My Position on the City of Davis regulating church ministrys assisting the homeless

Hello,

It was good to see that the city voted to allow the Interfaith Rotating Winter Shelter to serve the homeless and limiting the provision of shelter to the fire code capacity of the individual hosting churches. I strongly believe that the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) provides churches with the legal precedence to coordinate programs on their campuses in accordance with their religious mission. It has been established by the Circuit Courts that the provision of shelter and food is central to a churches mission. The presence of homeless people on a church's steps does not meet the scrutiny for a public nuisance (293 F3d 570 Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church V. City of New York Docket number 02-7073). Any public nuisance from a church ministry program must be shown empirically in order to justify regulation of a church ministry or constitutional harms arise(Stuart Circle Parish V.bd of Zoning Appeals, 946 F. Supp. 1225, 1241 (e.d va 1996).

What brought this issue to the city council were complaints that the neighbors around and 5th and D Street raised about the hypothetical concerns of public nuisance that could arise due to concentration of homeless services at 5th and D Street. It can be said that the neighbors prior experience with homeless transients before the evolution of Interfaith Winter Shelter Programs at 5th and D Street played a role in generating some of the concerns with having more church programs at 5Th and D Street serving the homeless.

The Davis Police Department will tell you up front that the neighborhood is quieter because of the existence of these programs. The city had no justification in the first place in proposing to regulate the interfaith shelter. These are the true facts. If the city can show empirically that the Interfaith Winter Shelter is generating a bad impact on the neighborhood, the city can prevent the operation of any shelter or such program. The neighbors have the right to take their concerns to the council but the concerns have to be events that are occurring as a function of the programs that are already in operation, not programs that are proposed like the locker program.

It is good that the Interfaith programs will be evaluated in a year or so. It will provide peace and mind for the neighbors and the city. On the other hand though the church has always coordinated excellent programs. There is too much at stake to allow a program to be poorly coordinated.

It is a shame that more could not be done to assist the homeless of Davis. The homeless problem is not that big in our community in relation to the wealth that our community possesses. So much could be done if there was a political will on the part of every citizen in our community to make sure that the homeless could be given an opportunity to get on their feet. This life is tough already even for people who have a job and a place to sleep. Imagine what our homeless go through. Is it right for our war vets suffering from PTSD to come back to the states with no shelter and inadequate medical resources (I use this as one example)?

Perhaps there should have been a greater effort to include the neighbors in the discussions of the revised (MOU). My belief is that they would have not provided proof that the Interfaith programs were posing a harmful safety danger for the neighborhood. They would have stated what has already been stated "there is a hypothetical concern with centralization of services at 5th and D Street".

We need to think beyond hypothetical concerns and develop programs that will get our homeless the help that they need. Every citizen has a duty to assist others in need as every citizen has a duty to vote.