The suit, filed Monday, accuses the city and its officials of launching a harassment campaign against Dad's Place, a church in Bryan, for keeping its doors open 24/7 for the homeless.
The suit, filed Monday, accuses the city and its officials of launching a harassment campaign against Dad's Place, a church in Bryan, for keeping its doors open 24/7 for the homeless.
An Ohio pastor who was charged with zoning violations for housing people experiencing homelessness has filed a federal lawsuit against the city of Bryan and its officials.
Earlier this year, Pastor Chris Avell decided to keep the doors of his church, Dad's Place, open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to reach out to the city's most "vulnerable." Bryan is a small city of about 8,600 people, 65 miles west of Toledo.
In December, Avell was hit with 18 zoning violations by the city, which claimed he had violated a city ordinance that says residents can't stay on the first floor of that property. Further, the local fire chief found a slew of fire code violations at the church.
Avell pleaded not guilty to the charges at his Jan. 11 arraignment, according to online court records.
Now he's suing the city, claiming discrimination on the basis of religion and claiming city officials have launched a harassment campaign against the church.
Imagine that, a pastor actually thinking to himself "what would Jesus do?" and doing that, and being punished for it.
This is why I, regardless of political lean, think the real enemy is bureaucrats. Bureaucrats aren't even really people. They're the lizard people all the conspiracy theory/tin foil hat wearers screech about.
You're thinking of politicians. Bureaucracy is the scapegoat they use to cover their machinations. A functional society needs bureaucrats to do all the tasks that makes society work, without them everything would fall apart.
where are the riots for better wages, housing, better public services, for actual politicians that are public servants out to do right for the citizens they themselves depend on, for worker's rights, or for anything?
We're also really tired from our demanding jobs. Most of us also can't just suddenly take time off work to protest these things.
Plus it's effort driving from our homes to wherever the protests may be.
I'm being partially facetious here, but these all play a factor in this.
You don't know about them because the media either refuses to cover them or misrepresents them.
For example, consider the shitshow going on around Cop City in Atlanta: the police have already murdered one protestor in cold blood, the mayor is thwarting a public referendum, etc.
Entitled dumb as shit boomers are what happened. You know the ones; they love mob stories and cops and robbers and cowboys and indians and oh are they SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO SMART!
Judging by their wording, it sounds like they are from somewhere other than the US. What do you expect a foreigner to do that could possibly affect US domestic policy?
They want them visible to act as a warning to the working class; work and die or starve and die. The only thing is they want them visible to others but they don’t want to see it themselves
Oddly enough, there's an established homeless shelter right next door to this church. Based on their sign and name, they're also faith based. Were they full? Did they turn some people away for reasons of their own?
Around here, apparently, miles outside of town. All the bridges have 'no trespassing' signs by them (in English and Spanish, and this is Indiana). I live outside of town and I regularly see people walking down the highway to get to their crappy minimum wage jobs. It probably takes them over an hour to walk, and it was -15 here last week.
So apparently where they're supposed to go is a tent out in the woods.
police department saw a spike in calls for service in May 2023 regarding "inappropriate activity" at Dad's Place spanning criminal mischief, trespassing, overdose, larceny, harassment, disturbing the peace and sexual assault.
Sounds like it wasn't a problem until certain individuals started doing stupid stuff.