Church, Buena Park on Collision Course Over Homeless

The laws of God and man are set to collide behind the closed doors of Buena Park City Hall today, and both sides will be quoting chapter and verse.

To Wiley S. Drake, pastor of the First Southern Baptist Church, who has been harboring about 30 homeless people on church grounds in defiance of city officials all summer, the conflict is as simple as Deuteronomy 15:7, which instructs: “Thou shalt not harden thine heart.”

But for Martin Mayer, the city prosecutor threatening to jail or fine Drake for violating the town’s anti-camping ordinance, the matter comes down to Buena Park Municipal Code 15.40.020. The ordinance is designed to prevent homeless people from setting up camps in residential neighborhoods.

Today’s clash will probably determine the fate of Drake and his homeless flock, who stay at the modest church complex for months at a time, receiving meals and spiritual guidance, kicking drug habits and sleeping in trailers, vans, cars or even on the church’s dirt parking lot.

At 3 p.m. today, city officials who repeatedly threatened to file criminal misdemeanor charges against the pastor will issue what they say is an ultimatum: Dismantle the homeless camp or face as much as $1,000 in fines and up to six months in jail. Since July, officials have said that the church’s homeless colony violates local camping ordinances and more than half a dozen building and safety codes.

Drake, 52, who has been First Southern Baptist’s pastor for the past 10 years, was an unsuccessful candidate for the Buena Park City Council two years ago. He vows he will not stop assisting the homeless. Aiding his “poor brethren” is a moral imperative established by the Bible that clearly outweighs secular law, Drake said.

Although he is moving quickly to correct minor safety and code violations cited by city officials, Drake says he will go to jail before turning his back on the homeless.

“We will not kick people off our grounds so long as they are not breaking any other laws,” said Drake, who expels anyone caught using drugs--or even cigarettes--on church grounds. “That’s nonnegotiable.”

Few will watch the showdown with more interest than the homeless men, women and children who live on the church’s grounds. To James, a 35-year-old unemployed construction worker, the two months he has spent at the church has been a vital step toward rejoining society.

“If I wasn’t here,” said the father of two as he scrubbed out a plastic juice bin, “I would be out on the streets doing crazy stuff. Inside here I get the word of God, and now I’m waiting to hear about a job” at a department store.

“I’ve got hope again,” he added.

The controversy has angered some City Council members, who charge that Drake is fond of self-aggrandizing theatrics, not altruism. During this summer’s wrangling, Drake brought the homeless to testify at council meetings and also called upon his 125-member congregation to pray for the council’s eternal damnation.

“There are 300 to 400 places of worship in Orange County,” said Councilman Donald L. Bone. “Isn’t it strange that out of all these churches, there is only one in a confrontational mode?

“To me the issue is not about man’s law vs. God’s law,” he added. “It is an issue where there are alternative ways of helping the poor without running afoul of the law.”

While lauding Drake’s charitable goals, city officials contend that the church’s homeless population is disturbing the nearby community. Church neighbors complain that small groups of homeless people who smoke cigarettes just off church property are frightening some senior citizens who pass by on the way to a nearby senior center, city officials contend.

By charging Drake with a violation of the city’s anti-camping ordinance, Mayer hopes to drive the homeless from church grounds without having to fine or jail the pastor.

It’s unclear how Drake’s moral cause will fare in court. Though the Bible may be his rock, Drake and his attorneys acknowledge that they will have to build a strong case upon secular law to succeed.

First, they plan to attack the city’s charges as being unclear. For instance, the city’s anti-camping ordinance seems to ban recreational camping, but because the church’s homeless have access to showers and rest rooms, those points may not apply, said Aldore Clarambeau, one of three attorneys representing Drake.

Drake’s attorneys then will challenge the city’s actions on constitutional grounds, arguing that the city has no right to “tell the church how to minister to its homeless,” added Clarambeau.

As some churches nationwide have already done, Drake’s attorneys will invoke the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which was signed by President Clinton in 1993. The legislation seeks to strengthen constitutional protections afforded churches and groups who claim they are exercising religious freedom.

But Assistant City Prosecutor Gregory P. Palmer dismisses Drake’s legal strategies as “ridiculous.” Drake can aid the homeless, even allow them a place to sleep, said Palmer, but he must build a city-approved structure to do so.

Legal experts, however, point out that interpretations of the Freedom Restoration Act have varied greatly, and Drake’s success may hinge more on neighborhood realities than lofty constitutional ideals.

“I think it’s a good moral claim, but these types of cases tend to be fact-specific,” said Robert Boston, spokesman for the Washington D.C.-based watchdog group, Americans United for Separation of Church and State. “If it’s causing disruption in the neighborhood, they might not be successful.”