Church ordered to shut shelter

Despite pleas from the church earlier in the day, the city's Department of Licenses and Inspection on Tuesday ordered the shutdown of a homeless shelter operating without permits at Hope Outreach United Church of Christ in Kensington.

"It's clear what should be done here," said L&I commissioner Fran Burns. "We have to enforce building, zoning, and fire codes."

But Hope's pastor, the Rev. Deborah Savage, responded by calling for an all-night prayer vigil in the sanctuary where 15 to 25 homeless men have slept each night since the fall.

"We will be here all night for the rest of the month," said Savage, who voiced disappointment that the city did not allow her to continue the overnight sleeping quarters while she makes improvements to the site and seeks necessary permits. "They refused to give us time," she said.

The 114-year-old stone church at the corner of C Street and Indiana Avenue started the shelter around September when a man told Savage he had no place to stay. The men sleep in the second-floor sanctuary.

Burns declined to say if her office would view the homeless men's overnight prayer vigil as a circumvention of the cease-operation order.

She noted, however, that the only egress from the sanctuary is two wooden stairs to the first floor. "If there was a fire on the first floor, how would they get out?" she asked.

There was no sign of city inspectors or police as the church started its 10 p.m. service Tuesday night.

"We haven't heard anything from L&I at this point," Savage said beforehand. "Our expectation is that they could come at any time."

Savage said her church was equipped with smoke detectors, fire extinguishers, and someone keeping watch inside the building at all hours.

Burns and Savage and members of their staffs discussed the situation earlier in the day at a meeting arranged by Councilwoman Maria D. Quiñones Sánchez. Burns described the hour-long conversation as "cordial" and said she and L&I officials explained the reasons for building and fire codes at length with Savage.

"We also said we can work with them on getting permits," Burns said. "But I did get the impression that because we were still going to issue the cease-operation, that may have been the only thing they heard."

Burns said that homeless shelters are not a designated use in the church's neighborhood, which is zoned as R-10 residential, and that the church would likely need a variance from the Zoning Board of Adjustment.

The Pennsylvania chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union had agreed to represent the church in its negotiations with the city. Witold "Vic" Walczak, legal director of the state ACLU, said that he did not want a confrontation with L&I but that there are federal laws that protect the missions of religious institutions such as Hope.

"When the government imposes a substantial burden on a [house of worship] such as we have here, it has to have a compelling justification and its restrictions have to be as narrowly tailored as possible," said Walczak. He said he endorsed the department's efforts to make the church safe, but questioned whether L&I deals this strictly with fire-code violations at other homeless facilities.

"If they ordered every shelter in the city to retrofit with sprinklers or shut down, you'd see four times the homeless population on the streets as you see now," said Walczak.