A federal judge has ruled that a southern Oregon city can’t limit a local church’s homeless meal services.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Mark Clarke found that an ordinance passed by the small city of Brookings, on the southern Oregon coast, violated the religious freedom rights of St. Timothy’s Episcopal Church, KGW reported. He issued his opinion on Wednesday.
The 2021 ordinance limited the church’s homeless meal services to two days a week, and required a permit to serve free food in residential areas. It was passed in response to resident complaints.
The church sued the city in 2022, saying the ordinance violated its right to freely practice religion.
For reference, Brookings is a little podunk town along the coast way down in the corner of Oregon near the California border. It’s highly unlikely that these homeless people are coming in from out of town since it’s far from any large city, so the people that are being attracted to this church already live in Brookings.
My thought as well when looking at the photo in the wiki when I grabbed the population count.
You never know though, those mountains could be full of phantom homeless!
It looks like a nice enough place.
It also looks pretty rich.
City-Data
There are over 60 households with income under 30k, so more evidence the people at the soup kitchen arent outsiders.
Yeah, that plot says it all. The distribution is skewed to be wealthier than the average to the point that there are twice as many families making >200k than making 30k.
trans graph trans graph