Update: AFD still battling fire at Pearl House

The Herald Bulletin

January 16, 2009 01:36 pm

— ANDERSON — Anderson firefighters continue to battle a fire at Pearl House, 1429 Pearl St., more than three hours after it was first reported.
The initial report of the fire came in at 10:09 a.m. Friday. Scanner traffic suggest all residents were evacuated and City of Anderson Transportation System (CATS) buses.
The blaze spread quickly throughout the house and efforts to extinguish it were slowed by at least two frozen fire hydrants at the scene.
A subject of interest was detained at the scene and is will be questioned by Anderson police.
Run by Mercy International Ministry, Pearl House of Peace has been in operation since May 2006.
“We’re not a co-op, not a shelter,” said Angela Micelli Suarez, executive director of Mercy International Ministry. “We work together so that everyone benefits. We suffer and grow together — we’re a family.”
According to the Constitution of the Pearl House of Peace, it is “a quasi communal and prototype affordable housing cooperative community of Mercy International Ministry’s for mentally, emotionally and economically disadvantaged people and their families.”
Pearl House also provides training in the form of education, resume building, arts, music and computer skills.
“We help anyone that we call MEED — mentally, emotionally or economically disadvantaged,” Mark Galloway, corporate operations officer for MIM, told The Herald Bulletin. “Though many of the people we help are homeless or have some sort of mental disorder, we try to recast the ideas of homelessness and mental illness because it’s hard to find someone who’s never been at a mental, emotional or economic disadvantage at some point in his or her life.”

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