A Downtown Eastside church that provides beds for more than 200 people every night is closing the doors to its homeless shelter and losing its three top directors in the fallout.

Executive minister Rev. Ric Matthews, his deputy Rev. Sandra Severs and director of operations Gillian Rhodes have all resigned from Vancouver's First United Church in the wake of the governing presbytery's decision to stop operating the shelter on March 31.

"I'm not bitter," Matthews said of the closure. "There is a disappointment and a frustration about the reality of the society we live in as a whole.... There is a sadness that we live in a society that struggles to find a way to embrace those who are the most troubled, but therefore the most troublesome."

The closure will coincide with the end of funding from BC Housing.

Matthews told reporters Wednesday that the church has felt increased pressure over recent years to comply with fire, safety and government standards for formal shelters. Those standards are at odds with First United's open-arms approach of welcoming everyone, including those who are aggressive or intoxicated.

As the weather turned cold this fall, the church was forced to turn away dozens of needy people on a nightly basis after the city ordered it to stick to its capacity for the first time in three years. The church has a capacity of 240 people, including staff and volunteers.

Matthews said that the Vancouver-Burrard Presbytery, which oversees the church, has been deeply concerned about safety in the shelter. He agreed that those concerns are valid, but said that constant anxieties about legal action have made it difficult for charities to do good works in the modern age.

"Could any faith institution today house Mary and Joseph? The risks of putting that couple into a stable are just enormous," he said.

Outside the church on Wednesday, some of those who have depended on the shelter for years expressed their sorrow over its closure.

"I don't want to leave here. I enjoy it here too much," said one man, who said he has stayed in the shelter for 16 years and has volunteered as a dishwasher in the kitchen since he was a boy.

"The staff are friendly, the cooks are friendly, the volunteers are friendly."

Another man, who said he has stayed at First United nearly every night for the past six years, told CTV News that he doesn't know where he'll go after the shelter closes.

"I'll just live on the street again, I guess, and I'll be soaking wet," he said.

Matthews, Severs and Rhodes plan to speak with officials from the city, province and Vancouver Coastal Health in the coming days about how to provide a safe haven for those who don't fit into the formal shelter system.

"We have people who are falling through the cracks. We have people who are cycling through the hospitals and the prisons and we don't have a comprehensive strategy for dealing with those people," Matthews said.

He added that the trio is on the lookout for a facility to house those people.

Even though its shelter is closing, First United will continue to provide other services to the community, including storage space, meals and advocacy for the needy.

Dal McCrindle, executive committee chairman for the Vancouver-Burrard Presbytery, said he hopes that the church will have a friendly working relationship with the three departing leaders.

"We don't see this as a parting of the ways, necessarily, as we leave this and never speak again. We see each other as colleagues and intend to be working in the Downtown Eastside providing services for people who call this area home," McCrindle said.

With files from CTV British Columbia's Shaheed Devji