The Living Hope Street Ministry started in 2020 to respond to a gap in homeless resources during the Covid pandemic. Founder Christine Perez and her husband, Tony, felt called by God to serve the homeless in a desperate time. After building goodwill and relationships, they got a facility at the First Baptist Church in 2023 – a resting place in downtown Wilmington aimed at giving the homeless comfort and relaxation in a harsh world.
Tony says it was tough, but rewarding.
"I went part-time with my career and part-time doing this kind of work. And to supplement that, I did a lot of different things: handyman services, I drove Uber," he told WHQR.
In 2024, the Living Hope Day Center got funding from the New Hanover Community Endowment: $200,000, making up 35% of the organization’s budget for 2025. With that money, they expanded their days of operation, added a case worker, and began helping even more people – averaging 71 people a day when it’s open. Tony went full-time, and stopped having to work as a handyman in order to serve the homeless.
Then, the Day Center found out that their location, the First Baptist Church, will shut down for a while at the start of next year. Tony, the CEO of the Day Center, says they’ve long been a great partner for the center — even donating financially to support their work.
"They are about to go through a really major renovation, one that's large enough that the size and scope of it really requires that the whole entire building be closed off," he explained. "That's going to cause us to be displaced.”
So the Day Center is looking for a new home. After a fruitful year of serving 17,000 meals — and placing 31 people in housing, 25 in shelter, and 48 in detox — the Day Center went back to the Endowment asking for more funding.
Tony says there had been a handshake deal that they’d get an extension for future years, but with the church asking them to move, "We were quote, unquote unstable, and because we weren't sure where we were going to go next. And at the end of '25 when we were having those conversations with the endowment, it became an issue of that's a substantial part of your budget, even if it's just in kind, it's a big piece of the budget. And with that going away, it kind of puts them in a situation where any endowment is only allowed to fund up to a certain percentage of your overall budget, and for them to give us a big chunk of money would put them out of whack in that rule.”
That was the discussion at the end of last year, when the church was looking to remodel in the summer of 2026. The church ended up pushing its remodel out to 2027, but even with another year of stability, the Endowment has offered a different rationale for withhold funding, Tony said.
"Much to our dismay they’re, I think, really kind of stuck in this idea of wanting collaboration between the city and the county," he said,
That’s despite neither government body ever previously putting funding into the Day Center.
So the Endowment does not seem to be willing to come to the table unless the city and county start working together again on homeless services — according to Tony’s recollection of that conversation in March. He’s since reached out to the city and county to inform them about the situation — and has asked the mayor to give them a physical space once they leave the church.
WHQR reached out to the Endowment for comment on this matter. A spokesperson said the grant it provided was for one year and was fully funded, adding that The Endowment will “not comment on potential funding decisions, discussions with current or prospective grantees, or any future plans related to such matters.”
That means it’s been left to private donors and businesses to fill the gap. And to a degree, they have: Tom Harris is a partial owner of Front Street Brewery, and said the Day Center has made a big difference downtown. "I struck his organization a $5,000 personal check to help him stay open," Harris said of the Day Center. "Because I think it's important that not only I step up the plate, but the city steps up to the plate, the county steps up the plate.”
Harris is trying to rally other business owners, government agencies, and stakeholders to make similar pledges. But the day center is still in a desperate spot. It needs a new place to operate — hopefully near downtown — with between 5,000 and 8,000 square feet. And it needs money to operate: they currently have a few months of runway, but they need to find more sustainability.
The question to them is: will the community — or local government — step up?
This is part 1 of a short series about the Day Center, its impact, and its current financial situation.
