By Erica C. Barnett
The Burien City Council capped off 2023 by holding an executive session last Monday to discuss “litigation or legal risks” associated with a new church-based encampment in the city, whose nighttime outdoor sleeping ban went into effect December 1. After the city swept a longstanding encampment where many of Burien’s unsheltered residents had been living, a number of people moved into a structured encampment at Oasis Home Church that has been operating since November 1.
Burien City Manager Adolfo Bailon, along with City Attorney Garmon Newsom II, has insisted that the encampment can’t operate without a temporary use permit would limit encampment operations to no more than 60 days in any calendar year.
“Oasis Home Church remains in violation of the city’s zoning codes,” which do not allow encampments, Bailon said at last week’s council meeting. “Oasis Home Church continues to refuse to acknowledge the rights afforded to the city of Burien to protect public health and safety. … The city is not aware of how, if at all, public safety is being addressed at Oasis Home Church. We do not know of any protections in place to protect the people in the encampment and at the community at large.”
In a letter dated November 30—the day before Burien’s sweeping encampment ban went into effect—Burien assistant city attorney Ndiabou Diagana explained why the city believes it can restrict a church from hosting a homeless encampment, which is explicitly allowed under state law. Acknowledging that the state law supercedes city codes, Diagana argued that the city still has the right to require a temporary use permit because the law only prohibits cities from enforcing laws that pose a “substantial burden” on their free exercise of religion (emphasis in letter.)
One irony of the city’s decision to challenge the encampment so publicly is that many council members who voted for the sleeping ban have repeatedly said that religious and private charities, not the government, should bear the burden of helping homeless people in the city.
“Asking for a temporary use permit to know how, where, how long, and in what fashion the encampment will be run is reasonable, within Burien’s Washington State Constitution Article XI, Section 11 authority to protect health and safety, and not a substantial burden,” Diagana wrote. “Even Washington’s Religious Freedom provision prohibits practices inconsistent with peace and safety. The temporary use permit is a tool that municipalities use to ensure peace and safety.”
The thing supposedly threatening “peace and safety,” in this case, is an encampment intended to provide some sanctuary and safety for people who are homeless in a city that has effectively banned homelessness, which is precisely the type of situation that led to the law allowing churches to host encampments in the first place. One irony of the city’s decision to challenge the encampment so publicly is that many council members who voted for the sleeping ban have repeatedly said that religious and private charities, not the government, should bear the burden of helping homeless people in the city.
Oasis Home Church’s lead pastor, Mark Miller, did not respond to a request for an interview.
In its letter, the city also argued that the two-month limitation shouldn’t be a problem for the church, since the encampment’s supporters have already said it would be temporary. But this is being cute: If the church agreed to a 60-day limitation, it would have to shut the shelter down on December 30, just one month after Burien’s encampment ban went into effect.
The city declined to respond to a list of questions from PubliCola; a spokeswoman said the city could not comment on legal matters. It’s unclear if the city plans to sue the church or the Burien Community Support Coalition, a nonprofit started by Councilmember Cydney Moore. Moore, who lost her reelection bid, was excluded from the executive session because, according to City Attorney Newsom, she would be a “party” to any future legal action.
Before joining most of the council in closed session, Newsom accused Moore of misrepresenting her connection to the encampment, charging that she “denied entry to a member of the press who was attempting to enter this site.” The “member of the press” Newsom was referring to was Jonathan Choe, a self-appointed provocateur and staffer for the right-wing Discovery Institute who takes iPhone videos of himself confronting homeless people and activists and posts them on X. Choe’s video of his encounter with Moore shows him attempting to enter the fenced encampment and Moore asking him to leave.
Laws against trespassing, along with basic ethical standards, generally prevent members of the press (and general public) from non-consensually entering privately operated shelters, sanctioned encampments, transitional housing for domestic violence victims, and other places where homeless and formerly homeless people live.
Here’s the thing, civil war is coming people , it won’t be a race war, it will be between the rich and the poor. The increase in homelessness is solely because people have lost the ability to support themselves with the cost of living skyrocketing, landlords raising rents to unreasonable amounts , food to high to afford. We have a state law that’s says we can’t put a rate hike cap on rents, which should be repealed. The vast majority in taxes are paid by the poorest people leaving Bezos, Microsoft and others billionaires. I make $2000 a month on disability after 22 years as a medical professional and the state says I only qualify for $23 a month in food stamps! The very people who gripe about the homeless are the ones who created bit, wake up people!
i feel the homeless are coming from other state so we can take care of them. we need to help in a way that makes them able to pay there own way. it is just like the parable give a fish and they eat for one day teach them to fish and they eat for life. they need a hand up not hand out. and if they choose the street life and illegal activates. some do not want to work they want to steal, we need give them a chance to work not just receive. i have worked since i was a child i have pulled my self up many times before getting where i am so i know they can to. free rides lead you no place .
Ok boomer
Listen I don’t agree with anything he just said and I’m a boomer so please don’t trash my generation
What’s next, expect the homeless to wear armbands and go do labor camps? Because that’s what the majority of right wingers here want. While you’re at it, make the state motto “Poor people stay out”.
How many times does the City of Burien have to hear from people that they will never shop in or buy anything in Burien because it’s run by assholes?
Considering that the Councilmembers who were NOT anti-homeless lost their positions, and Burien voters just elected a slate of anti-homeless candidates, it would appear that the people who live and pay taxes in Burien don’t care whether you “shop in or boy anything in Burien.”
How is it possible for no one there to see that going into this
Burien has created a lose-lose situation for itself no matter the outcome?
Remember, you don’t have to run faster than the bear…. just faster than your fellow hikers.
The harder Burien cracks down on the homeless, the more homeless shuffle off to Seattle. Is it legal? Who knows? Will it work? It certainly has in the past. City governments tend to be pretty myopic…. the big picture regional homeless crisis isn’t something a city like Burien can deal with. For Burien, the problem starts (and stops) at the city limits.
Instead of complaining about the homeless because they are polluting your ‘precious space,’ that not one of you people who can afford the $1200 a month rooms with no privacy, even ever look up from your social media posts to notice in the first place, why don’t you put down the 4k TV or that $1200 iPhone that will be obsolete in a month, and put that money to good use. Buy land, $6k homes that are insulated and set up to live in already, and house some of these people. I mean seriously. I am one of the homeless that live in a ‘tiny home’ community where the drug problem runs rampant because no one wants to fund better mental health programs to help people get off the drugs. Those that refuse to get off the meth and fentanyl, should be housed in a facility until they can prove they can live without the lethal substances. With all the empty buildings in Burien and all the little hamlets around the small town, I am sure that a ‘church or private charity’ can fund the restoration of one and open a resource center and provide funding to programs, instead of lining their pockets with the tax dollars of people who can’t afford it.