Message clear: Lacey doesn't want homeless

The Lacey City Council ignored all public testimony and the city planning commission when the council enacted an ordinance that will — in practical terms — prevent churches from hosting homeless encampments.

Unlike Olympia and Tumwater where homeless encampments or tent cities can be accommodated in church parking lots, the new Lacey ordinance, adopted on a 4-3 vote, requires churches to host the homeless inside their buildings.

Instead of adopting 16 pages of obstacles to homeless encampments, the council majority might just as well have passed a single-sentence ordinance that said, "The Lacey City Council hereby outlaws homelessness within the city limits."

Period.

Council member Jason Hearn said he has great compassion for the poor. But talk is cheap. His vote in favor of this unrealistic ordinance and the votes of his colleagues Tom Nelson, Ann Burgman and John Darby speak louder than their empty words.

Credit Mayor Graeme Sackrison and council members Virgil Clarkson and Mary Dean for seeing through the thinly veiled effort to drive the homeless out of Lacey and into neighboring Olympia and Tumwater. The Lacey ordinance is so tightly drafted and so ridiculously burdensome that no church will be able to offer sanctuary to the poor.

Camp Quixote hosts

Five churches in Olympia have hosted Camp Quixote — the tent city — during the past 14 months. We asked a spokesman from each whether they could have hosted Camp Quixote under restrictions imposed by the Lacey ordinance:

"Absolutely not," said Rodger Johnson of First United Methodist Church.

"No," said Pastor David James of St. John's Episcopal Church.

"We couldn't do it," said Mary Olney-Loyd, pastor of First Christian Church. "The requirements in Lacey are prohibitive. I'm so very sad they've done this."

"It would be impossible," said Mark Dowdy, pastor of United Churches. "It will absolutely stop tent city from landing in the jurisdiction of Lacey and we testified to that."

Tim Ransom, spokesperson for Olympia Unitarian Universalist Congregation, the current host of Camp Quixote said, "The answer is no. We don't have the room in our church to have that many people inside ... without giving up our normal church operation."

In a meeting with The Olympian's editorial board, Mayor Sackrison of Lacey said he does not believe a single church in Lacey will be able to meet the requirements of the ordinance. What further incenses Mayor Sackrison is that "100 percent of the testimony" on the homeless ordinance and the recommendation of the planning commission was to enact an ordinance similar to that passed by Olympia and Tumwater.

But council members Hearn, Nelson, Burgman and Darby insisted on much more stringent requirements.

It's an old government ploy — don't ban something outright (because that's unconstitutional). Instead erect so many roadblocks the ordinance becomes a de facto ban.

Hurdles and roadblocks

The council imposed 16 pages of limitations on every host church. Each host congregation, for example, must have $1 million worth of general liability insurance and pay for a conditional use permit to house the homeless. Each church must have a kitchen and the entrance must be manned 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Host churches must log every visitor and track every single homeless individual's circumstance. Shelter residents must present identification or be fingerprinted. How many homeless individuals have a driver's license for identification purposes?

By erecting those hurdles, the council majority has, in practical terms, made it impossible for churches to meet their biblical call to shelter the homeless. It's a shameful — and perhaps unconstitutional — infringement on the rights of religious congregations.

The way the ordinance is crafted sends the clear message that the council majority simply does not want to accommodate the poor. The ordinance is heartless and mean-spirited.

We look forward to the day when a different council will do the right thing and repeal the burdensome ordinance and accommodate the poor and homeless as Olympia and Tumwater councils have done.