Judge Rules Colorado Church May Operate Temporary Homeless Shelter 

The Rock church in Castle Rock won temporary injunction after being charged with zoning violation.

The Rock church in Castle Rock, Colo., succeeded in obtaining a preliminary injunction that will allow it to operate an “on-site temporary shelter ministry” consistent with its religious beliefs.

The Rock church in Castle Rock, Colorado

On July 19, U.S. District Judge Daniel Domenico issued the preliminary injunction in favor of the church after the city charged the church with zoning violations because the temporary shelters were not an allowed use.

According to court documents, two shelters, a trailer, and an RV are parked over 400 feet from the neighboring residential areas and have been used as temporary shelters since 2018.

Joe Ridenour was one of those helped by the temporary shelters at The Rock church. “Without this trailer and this church, I wouldn’t be alive. The drug use would have consumed me,” Ridenour told the Associated Press.

He now has a maintenance job at the county fairgrounds and rents a room from a friend he met at The Rock church.

First Liberty attorney Ryan Gardner told MinistryWatch the church was grateful the court had intervened to protect its religious liberty rights so they can “follow the dictates of their faith and care for the most vulnerable.”

The court found The Rock was entitled to an injunction because of the protection afforded it under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), which prohibits a city from enforcing land use regulations in a way that impose a “substantial burden” on the religious exercise of a church.

If a city does impose a burden, it must prove the regulation furthers a “compelling governmental interest” by the “least restrictive means.”

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In the case of The Rock church, the court found the town did not show a compelling interest but that the church is likely to succeed on the merits of its RLUIPA claim.

According to the court, Castle Rock imposed a substantial burden on The Rock by preventing it from sheltering people in RVs on the church property. The city argued The Rock could effectively satisfy this religious practice by providing housing in other areas zoned for residential use. In response, The Rock church responded with a passage from Leviticus urging Christians to “allow the poor…to live among you.”

The court refused to “troll through” the church’s religious beliefs and second guess whether the on-site shelter was required by the church’s doctrine, “regardless of how idiosyncratic or mistaken the [t]own may find its beliefs to be.”

During the time that The Rock has been prohibited from using its temporary shelters, it has had to turn away homeless families in need.  On the contrary, “The [t]own has not argued at this time that it would suffer any actual, material harm by allowing families to stay in the [c]hurch’s two mobile homes,” the order reads.

The church noted—and the city did not dispute—that it “has never experienced any public-safety or other related issues while carrying out this ministry, even as it has temporarily housed numerous individuals and small families.”

The court limited the injunction to the conditions found in the case: the church will keep the shelters at a distance from nearby residential areas, will only use the two present vehicles, and  does not receive complaints about drug use nor crime.

Domenico declined to issue an injunction in favor of the church regarding its operation of emergency shelters in coordination with the Red Cross.

“Though the [c]hurch stressed at oral argument that the [t]own is likely to prohibit the operation of the emergency shelter program in the event of a storm this coming winter, this possibility is not sufficiently proximate to justify a preliminary injunction at this point.”

About continued litigation, Gardner said, “Our door is always open to have a conversation to find an amicable resolution, but we plan to continue pursuing claims until the city agrees that the church is acting lawfully and may continue its ministry.”

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