Parish steps up fight for homeless
St. Francis of Assisi says it has the right to allow camping on its steps.
Requests from city officials and a neighborhood group to bar homeless people from sleeping at night on the steps at St. Francis of Assisi have threatened the church’s First Amendment right to minister freely on its property, church leaders say.
The pressure to comply with city codes has built throughout a four-month series of meetings with neighbors, city and county officials.
Parish leaders are fighting back, tying the issue to a basic tenet of their faith: caring for the poor. During services last weekend, the Rev. Anthony Garibaldi called on parishioners to write letters to the city attorney’s office.
“All we’re trying to do is give them a place to lay their head,” the Rev. Micah Muhlen said.
Richard J. Ramirez, deputy city manager, called the issue a neighborhood dispute to “be solved at the lowest levels” with the Sacramento Mediation Center reconciling neighbors and church leaders.
At a Nov. 21 meeting, Susana Wood, senior deputy city attorney, told Muhlen that he must comply with city anti-camping codes, and those at the meeting agreed upon a late-January deadline, several sources said.
“They were telling us that we’re breaking the law,” Muhlen said.
Wood said the codes are in question, but the Nov. 21 meeting ended without a conclusion.
“There wasn’t a message,” she said. “Several members of the church left prematurely. The meeting never concluded.”
Tommy Clinkenbeard, an assistant public defender who serves on the Loaves & Fishes board of directors, said the city is pressuring the church to make restrictions it can not make itself.
He said he successfully defended 19 homeless people who were arrested two years ago on the grounds of St. John’s Lutheran Church for illegal camping.
In addition to constitutional rights to freedom of religion, no government can make a land-use law restricting a religious institution’s ministry on its property, according to the federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000.
“The church can welcome those who the city shuns,” said William Kennedy, managing attorney for California Legal Services.
Kennedy said about 3,000 people sleep outside each night in Sacramento County, and there are beds for about 15 percent of them. Women and children, he said, are the fastest-growing group of homeless people.
Bruce Holmes, Winn Park Capital Avenue Neighborhood Association spokesman, said meetings between neighbors and church leaders — to form the St. Francis Community Partnership — began in August.
At the meetings, area residents discussed their concerns about crowds of homeless people who gathered in the park and rushed across 26th street when they were allowed onto St. Francis’ steps at 6 p.m. He said other people began living out of their cars along Winn Park.
“We were trying to figure out what to do to control the situation,” he said.
Another concern among neighbors, Holmes said, was that sex offenders and pedophiles were keeping company with the homeless.
“We were concerned about a criminal element that was using this homeless encampment as a shelter for their own purposes,” he said.
Ed Connolly and his wife, Karen Dodson, run the Steps Ministry, a group of people who communicate rules of order to the homeless people (no drugs, alcohol or violence) and open the bathrooms to them, he said. Ministry members offer them company at night and coffee and rolls in the morning.
After the twice-monthly meetings began in August, the ministry distributed 25 two-week passes for access to the steps. That was done so people wouldn’t gather at 6 p.m., to compete for a spot on the steps, which are open to sleepers from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m.
To calm concerns about criminals, he said the ministry members checked identification cards and issued their own permits.
“This is 25 of about 700 homeless people who sleep downtown every night that we give a safe place and provide supervision,” Connolly said.
The meetings at the St. Francis parish center grew larger, Connolly said, and were organized by Dick Skelton, former Midtown Business Association president.
At the table were representatives from the county board on homelessness, Loaves & Fishes, City Council member Steve Cohn’s office, the District Attorney’s Office, the city attorney’s office, California Highway Patrol, Sacramento Police Department and St. Francis of Assisi. Also attending were representatives from county Supervisor Roger Dickinson and the Midtown Business Association.
The negotiations turned to a showdown Nov. 21 when Muhlen was told that the Steps Ministry is illegal, he said.
“That wasn’t a problem-solving meeting,” Ramirez said.
Interviewed on the steps earlier this week, Mary, a homeless woman who sleeps on the steps, said even though she’s been pelted with pennies, eggs and limes there, the steps are safer than her alternatives.
Mary, who asked that her last name not be used, said she left her apartment near Alhambra Boulevard and Broadway in September after her landlord raised rent by $300 per month.
“These aren’t career homeless people here,” she said. “We’re all trying to save for apartments.”
Homeless people also sleep on the steps of St. John’s Lutheran Church, even though there is no program for them, the Rev. Thomas Gable said.
He said he hasn’t been contacted by any officials about code violations, but doesn’t want the sleepers to be thrown off for any reason.
“The steps can be a sanctuary for them,” Gable said.
“Wouldn’t it be great if the city, county and churches could work together to help eliminate (the homelessness problem) rather than work to move people from one place to another?”
About the Writer
From (12/6/02) Sac Bee at: http://www.sacbee.com/content/news/story/5483591p-6467044c.html
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The Bee’s Christina Jewett can be reached at (916) 321-1201 or cjewett@sacbee.com <mailto:cjewett@sacbee.com>.
Tags: Homelessness