Reclaim Your Love of Life with Hormone Replacement Therapy in Lancaster, SC

The mayor said most unhoused neighbors crowd in the city to access what they do have.

LANCASTER, S.C. — The colder temperatures this season are raising concern for officials in Lancaster County.

The coroner’s office says with an uptick in homelessness and a lack of resources for unhoused neighbors, there’s a high chance the county could see its first hypothermia death case in years.

“I just would not want anyone’s exposure to this weather to cause their demise,” explained Karla Deese, the coroner for Lancaster County. “There’s nowhere to go with heat or power and I’m not sure that they would be acclimated to the cold weather -- so I do have concerns."

Deese says with the fact the unhoused community is “exposed and without shelter”, combined with the temperature hitting the “lowest of the year so far”, it’s only a matter of time.

Right now, there’s only one emergency warming center in the county for people to take advantage of at night. This resource is also only available when temperatures hit below freezing.

“It’s a tough problem – it’s an intractable problem. We really need some additional resources. It’s a much larger issue than just the city. The lack of mental health resources from the state is one of the biggest issues – the lack of addiction recovery services is an issue,” explained Lancaster mayor Alston DeVenny.

He said most unhoused neighbors crowd to the city of Lancaster because of what resources they do have – but he also explained the problem is going to require outside help.

“We’ve been responding with the services that we have available, but they’re limited with our small municipality,” DeVenny said.

Contact Anna King at aking2@wcnc.com and follow her on Facebook, X, and Instagram.

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LANCASTER, S.C.

Lancaster’s Jordan Watford put the game to bed.

The Queens University of Charlotte-bound combo guard controlled the basketball down low and took flight late in Lancaster’s 64-57 victory over South Pointe Tuesday night in the South Carolina high school quarterfinals.

Watford juggled the ball into the palm of his dominant hand as he leaped, throwing down a remarkable windmill dunk during the final minutes. Lancaster will now play for a spot in the SCHSL 4A boys’ basketball title game and the Upper State Championship against Wren on Monday night.

“That’s the main thing that’s getting us our money: Just playing defense 24/7,” Watford said. “For that to be my last ever home game here at Lancaster, playing in front of a packed crowd, I just love it. Anytime I see a packed crowd, in my opinion, I feel like I play better. I step up.

“Early on, before the year, I had the decision to transfer, to go to a prep school. But I really wanted to stay and play with my brothers. These are the same kids I’ve been playing with since rec ball, AAU, and I just knew we’ve had some unaccomplished stuff we had to finish.”

Lancaster (25-1) nearly led the entire game against South Pointe, played inside its packed gymnasium early Tuesday evening.

The Bruins gained the upper hand early, making several defensive stops as various players drove to the basket, which helped them build a six-point lead at the half. Roughly one third of Lancaster’s 30 points at halftime came from Watford, who finished with 20 points.

South Pointe (18-9) kept the game close throughout the second half, continually preventing the Bruins from getting more than a three-score lead for most of the night.

Behind Watford’s performance that included a 6-of-6 mark from the free throw line, junior Columbus Parker — son of former J.C. Smith great Chris “Green Light” Parker — finished with 19 points and junior R.J. Brown added a strong 11-point effort.

“Our community responds, especially as this is a place where they love you or they hate you,” Lancaster head coach Jerron Cauthen said. “When you do right by kids, and right by people, that’s how they support you. They will be behind you, but they just want you to do the right thing. Not be perfect; Just do the right thing.

“I’ve been here for 20 years. I remember losing. A lot of these kids don’t remember that, they were just being born in ‘05, or they were babies. I know what it feels like to lose to a lot of teams several times. The effort was there, the coaching was there, we just couldn’t close. I’ve stayed home and I’m reminding them of that, because I don’t want them to have this feeling that our former teams had.”

▪ Lancaster won its 20th straight game. The Bruins’ lone loss came Dec. 13 against Dynamic Prep, the Jermaine O’Neal-coached powerhouse in Texas.

▪ Lancaster has been dominant in every victory this season, putting up nearly 72 points per game while outscoring opponents by an average of roughly 15.2 points.

▪ South Pointe, winners of eight of 10 entering Tuesday night, bowed out after another strong season. Three of the Stallions’ nine losses came to Lancaster — both the previous ones were also decided by single digits — including a 61-58 game on Feb. 7.

The Bruins are now set to play Wren, which defeated Greer at Powdersville High School on Tuesday night, for the Upper State Championship and a ticket to the SCHSL 4A title game on Monday. The game is set for 7:30 p.m. at the Florence Center, site of the SCHSL’s week-long regional finals and state championships.

Andrew Jackson got a test early but pulled away in the second quarter and trounced visiting Atlantic Collegiate, 99-45, in a 2A girls’ quarterfinal game.

The victory send the Volunteers (25-3) into a Tuesday afternoon Lower State regional championship contest against Lake City in Florence.

The Armada entered the game with a 9-12 record but had upset Lake Marion in the previous round. The visitors surprised Andrew Jackson by taking an early lead and were up 12-9 before Andrew Jackson went on a 9-0 run and finished the first quarter up 18-12.

The Volunteers surged in the second quarter, outscoring Atlantic Collegiate 32-8. Tamia Watkins scored 16 of her team’s points in that period.

Andrew Jackson’s regional final/state semifinal game will be at 3 p.m. Tuesday in the Florence Center, against Lake City (16-7).

This story was originally published February 25, 2025 at 9:03 PM.

Lancaster County’s firefighting force hasn’t been able to keep up with population growth

The Charlotte Observer

LANCASTER COUNTY, S.C. — Calls for fire service used to trickle into Lancaster County at about 1,200 a year, or 3 per day.

That volume has exploded nearly tenfold since the turn of the century, according to Darren Player , the county director of fire rescue and emergency management.

The challenge became keeping pace despite a growing population, dwindling fire forces and limited funding.

And Lancaster has five years or less before its fire services reach crisis levels under current trends, according to County Administrator Dennis Marstall’s estimates. Residents will notice pockets of pain due to “woefully inadequate response times.”

“You will see the tragedies of a full house burning down before anyone gets there. You’ll see insufficient response if you have commercial or retail fire,” Marstall said. “That pain point is only increasing every day countywide when you have an increasing population.”

His job is to make sure these doomsday scenarios don’t come to pass.

County leaders are exploring solutions, but it’s a delicate balancing act that will require community buy-in.

Fighting fire with a depleted volunteer force

Twenty years ago, Lancaster County had more than 600 volunteers ready to respond to a fire. Its population sat just under 66,000 in those days, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.

Charlotte and its surrounding areas have since experienced a surge in growth that brought Lancaster County to 110,000 residents. Thousands more outside travelers are expected to pass through the area, too, with developments like Costco and Target on the horizon.

The volunteer firefighter force hasn’t kept up. It’s shrunk to just 243 people, Player said, tracking with a sharp national decline.

“The call volume is just much more than the volunteer system can handle,” said Greg Nicholson , chief of the Indian Land Fire District .

Indian Land’s two fire stations received about 3,500 calls for service in 2024, representing more than a third of the county’s total across 19 stations. Most stations received fewer calls than there are days in a year.

Nicholson’s department serves the most populous region in Lancaster County and is the first to shift toward a career firefighter model with mostly full-time workers instead of volunteers. It will soon have 56 full-time employees who can staff the unincorporated community’s two stations at all hours of the day, Nicholson said. Its force ran on volunteers until recently.

The county also employs 15 career firefighters who travel in teams across Lancaster County each day as well as one who is stationed in Kershaw. The roaming firefighters primarily serve rural areas without full-time workers, but their shifts run only from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. That leaves mornings and evenings without coverage.

Marstall said he is talking to Lancaster County Council about tweaking their schedules to run in 12-hour shifts so a full-time countywide worker is always on the clock. That request has not yet been approved.

Marstall is also researching a plan to divide the county into four service areas, each with a fully staffed station that could assist volunteer departments in their region. He anticipates the county moving toward this model.

But volunteers are still needed. Data from the National Volunteer Fire Council shows about 65% of the nation’s firefighters remain volunteers today. Changing labor demographics just mean they can’t be the only responders when fire alarms ring.

“It’s hard to respond to a call at 3 in the morning if you have a job that’s not flexible and you have to be at work at 8 o’clock,” Marstall said. “It’s just the changing economy and way of life. It doesn’t lend itself for people to be able to want to be firefighters.”

Extra fees could be the solution?

The county gave each fire department about $7,900 this year to spend at their discretion. For larger purchases like trucks, which can cost more than $1 million, the county borrows money through voter-approved bonds.

Marstall said the county is working on a resolution for council consideration that would add a separate fire services tax for residents. For now, few supplemental funding avenues exist.

Departments can apply for a competitive one-time grant from a larger pot of county money, but just one is awarded a year. Volunteer departments rely on fundraising to generate additional money.

Indian Land and Van Wyck are the exceptions.

The two panhandle communities established their own fire districts in the early 2000s to help pay for more expenses as the county’s fastest growing region. In exchange for more robust services, residents pay an annual fee that has increased over time.

Residents pay $90 per rooftop in Van Wyck , but Marstall said the town might soon look to increase the fee so it can hire more full-time support like Indian Land. Van Wyck only has one paid firefighter.

Indian Land residents pay $240 per rooftop, with businesses paying more based on square footage.

“We kept running into issues where our needs were growing, and the county’s philosophy was kind of like, ‘We’re going to buy 10 hoses for every station,’” said Brian Endres , the president and longtime member of the fee board that oversees Indian Land’s fire budget. “Does that station down there that only had 10 calls last year need 10 hoses? We could use 15.”

Endres said he asked the County Council to change Indian Land’s flat fire services fee to a millage, which would tie residents’ payments to their individual property values. The county hasn’t made any formal plans to do this, but Endres said he will continue pushing for the change as an equitable solution to keep pace with growth.

Paid vs. volunteer

Quicker response times are one benefit of a fee-paying district, Nicholson said. His firefighters respond in 6.2 minutes on average because they are stationed at all hours of the day, he said.

Volunteers take several minutes to drive to the station, then get ready before taking off. On weekends and nights when volunteers might not be readily available, dispatchers sometimes call up to three departments before somebody heads to a scene.

There can be tension between the panhandle and the rest of the county since Indian Land tends to receive more resources, Marstall said. But they’re also paying more and have more calls.

Indian Land’s two fire stations received more calls last year than 13 other stations combined, county data shows.

“If you go to the southern part of the county, they’ll say, ‘Oh, Indian Land wants everything new. They want new.’ And they don’t see it as a need,” Endres said. “You’ve got to control and protect your dense area in order for your rural area to be able to survive.”

Indian Land’s next battle is to secure a third station, which Endres and Nicholson said is a necessity. They’ve been asking for years, they said, and the price tag only continues to climb.

“The county has to understand if you’re going to allow all these rooftops and commercial businesses, you’ve gotta have a plan,” Endres said. “We built way too fast without a plan, and now we’re paying the price, but we’ve got a lot of great people who are willing to work with us and help to make it work.”

©2025 The Charlotte Observer. Visit charlotteobserver.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Results for the 2025 point-in-time, or PIT, count of residents experiencing homelessness are out for York and Lancaster counties.

Volunteers counted 291 individuals who were experiencing or at risk of homelessness in York County and 95 in Lancaster County when the PIT count was conducted in January, according to the Catawba Area Coalition for the Homeless, or CACH.

CACH announced the numbers Thursday and is expected to release numbers for Chester County next month.

York’s total is a 10% drop from 2024. What that means, however, is hard to nail down, said Melissa Carlyle, CACH’s executive director.

”It's really difficult to know if this represents a true decrease in homelessness in York County,” Carlyle said during CACH’s meeting Thursday. “Maybe we just came into contact with fewer people this year than last year.”

Less ambiguous are the numbers within the numbers. In both York and Lancaster counties, there was an increase in the number of people surveyed who said they were experiencing homelessness for the first time. In York County, 68.5% of respondents said they were first-time homeless; in Lancaster that number was 61%.

York County

Of the 291 people surveyed for PIT, 211 experiencing homelessness were sheltered – staying in shelters or hotel rooms or couch surfing – and 36 were unsheltered. Another 44 were at risk of becoming unhoused.

Two out of three respondents were men and 118 were African-American.

“The majority of people were individuals of color,” Carlyle said. “Homelessness disproportionately impacts people of color. This is something we've seen nationwide, but we see it again and again when we do PIT count surveys as well.”

Sixty-five individuals reported that they had been homeless for at least a year – twice the number who had said they’d been experiencing homelessness for more than 90 days.

While Carlyle said that lingering “systemic inequalities” were to blame for the disproportional rate of Black homelessness, she also said that the number of people experiencing homelessness for the first time and a slight uptick in retirees and people with disabilities who’ve become unhoused can be tied to rising housing costs and not-rising incomes.

“These are folks that are likely on a fixed income,” she said. “For our folks that do have to rent a home, they are seeing increases in their rent but not seeing increases in their fixed income, which makes it really, really difficult for them to remain stably housed.”

According to the Social Security Administration, the monthly payment for a non-blind disability is $1,650. The average apartment in York County, according to data from ApartmentList, was $1,236 per month in January.

Of the 291 individuals surveyed in York County, 146 reported their last address as somewhere in York County. Another 19 reported their last addresses in Lancaster or Chester counties, and 18 reported North Carolina (mostly from Mecklenburg County, which houses Charlotte).

A persistent complaint in Rock Hill, where most homelessness resources in York County are centered, is that homeless individuals are being brought into the city in groups from other places. There were 26 respondents in York County who reported their last address to be in a state other than South or North Carolina.

“It was a lot of one-off states,” Carlyle said. “It's not like we're seeing a mass exodus from one state to our state, of people coming here to experience homelessness. These are just people that relocated from a different area and happen to be experiencing homelessness in York County.”

Carlyle also said the drop in the number of sheltered homeless individuals coincides with the number of people who’ve entered into Rock Hill’s Rapid Rehousing Program.

“This is kind of an example of how these programs work,” she said. “We are transitioning people from the shelters into housing.”

Of all respondents in York County, almost 70% of those experiencing or at risk of experiencing homelessness were either working or actively looking for a job.

Lancaster County

The 95 individuals counted during PIT in Lancaster County is a 23% uptick from 2024. Of those, 36 were unsheltered, the same number as in York Cunty, but a much higher proportion.

That could be partly due to the fact that unlike York County, Lancaster County has very little in the way of shelter. In fact, Lancaster County just opened its warming shelter in December.

Of the 95 surveyed, 29 said they had been experiencing homelessness for a year or longer. That’s 30%, compared to 22% in York County.

About half of respondents in Lancaster County were African-American men and two in three respondents were either working or actively looking for work.

Twenty-two percent of respondents were retired or receiving disability payments. According to Zillow, the average rent for an apartment in Lancaster as of Feb. 3 was $1,633.

The average Social Security payment for retirees is $1,976 per month, according to the SSA.

One notable difference between Lancaster County and York County was the response to what respondents said were the most urgent needs. While housing was the overwhelming first choice in both counties, 15 respondents in Lancaster County said that transportation was a pressing need. In York County, the call for better transportation was almost nonexistent.

Carlyle said this could partly be due to the fact that Lancaster is a more rural county than York, but also that it is evidence that York County residents in the throes of homelessness are utilizing Rock Hill’s free electric bus.

“In Rock Hill, we have the My Ride bus system,” she said. “[In] Lancaster, transportation is more of an issue, even thinking about their warming center. We often ask, ‘How are people getting to the warming center when there's not any public transportation to get people there?’ [It’s] just something to be mindful of when we're talking about more rural communities where public transportation is more of an issue because it's not as easily accessible.”

Three other regional organizations conducted PIT counts in the Midlands, Upstate, and Pee Dee/Grand Strand regions of the state in January. Numbers from those counts are expected to be released in November, after being calculated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

CACH was able to release data so soon because the agency kept track of PIT data separately.

The sheriff's office shared a message on Facebook detailing a recent encounter.

LANCASTER COUNTY, S.C. — The Lancaster County Sheriff's Office is reminding neighbors to be wary of scams after a member of its team recently encountered a scammer.

Deputies said in a Facebook post on Saturday that their media and public relations officer spoke on the phone with someone claiming to be a "Lieutenant Keith Miller" and a "Captain Woodard" with the Lexington County Sheriff's Office, noting that one person was on the line and changed their voice slightly. The person reportedly tried to intimidate the public relations officer, claiming that they missed federal jury duty and that a judge had issued citations for their arrest.

"Throughout the conversation, [the scammer] used a fake southern accent and repeatedly said '10-4' as if using radio codes, which is highly unusual for a professional law enforcement conversation," part of the post read. "They even claimed they would contact the Clerk of Court to find out where I could pay fines at a “government-approved kiosk.” Then, they demanded that I drive to Walgreens to pay $1,500 in fines."

???? Scam Alert! ???? We want to keep everyone informed and safe, so here’s an important update. Our Media and Public...

Posted by Lancaster County Sheriff's Office SC on Saturday, January 25, 2025

The sheriff's office shared a reminder that legitimate law enforcement agencies will never ask someone to pay fines through Walgreens or other retail locations. Further, most law enforcement professionals don't use 10 radio codes when talking to citizens.

"If you ever receive a call like this, hand up and call the agency directly using the official number listed online to verify the claim," the sheriff's office added.

Lancaster County deputies said people should report suspicious activities either to local law enforcement or the Federal Trade Commission.

Here are some tips to avoid becoming a victim of a scam:

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