Dear St. Philippians,

As your Clergy, we want to update you on a sensitive issue. While this is a hard letter for us to write, we know that it will also be difficult for many of you to read.

As you know, it was a long hard winter for everyone. The Covid-19 pandemic disrupted emergency and transitional shelter life completely, causing the closing of some shelters and/or moving residents out of the agencies for extended periods of time. These are the agencies we have always counted on and that have served vulnerable populations for years. To exacerbate the issue, it was more difficult to organize the safety net for White Flag nights and food distribution. A day shelter was almost nonexistent for a large part of this last year. We tried to help as we could and, thus, allowed the tents to become a part of our daily lives.  

Our insurance company has notified us that all the people who have found shelter living in the tents surrounding St. Philip’s buildings must vacate the premises immediately, in addition to removing their tents and personal property. The liability issues for fire, theft, and physical injury to those we have allowed to shelter around the buildings are significant. 

After discussing this with our community partners, (UMD, Housing for New Hope, the Crisis Intervention Team of the Durham Police Department, Trinity Methodist Church, and others), we followed their advice. On Friday, March 19, we notified all tent residents that they and their belongings must move by noon on Friday, March 26. A No Trespassing Order has been signed and will be put into effect after that time. 

Some of you have reached out to these people to offer assistance in many ways. Many of you have kept them in your prayers. We feel that some of them are friends and hope to stay in touch with them. 

We urge you to pray for a peaceful and safe transition to better conditions for all of them. If you would like more information, please do not hesitate to reach out via email to any of the clergy. 

Praying for you and them,

The Rev. Stephen Mazingo, Interim Rector (stephen@stphilipsdurham.org)
The Rev. Gabe Lamazares, Interim Associate Rector (gabe@stphilipsdurham.org)
The Rev. Jill Staton Bullard, Deacon (jill@stphilipsdurham.org)