Ohio pastor charged for housing the homeless in his church sues city in federal lawsuit
The suit, filed Monday, accuses the city and its officials of launching a harassment campaign against Dad's Place, a church in Bryan, for keeping its doors open 24/7 for the homeless.
An Ohio pastor who was charged with zoning violations for housing people experiencing homelessness has filed a federal lawsuit against the city of Bryan and its officials.
Earlier this year, Pastor Chris Avell decided to keep the doors of his church, Dad's Place, open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to reach out to the city's most "vulnerable." Bryan is a small city of about 8,600 people, 65 miles west of Toledo.
In December, Avell was hit with 18 zoning violations by the city, which claimed he had violated a city ordinance that says residents can't stay on the first floor of that property. Further, the local fire chief found a slew of fire code violations at the church.
Avell pleaded not guilty to the charges at his Jan. 11 arraignment, according to online court records.
Now he's suing the city, claiming discrimination on the basis of religion and claiming city officials have launched a harassment campaign against the church.
The article should be titled "City politicians upset that local church opposed to their plan to criminalize poverty"
Or "City officials upset that local Christian community actually acts Christian."
They’re just upset he’s worshipping the wrong Jesus
Exactly this is the same bullshit as arresting people for feeding starving homeless
It’s fucking sick
The fire chief finding a bunch of code violations is pretty serious imo
an inspector, hell-bent on finding violations... will 'find' them.
Those violations may also be "someone was sleeping in front of a fire door."
As Mitch Hedberg joked, no one that is flammable is ever actually blocking a fire exit.
I'm sure you can find code violations in every house or building you check.
Imagine that, a pastor actually thinking to himself "what would Jesus do?" and doing that, and being punished for it.
This is why I, regardless of political lean, think the real enemy is bureaucrats. Bureaucrats aren't even really people. They're the lizard people all the conspiracy theory/tin foil hat wearers screech about.
You're thinking of politicians. Bureaucracy is the scapegoat they use to cover their machinations. A functional society needs bureaucrats to do all the tasks that makes society work, without them everything would fall apart.
Most self-professed American "Christians" I have ever met do not follow or believe in the teachings of Christ.
They say the world looks down on the bureaucrats
They say we're anal, compulsive, and weird
But when push comes to shove
You gotta do what you love
Even if it's not a good idea!
where are the riots for better wages, housing, better public services, for actual politicians that are public servants out to do right for the citizens they themselves depend on, for worker's rights, or for anything?
what happened to the US?
We can’t do that cause that’s sOcIaLiSm (sarcasm)
We're also really tired from our demanding jobs. Most of us also can't just suddenly take time off work to protest these things.
Plus it's effort driving from our homes to wherever the protests may be. I'm being partially facetious here, but these all play a factor in this.
True. Can’t even get our Election Day as a federal holiday. The USA is a fucking sham.
Always has been.
You don't know about them because the media either refuses to cover them or misrepresents them.
For example, consider the shitshow going on around Cop City in Atlanta: the police have already murdered one protestor in cold blood, the mayor is thwarting a public referendum, etc.
Entitled dumb as shit boomers are what happened. You know the ones; they love mob stories and cops and robbers and cowboys and indians and oh are they SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO SMART!
Because nobody riots for vague goals like that?
It's always reactionary to some event.
Why aren't you personally doing something?
Downvoting me won't solve the world's problems.
Judging by their wording, it sounds like they are from somewhere other than the US. What do you expect a foreigner to do that could possibly affect US domestic policy?
I'm sure Jesus would be very proud of the city officials. /s
Though I see your point, I'd rather have less Jesus in our government, not more.
The government should not block him from exercising his religion though. Housing the people experiencing homelessness is exactly what Jesus would do.
Fully agree.
The people that want Jesus in government behave nothing like what Jesus would if he were ACTUALLY in government
Having less Jesus is what causing this isn't it?
No, people being assholes is what caused this. Mega corporations are what caused this. Jesus is a fairy tale no different than Snow White. People are what can make the world better or worse, not some mythical being or spell.
By Jesus i meant his basic teachings like feed the poor
Eh, I mean, there is a real historical figure that the bible character is based on. The miracles obviously didn't happen, but there's reasonable debate to be had about how much of the other stuff regarding his teachings is accurate to the real person.
Lol no
Just call it an “Airbnb”. That’s how homeowners get around zoning laws.
This could actually be a genius loophole. Charge some absurdly low fee as an "air bnb".
Oh whoops, let me just give you the amount needed as a gift. Whoopsies! Sorry officer, no free housing here, these are paying guests.
How is that term better than "homeless people"
I think the logic is that the latter is saying that being homeless is part of who they are as a person, whereas the former sees them as regular people who are currently experiencing homelessness. It's like how people are shifting away from saying "drug addict," and saying things like "person addicted to drugs" or saying "undocumented" instead of "illegal" as it's less dehumanizing.
It's a small, subtle difference, but I get it.
This is it exactly. It's known as "person-first" or "people-first" language, and it's a way to be kind toward people with how one uses words. Not a bad habit to get into.
It isn't, unhoused is the best I've heard personally.
Both makes it clear that the problem is housing and acknowledges that the "homeless" often do have homes of a sort.
The phrase is trying to emphasize that being unhoused is a temporary condition that can be remedied but it's just too unwieldy in conversation to do anything but annoy people.
Where are homeless people actually supposed to go?
Away
They want them visible to act as a warning to the working class; work and die or starve and die. The only thing is they want them visible to others but they don’t want to see it themselves
No, Mr. Loom. I expect them to die.
Around here, apparently, miles outside of town. All the bridges have 'no trespassing' signs by them (in English and Spanish, and this is Indiana). I live outside of town and I regularly see people walking down the highway to get to their crappy minimum wage jobs. It probably takes them over an hour to walk, and it was -15 here last week.
So apparently where they're supposed to go is a tent out in the woods.
Oddly enough, there's an established homeless shelter right next door to this church. Based on their sign and name, they're also faith based. Were they full? Did they turn some people away for reasons of their own?
I'm just very curious to hear more.
they are supposed to scare the middle class into not risking their livelihoods.
This is sadly correct.
police department saw a spike in calls for service in May 2023 regarding "inappropriate activity" at Dad's Place spanning criminal mischief, trespassing, overdose, larceny, harassment, disturbing the peace and sexual assault.
Sounds like it wasn't a problem until certain individuals started doing stupid stuff.
Now the question is : how many calls were placed?
They claim they saw more calls. I'm gonna call bullshit.
Even giving them the benefit of the doubt, by their own admission it took their ace detectives 6 months of responding to calls before realizing what was happening there?
And: were those calls placed b the same people who then just happy to have a say in zoning violations.
"Y'all motherfuckers need Jesus!"