Minister to Begin Trial for Housing Homeless People

FULLERTON — When the Rev. Wiley S. Drake goes on trial this week on criminal misdemeanor charges of housing homeless people without a permit, the issue will be no less than religious freedom, he says.

For the city of Buena Park, the issue is his alleged defiance of municipal laws.

Twelve jurors in North Orange County Municipal Court will be asked to decide whether Drake committed five misdemeanors by allowing about 30 people at any given time to camp in the parking lot of the First Southern Baptist Church of Buena Park. Four other charges were dismissed Monday.

For more than a year, the city has insisted that Drake is violating anti-camping laws. His alternative, they say, is to apply for a permit to build a permanent shelter and submit a manual of shelter guidelines for city officials to approve.

Drake and his attorney characterize the trial as a collision of the laws of God and man.

“It’s all about it being against the law to be poor and homeless,” Drake said. Homelessness constitutes an emergency just as compelling as flood or earthquake, Drake says, and his religious duty compels him to tend to it.

But before arguments on the case begin, Municipal Judge Gregg L. Prickett today must decide whether Court TV will be allowed to broadcast the trial nationwide.