Helping our neighbors on York County's Blackmon Road

The problems on Blackmon Road are easy to recognize. Solutions are harder to come by.

Blackmon Road, home to a few dozen impoverished people, exists in something of an official no man’s land. Sitting just outside the Rock Hill city limits (but just a few miles from City Hall), the small community does not fall under the jurisdiction of the city.

Rock Hill ran a landfill near the road until the mid-1900s, near the edge of the community’s largely rundown dwellings. But Blackmon Road never has had running water, sewer or electrical service.

York County tried to run utilities to Blackmon Road at one point but was stymied by the rock-studded blackjack soil there.

Plans have come and gone to replace substandard buildings there. Some planners have suggested that the easiest and most economical way to help the residents would be to move them to homes or apartments somewhere else.

But many residents remain, including families with children. A Place Called Hope, a nonprofit agency, several years ago brought some basic services to the community, including a wash house with showers, toilets, washers and dryers, and residents now have access to running water at a central location.

But the neighborhood stubbornly defies easy answers. No government entity has swooped in to significantly improve the lives of residents.

But ordinary people still try to help. Various church groups regularly donate meals, bottles of water and clothes.

And last week, The Herald featured the story of members of Lake Wylie Lutheran Church who have spent the last 20 years trying to help the residents of Blackmon Road. Recently they went above and beyond providing food and clothing, and donated window air conditioning units to families in the neighborhood. And they installed the units, too.

“If you’re just sitting in the pew and not doing anything, you don’t get the message,” said Bob Thomas, who, with his wife, Mary Ann, has been a regular visitor to Blackkmon Road. “These are not chores, these are opportunities.”

After the story was published, two more air conditioners were donated. So were boxes of clothes that will be distributed to residents.

Those who want to help can call the social concerns ministry of Lake Wylie Lutheran at 803-548-5489.

These acts of individual kindness and charity may be the solution for Blackmon Road that people have been seeking for over a decade. Instead of a full bureaucratic fix, the lives of people are improved by a few air conditioning units and regular donations of clothing, food and water.

That might not be ideal. But many residents of Blackmon Road have chosen to stay there rather than seek subsidized housing somewhere else.

So, we salute all those who have recognized the great need many of these residents have for the basics of everyday life. We salute those who, like Lake Wylie Lutheran’s Jim Burnette and the Thomases, keep coming back again and again.

They’re the ones, as Thomas noted, who got the message.

This story was originally published July 19, 2015 at 9:07 AM with the headline "Helping our neighbors on York County's Blackmon Road."