 

"TLOT has been expanding their original mission into a comprehensive service hub for transient persons that is non-compliant with local and state regulations, unusual, unsanitary and unsafe," the group wrote to city leaders in a Feb. 4 letter that spans nine pages.

Matt Prescott, who lives and works in the affected area, said the group doesn’t condemn homeless people or oppose efforts to assist them. But it wants homeless-services nonprofits to adhere to the same laws and regulations that all businesses follow.

“Even doing the Lord’s work has red tape involved. You can’t escape rules and regulations, nor can you be exempt from them,” Prescott said in an interview Tuesday.  

Prescott said he believes TLOT “would be better off to find a more suitable location where they could do everything they want to do. The services they are doing are fine, but they need to be doing it in a place where everything they want to do is already allowed.”

Sandoval founded TLOT and runs it, along with three other paid staff and about 50 volunteers on funding provided by grants and donations, though no city funds. Its day shelter, which rents space from Allendale Properties LLC, complements a broader program that also includes the placement of former unsheltered individuals into rental housing. 

The city action “has been a very crushing experience for me,” she said, “because we try to be a good community partner.”

TLOT has awards from the American Red Cross, Total Action for Progress, the federal Department of Veterans Affairs and BrightView, a provider of substance abuse disorder treatment. 

Roanoke police honored Sandoval at a January banquet with a commendation. It read, in part, that Sandoval “exemplifies the highest standards of community partnership, compassion, and civic engagement. She helps unsheltered individuals across the city by creating immediate relief and pathways toward stability and independence.”

To at least some of her clients, she is a savior.

“If it weren’t for Dawn, people would be screwed,” said Joshua Hodges, who said he lives in a tent in a park. Among the organizations serving the homeless, “this is the number one.”

Amber West, also homeless, conceded that nearby businesses might have a legitimate concern that the operation generates loose trash. She said she regularly picks trash up. 

“If I had money to put toward something, it’d be TLOT,” she said. “To be completely honest, this is the best thing we got.”

Mayor Joe Cobb praised TLOT in a Monday interview. “I understand that some businesses are frustrated,” he added. His Hope and Home Task Force on homelessness is coming out with recommendations soon to include ways to engage businesses in finding solutions, Cobb said.

Even the city of Roanoke depends on TLOT. 

Homeless Assistance Team members meet with clients at TLOT. Police this winter brought unhoused individuals who officers found in need to TLOT’s warming buses, which took new arrivals at any hour of the night, Sandoval said.

Also, Roanoke’s emergency management office temporarily permitted TLOT to house 49 individuals on cots, and their pets, inside its building instead of the buses during a bad cold snap, the executive director said.

“They were trying to ensure no one died during that ice storm,” she said.

Those buses, still parked at TLOT this week, would have to depart under the city’s order — leaving the unsheltered with one less place to go.