City moves to seize church that planned a homeless shelter

A church that asked permission in September to open a homeless shelter on its land is now worried about losing its property to the city.

During a zoning board meeting Thursday in Toms River, N.J., residents, homeless individuals, church members, and attorneys gave three hours of public comment on a local church’s request for permission to construct a 17-bed homeless shelter on its property. The board delayed its decision, with Chairman Jason Crispin saying he expects the group to vote on the proposal during its June 12 meeting.

But another proposal overshadows Christ Episcopal Church’s request to build a shelter. City officials want to push the church out of its existing location by claiming the land through eminent domain. While the township says it wants to create recreational space for local residents, the church says the move is retaliation for its attempts to build the shelter. If officials pursue claiming the land, they could face a legal battle pitting the right of a government to seize private property against religious protections.

Christ Episcopal Church submitted a site plan and zoning variance request in September, proposing to build a shelter attached to its existing outreach office on the property. The nonprofit organization Affordable Housing Alliance currently operates out of the office. It provides counseling and support services for those experiencing homelessness.

The proposal has drawn intense public debate since September. “We’ve had a half-dozen hearings, three to four hours each night,” said Harvey York, the church’s attorney, who has lived in Toms River for decades. “Couple hundred people in the room at all times, some in favor of the application, some against.”

Last month, the Toms River Township Council considered a proposal to acquire the church’s land and five other properties, all less than a mile from downtown, through eminent domain. Mayor Daniel Rodrick said the plan to build parks, pickleball courts, and public river access on the land would revitalize the town’s waterfront and benefit the community.

The other five lots are adjacent to each other and include three underutilized marinas on the banks of the Toms River. But Christ Episcopal Church’s property, owned by the Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey, is about half a mile from the rest and is surrounded by residential properties.

“The people in that neighborhood, about 5,000 households, they don’t have a park for their children to play at a playground,” Rodrick told me. He said the church’s large parking lot is an attractive feature of the property, as current ordinances would make it difficult for the township to construct a similar parking lot for residents who want to utilize a park and the waterfront.

Christ Episcopal says a resident informed the church about the proposal to claim its property less than 24 hours before a public meeting to discuss it.

“I thought that someone had actually lost their mind and this couldn’t be happening,” York said.

York’s son and business partner, Michael York, sent an email, which WORLD has reviewed, to the city’s attorney. Michael said the church and its representatives had less than 24 hours’ notice about the agenda item and warned that the church would take legal action if officials moved forward with introducing the proposal. He claimed the township and its mayor were acting in “bad faith” and had “ulterior motives” in seeking ownership of the property.

A building at Christ Episcopal Church would house part of a homeless shelter. Episcopal News Service / Photo by Mary Frances Schjonberg

During the meeting, Councilman Thomas Nivison, backed by two other council members, moved to table the measure and tried to remove the church property from the ordinance. After a heated discussion, the township voted 4-3 to approve the first reading of the ordinance. “There is no way on God’s green earth that anybody should vote for this ordinance,” said Councilman James Quinlisk when he voted against it.

If the township adopts the ordinance at a second reading, scheduled for later this summer, then officials could attempt to use eminent domain to seize the property. Under the law, the government can forcibly acquire private property for public use as long as it notifies the property owner of the intent to take the property and offers fair market value compensation.

Rodrick said a park qualifies as a public purpose and said a study commissioned by the township showed a need for a park in the area. He argued the council was not trying to be sneaky by introducing the ordinance without notifying the church. Instead he says passing the first reading gave him permission to begin speaking with property owners. “There’s plenty of time to negotiate a fair settlement with the church,” he said. “I don't believe it negatively impacts very many people, and I think the positive impacts for the community far outweigh that.”

While eminent domain can be used to construct parks, it is more often used for transportation projects like highway construction, said First Liberty Institute attorney Ryan Gardner. “You have other rights that run headlong into this general right that the government has, and those are the protections afforded first and foremost by the First Amendment prohibiting the government from interfering with religious exercise,” he said.

Gardner pointed to additional protections for religious institutions. Both the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act prohibit the government from adding burdens to someone’s religious exercise. Last year, a federal judge ruled in favor of a church in Colorado that claimed the city of Castle Rock violated its religious beliefs when zoning officials said the church could not use RVs parked on the church’s property as residences to serve the homeless.

Rodrick, who describes himself as a born-again Christian, insists the ordinance was not created with anti-Christian bias or to stop people from exercising their religious freedoms. He said there are plenty of other Christian churches in the town and nothing would stop the congregation from taking the money from the sale of the property to move to another location.

But Gardner said the church can still challenge the ordinance in state or federal court by claiming the government was not acting fairly or had discriminatory intent.

“I think that the history surrounding how this all came about is very important,” Gardner said. “If it is, in fact, true that the government’s opposition to this homeless shelter ministry going by the church was the reason then that would be entirely improper and that would be forbidden by the First Amendment.”

After the township approved the first reading of the proposal, the church’s rector, Lisa Hoffman, wrote a letter to the congregation assuring them that the church was not for sale and that she and the diocese would fight what she called an egregious land grab. At the time of publication, a petition created by the church had received more than 6,755 signatures and a GoFundMe had raised more than $15,000 for the church’s legal fees.

In an email, Bishop Sally French of the New Jersey diocese said she supports the church. “I am saddened that the mayor and township council are prioritizing pickleball courts over responding to hunger and homelessness,” she wrote.

Those opposed to the shelter raised concerns about how it may affect the surrounding residential community, while supporters said the church was a logical location for such a shelter because of its established outreach ministry.

“As of this moment, there is not an operating shelter for the homeless in the entire county of Ocean,” York said.

The Ocean County Board of Commissioners last year allocated $12.5 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds to prevent homelessness and assist those without stable housing. The commissioners awarded $7.5 million of the funding to a collaboration between HABcore, Inc., Family Promise of the Jersey Shore, and Bright Harbor Healthcare to establish emergency homeless shelters. Those projects are still ongoing.

Mayor Rodrick declined to comment on the record about the homeless shelter proposal as it is still making its way through the zoning approval process.

Last year, Rodrick and local nonprofit Just Believe Inc. went head-to-head over a Code Blue shelter in the city where homeless people can stay overnight when temperatures drop to 35 degrees. Just Believe has operated the center for years. Township leaders claimed the organization had allowed people to stay overnight even when temperatures were above the threshold, an accusation the group denied. In April, the county board of commissioners said Rodrick was creating a public emergency by refusing to cooperate with efforts to assist homeless individuals.

“The township clearly has engaged in a form of retaliation, retaliation of the church trying to house the homeless when the mayor didn’t want them,” said York. Though church leaders have said the property is not for sale, Rodrick said he believes the church may be interested in an open market transaction. He said he reached out to the diocese to discuss purchasing the land.

Gregory Andrus experienced homelessness and alcohol addiction in his early 20s and now volunteers with Just Believe Inc. He became a Christian after a police-involved accidental shooting. “The doctor who pulled the bullet [from] my head told me I was a miracle, and that ultimately led me to finding Jesus,” Andrus said. “And when I found Jesus, my whole life turned around.”

He said that many homeless individuals in Toms River are from the area or come because, as the county seat, it offers the services they need. The high cost of living in the region also contributes to local homelessness, he said.

Andrus and church leaders hope that the township zoning board will approve the request to build a shelter and that the township council will not pass the eminent domain ordinance.

“What they are proposing to do is an injustice of significant proportions,” Andrus said. “If God can save someone like me, then I believe everyone deserves that second chance.”