WILMINGTON, N.C. (WECT) – Wilmington's only surgical dental clinic that provides free services to low-income patients has received an eviction notice from St. Mary's Cathedral.
This is the latest move in a months-long dispute between Basilica and St. Mary's Health Center over the center's operating space.
St. Mary's Cathedral notified the health center in April, telling it to vacate the building by July 1, 2024. Laura Vinson, the center's executive director, said the center must stay open because staff can't find a place to move equipment and services and there are still patients to help, she said.
“Our patients are really unique,” Vinson said. “They're in pain. They're emergency patients. If we abandon them, what does that mean for the clinic?”
Because they've stayed past the deadline, Vinson said he thinks the cathedral may be making minor changes that inconvenience the health center.
“The grass isn't mowed anymore,” Vinson said. “It's been a long time since the maintenance department has worked outside, so the grass is knee-high.”
Vinson said she also changed the locks on the administrative office, which houses the mailroom, and has since been ordering supplies for the health center to be delivered to her home.
While serving patients on Friday, staff noticed the locks on the building where the patients use the bathrooms had also been changed. After the patients left around noon that day, sheriff's deputies arrived and served the patients with eviction notices from the Basilica.
“I was hoping maybe they'd have a change of heart and do an act of Christian kindness and allow us to stay here as long as we need to, but it looks like that's not going to happen,” Vinson said.
Anna Wood, one of the volunteers at the centre, said she still didn't understand why they were being evicted.
“If I hadn't seen it happen, I would never believe that someone from a church or an ecumenical organization would act like this,” Wood said. “I don't think you have to be Catholic to know that what's going on here is wrong.”
She said at this point, the center just wants the cathedral to give it more time to find a new place to call home.
“All we're asking for is time to move,” Wood said. “I don't want to be confrontational, but we can't just move in and be gone in 30 days. We need a place to move to and the funds to set it up. It's not something you can just snap your fingers and do.”
The center is working with an attorney to help them fight to stay, and Vinson said they will continue working at the health center until they are kicked out.
“There are a lot of people who need help, and I'm not going to turn them away,” Vinson said, “and if they are turned away, it's because the cathedral doesn't want me to see them.”
WECT has reached out to St. Mary's Cathedral multiple times to request an interview or statement. Each time, they have been told to contact the Diocese of Raleigh to obtain a statement. Despite multiple calls over several months, no response has been received.
However, the Cathedral's music director approached our staff in the Health Center parking lot and said she was not involved in the decision to ask the Health Center to leave.
“Not everyone who works at the Cathedral, including myself, is in favor of this way of responding, and neither are many of our parishioners,” Barbara Gallagher said in a statement.
Gallagher also said that most of the people he met during his 18 years playing at St. Mary's “were kind, caring and true Christians and it was such a shame that one or a few people in positions of power in the church had to ruin things for everyone.”
The notice lists an eviction court date of Sept. 4, 2024.
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