Gastonia city manager closes cooling center. Mayor Richard Franks wants answers
Gastonia’s mayor and a city council member urged the nixing of the city’s contract with its homelessness agency at a tense emergency meeting Thursday afternoon.
Mayor Richard Franks called the meeting after a turbulent week for Gastonia’s unhoused community — one for which Franks argues that the nonprofit HealthNet Gaston, which provides a safety net for the county’s homeless, is responsible.
Local governments set up cooling centers as a place people without shelter go inside for air conditioning and rest during hot summer months.
But HealthNet Gaston on Monday set up a cooling center outdoors, sparking outrage from community advocates, city council members and Franks. It was equipped with two fans, a cooler of water bottles and 10 chairs.
The city government on Tuesday then moved the cooling center to a city-owned building that was previously home to the Salvation Army.
But HealthNet Gaston sparked new outrage Wednesday by telling volunteers they were not allowed to use the space due to “safety concerns.”
Ward 4 Councilwoman Cheryl Littlejohn, a fervent critic of the outdoor cooling center, said volunteers were locked out of the building Wednesday. Though they set up makeshift tents in the parking lot, the volunteers from local churches and nonprofits were told they were trespassing and needed to leave, according to Littlejohn.
This meant the cooling center, which was slated to be open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on all days that reached 90-degree temperatures, was closed both Wednesday and Thursday.
“It made us — as a city of Gastonia, [as] Gaston County — look like we were a bunch of hillbillies,” Franks said.
Agency unprepared for the heat
Franks and Littlejohn cited the outdoor cooling center as proof that HealthNet Gaston was unprepared to care for the city’s homeless population in the heat.
“If six months of planning went into those two fans and a cooler, the planners need to be fired,” Littlejohn said.
Both Franks and Littlejohn referenced a January city council meeting in which the mayor and council members faced blowback for being unprepared for the cold weather’s impact on unhoused people.
At January’s meeting, Franks said, he told leadership at HealthNet Gaston that their lack of preparation for the cold was “unacceptable” and could not be repeated.
“People aren’t doing their jobs [yet] they get paid out of our budget to be the lead agency,” Franks said. “They have failed the citizens of Gastonia.”
Barbara McMackin, who works at HealthNet Gaston, attended Thursday’s meeting. In a heated exchange with Littlejohn, McMackin stressed that “we had no idea that the building was an option” for the cooling center, which prompted Monday’s outdoor setup.
Could the city use the building?
Franks said he carried out a fire inspection of the former Salvation Army building with Fire Chief Phil Welch on June 27. Though Welch found three small fire code violations, he gave Franks the green light to operate the cooling center in the code-compliant part of the building.
After HealthNet Gaston instructed volunteers not to go to the building on Wednesday, Littlejohn double-checked with Welch if they could still operate the cooling center out of it. She brandished the fire inspection report, which read that the building had been cleared June 27, at Thursday’s meeting as she condemned HealthNet Gaston’s approach to the cooling center.
“They said we were good,” Littlejohn said. “How many days did we allow people to suffer? How many days did we allow people to be in harm’s way because of politics?”
Franks acknowledged that volunteers had served homemade food Tuesday, which he said violated the building code. But he emphasized that the city had instructed volunteers not to do so again on Wednesday.
Without offering specifics, Ward 5 Councilwoman Jennifer Stepp expressed some concerns about the indoor cooling center.
Stepp argued that simply following the fire code didn’t make the building “safe,” pointing out that the city did not involve law enforcement when volunteers set up the indoor cooling center Tuesday.
“It’s also our responsibility, as we try to help these people, to make sure we’re doing things by law, by procedure and in a safe way,” Stepp said. “That means to make sure everyone that might come into that building, whether they are a volunteer, a homeless person or a staff member, is safe.”
Notable absences
Franks, Littlejohn and Stepp were the only council members to attend Thursday’s emergency meeting; the other four were absent.
Franks and Littlejohn made digs at their absences, with Franks quipping that the council could not take a vote on the cooling center without the other members present.
Stepp stressed that the other council members were working or out of town.
“To say they don’t care is unfair,” she said.
Franks and Littlejohn also critiqued City Manager Michael Peoples, who is on vacation. Littlejohn said that Peoples did not file a letter with the city clerk about leaving town, so he is still officially in charge of the city, which Assistant City Manager Quentin McPhatter confirmed.
According to Franks, McPhatter confirmed in a one-on-one conversation that he and Peoples had made the decision about not using the former Salvation Army building for the cooling center. McPhatter echoed Stepp’s argument that the building wasn’t “safe.”
Franks pledged to continue calling an emergency meeting each day until the council reaches an agreement about the cooling center.
This story was originally published July 3, 2025 at 8:07 PM.
