[Hpn] New York, NY - City Seeks to Oust Church's Homeless Camp - New York Times - May 30, 2002

[H. C. Covington]

City Seeks to Oust Church's Homeless Camp

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By COREY KILGANNON - New York Times - May 30, 2002

Arguing that a homeless haven outside a Fifth Avenue church had become a
nightly nuisance, City Hall asked the United States Court of Appeals in
Manhattan yesterday to lift a ban on using the police force to roust the
homeless from the site.

The church, the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, allows some 20 to 30
homeless people to spend the night on its steps and perimeter property
adjacent to city sidewalks.

In the case, which dates from the final weeks of the Giuliani administration,
city officials are seeking jurisdiction over an area they call a "homeless
encampment" in one of the city's wealthiest areas.

At the hearing, Mordecai Newman, a lawyer for the city, argued that the church
steps constitute an illegal homeless shelter, where dangerous and unsanitary
conditions create a nuisance to the city and are a detriment to the homeless
campers themselves.

He asked the court to lift the injunction against police action, "so the city
can take whatever action it is going to take to enforce this violation."

But Carter G. Phillips, a lawyer for the church, argued that the church steps
were not a shelter, but rather "a place of sanctuary" for homeless people,
many of whom, he said, feared the city's shelter system.

He said that the church's homeless outreach program was an integral part of
its ministry and should be protected under the First Amendment. He asked the
court to keep the injunction, or else police would "swoop" down again upon the
homeless who, he said, were guests of the church, staying on private property.

In an interview after the hearing, Mr. Phillips said that if the injunction
were lifted, he would appeal the decision, saying the case was important
enough for consideration by the United States Supreme Court.

The church is in the heart of Fifth Avenue at West 55th Street, near
Rockefeller Center, St. Patrick's Cathedral and many luxury stores. Homeless
campers often bunk down within a cigarette butt's toss from lines of idling
limousines.

The church operates an indoor shelter for 10 people, but for two years, it has
also allowed the homeless to gather on its steps and along the sidewalk along
West 55th Street. In early December, police officers began arriving at the
church at night, waking the homeless campers and urging them to move along.

The church responded by filing a suit in Federal District Court in Manhattan
to stop the raids and got a temporary restraining order on Dec. 20 barring the
raids. The city then filed a lawsuit and got the court to rule on Jan. 4 that
the homeless could sleep only on the steps, not the sidewalk next to the
church.

Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani had called the nightly encampments an inhumane
substitute for a real homeless shelter, a sentiment echoed by Michael R.
Bloomberg after he became mayor on Jan. 1.

If onlookers thought the Bloomberg administration might ease up on Mr.
Giuliani's strict homeless policies, there was no evidence of it yesterday, as
lawyers from each side offered spirited arguments before a three-judge panel
that included Judges Sonia Sotomayor, Chester J. Straub and Richard W.
Goldberg.

In a statement, Michael A. Cardozo, the city's corporation counsel, said that
"the church's status as a religious institution does not entitle it to conduct
an outdoor nighttime encampment, in which homeless people are offered no basic
standards of safety and sanitation."

He added, "The current situation provides no access to toilet facilities, no
security protection and no protection from the elements — a situation that we
view as unacceptable."

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/30/nyregion/30FIFT.html?tntemail0