New homeless court program in Rock Hill designed to deal with minor offenses

Rock Hill has created a new court program for the homeless, designed to expunge past misdemeanor offenses and push more people toward rehabilitation.

The new court, which is now operating, was approved March 7 by the S.C. Supreme Court.

Rock Hill Municipal Court Judge Jane Modla initiated the local idea of a homeless court, and will preside over the cases.

Rock Hill isn’t the first city to do this. Homeless courts originated in California in 1989 to deal with the high number of homeless veterans. The goal there was to avoid or overcome homelessness.

“They said their biggest problems were the legal barriers to getting housing and to getting jobs,” Modla said. “So they created homeless court (in California) to help with that.

“Homeless court is seeking a solution to the cycle of these repeat offenders who are homeless who get arrested for minor crimes that occur by the mere fact that they are homeless.”

Cases handled in Rock Hill Homeless Court must: be past misdemeanor convictions, not pending cases; involve incidents committed within the city limits of Rock Hill; and involve a person who is homeless and seeking help or working toward rehabilitation.

“The value this program will have is it’s going to be that empowerment for that individual to move forward in their lives without having any of those barriers or hurdles in front of them, and to really remove that gray cloud above them knowing that things have happened in their past,” said Alexandra Greenawalt, the executive director at Pathways Community Center in Rock Hill.

“Their behaviors have changed. Their mindsets have changed. And they’re in a better state of being.”

The Pathways Community Center is a Christian-based nonprofit organization that works to “effectively reduce the impact of poverty and homelessness” in York County by connecting people in need with service providers. The center also runs a homeless daycare facility.

Pathways, which is the host location for the homeless court sessions, reports that the homeless population in the county was over 1,000 last year, most of which resided in Rock Hill.

Columbia, Charleston and Myrtle Beach also have homeless courts. Modla and her team visited these programs to observe how things were run. They used that knowledge to build the Rock Hill program.

Modla said she hopes programs like this continue to spread to other jurisdictions.

“The word has to get out there that we’re doing this,” Modla said. “The idea is that you go to the homeless. You go to Pathways, so it’s not intimidating and there’s no threat of jail.

“We all want to do our part to help this community. This is a small something that the legal community can do and that the cities can do at this time.”