St. Timothy's Episcopal Church in Brookings is continuing to provide free meals to the hungry, three to four days per week, said the Rev. Bernie Lindley, the church's vicar who goes by "Father Bernie." Pictured here is parishioner Johnie Green.

Just in time for Thanksgiving, a church got a boost in its long-running dispute with the city of Brookings over its free soup kitchen that has drawn steady complaints from neighbors and faces restrictions imposed under a city ordinance.

St. Timothy Episcopal Church filed a federal lawsuit to challenge a change in city zoning code that restricts meals to only three times a week for two hours each.

That cuts into what the church had been doing during the pandemic, when it was allowed camping on its property with the city’s approval and then expanded its meal service to six times a week to handle the increase of people experiencing homelessness.

It wasn’t long before the city received a letter signed by 29 neighbors with safety concerns under the heading: “Petition to Remove Homeless from St. Timothy Church.” Months later, the City Council passed a crackdown on the meal service.

Last week, the U.S. Justice Department sided with the church against the city, filing a court brief backing the church’s suit.

The Rev. Bernie Lindley, St. Timothy’s vicar for 15 years, welcomed the support.

“We need to be able to feed people when they’re hungry, not based on whether or not we have the correct paperwork filed with the city,” said Lindley, who goes by “Father Bernie.”

St. Timothy’s alleges the city ordinance violates the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act. The law prohibits governments from using land-use regulations to curb a “religious exercise” without a compelling reason.

Federal lawyers argued that the church’s free meals constitute a religious exercise and that the city’s restrictions amount to discrimination.

“Many churches and faith-based organizations across the country are on the front lines serving the critical needs of people experiencing hunger and homelessness,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said in a statement.

Leaders of Brookings have urged a federal judge to throw out the suit, countering that the meals are “not required” by the Episcopalian faith.

The city also points out that its ordinance still allows the church’s food ministry to continue, just for fewer days each week.

Former Brookings Mayor Ron Hedenskog said in a court deposition that limiting the free meal service will help address the neighborhood problems. Hedenskog had helped manage the church’s meal services for a decade. He took “a keen interest” in ensuring the free meals would continue but also wanted to address the public safety concerns, according to city lawyers.

“The ordinance at hand does not impede religious practices at all. The ordinance allows benevolent meal services – handing out free food to the general public – in residential areas of the city when this activity would not otherwise be allowed,” attorney Heather Van Meter wrote in the city’s motion to dismiss the suit.

St. Timothy’s has operated since 1953 on Fir Street, surrounded by homes in front and a city park behind it. It began offering free lunchtime meals to people in 2009.

It argues in the suit that its free meal service is “fundamental” to the faith of its approximately 40 parishioners.

The church property has been zoned single-family residential since the city adopted its land use code in 1989. St. Timothy’s was located at the site long before the land use code’s adoption and was grandfathered in, according to court records.

The church increased its meal service in 2015 from one to three days a week and then to five or six days a week during the pandemic as homelessness grew.

St. Timothy’s was the only church in Brookings to sign up when the city adopted a temporary emergency rule to allow people to sleep in their cars or camp at religious institutions as COVID-19 swept through the state. The city granted the church a temporary permit in early 2021 that allowed overnight camping at its property.

There are an estimated 150 homeless people in the city. That’s how many people Brookings CORE Response, a local nonprofit that provides case management support for people who are houseless, as well as clothing, bus passes and access to telehealth, serves each week, said Diana Cooper, its executive director.

In February 2021, the city’s legal counsel asked the Curry County Public Health Department to review the church’s meal service because the city believed “restaurant” regulations should apply, Samantha Sondag, one of the church’s lawyers, wrote in court documents.

Two months later, the city received the neighbor’s petition urging city officials to “reconsider allowing vagrants to continue to live and congregate’’ at the church because of vandalism, other crime and unsanitary conditions, according to court records.

Brandon Usry, whose lives across the street from the front of the church, started the petition because of the increase in crime in the neighborhood, he said. The 32-year-old said he’s put up surveillance cameras and frequently calls police because of the drug use, public nudity and fights that occur outside the church.

“I see the church more than anyone else in town,” he said, noting he looks at it from his kitchen window when he washes his dishes every day. “This isn’t a not-in-my-neighborhood thing. This is a public safety thing. The neighborhood is not pissed off that the church is giving homeless people food. By all means, feed the homeless, but have some accountability, especially when the people are committing crimes. If you’re inviting them to the church, you need to be responsible for them.”

Tina Peters, whose son lives near the church, said she signed the petition because she sees people lingering outside the church at all hours, and in the adjacent park after receiving their free meals.

“It’s not safe. They’re on the doorsteps of the church. They’re on the steps of the houses around the church. There’s just a lot of people. I’m not saying everyone that needs food is not safe, but there’s a group of people who go there who are not making good choices,” she said. “They should fill their bellies and move them on.”

She said two other churches hand out food once a week but they don’t allow people to linger. “It’s not fair to the community,” she added.

Once the church’s emergency permit to allow camping expired in June 2021, the church no longer allowed people to live in cars on its parking lot, Lindley said.

He said he thought that would resolve any complaints.

But it didn’t.

The church, meanwhile, obtained a commercial kitchen license from the Oregon Health Authority as it continued to provide free meals. In response, the city notified the church it was operating a “commercial kitchen” and restaurant unlawfully in a residential zone, according to the church’s lawyers.

On Oct. 25, 2021, the City Council passed the ordinance amending its zoning code.

It created a new conditional use for residential districts called “benevolent meal services” that allowed free meals only twice a week, between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. and for no longer than three hours a day.

Earlier this month, the City Council amended the ordinance to allow meal service for up to three days a week but only for up to two hours a day.

Van Meter, an attorney for the city, contends Brookings leaders are trying to work with St. Timothy’s.

“The City not only used a ‘least restrictive means’ but actually employed a ‘permissive means’ in adopting the Ordinance,” she wrote on the city’s behalf in its motion to dismiss the suit.

The city also argues that providing free meals to people doesn’t constitute “religious expression.’’

If St. Timothy’s can’t offer the meals as many days during the week as it would like, other churches can pick up the other days, the city suggested.

“The meals, whether boxed or wrapped or served on plates, contain no written messages in them. The act of handing out food is not, by itself, ‘imbued with elements of communication,’ let alone religious communication,” lawyers for the city wrote in their motion.

They continued: “When a person drives through a McDonald’s and is handed food, that is not ‘expressive conduct,’ it is a mere physical action of handing food from one person to another — being handed a McDonald’s sandwich is not a religious experience. Likewise, being handed a sandwich by a volunteer at a church is not religious expressive conduct.”

The Justice Department, citing case law, said the city is wrong.

The federal law protects religious exercise even if the specific activity, such as providing free meals to people in need, isn’t “compelled by, or central to, a system of religious belief,” according to the federal lawyers. Under the land-use act, the city and court are “forbidden from evaluating the centrality of religious practice or belief,” according to the Justice Department.

While the case is pending before U.S. Magistrate Judge Mark D. Clarke in Medford, the city has agreed not to fine the church.

St. Timothy’s is continuing to provide between three and four free meals a week, according to Father Lindley.

The church receives deliveries from the Oregon Food Bank and Fresh Alliance and usually provides a protein, meat or pasta, salad, fruit and vegetables for each meal, serving between 65 to 100 people a day, he said.

People eat on picnic tables behind the church or in the parish hall, he said. Sometimes, the church provides to-go boxes.

As St. Timothy’s prepared to offer a Thanksgiving meal with all the trimmings to visitors Thursday, the vicar said he never expected to be in the “middle of this whirlwind” of legal maneuvering.

“To have a powerful ally like the Department of Justice,” Father Lindley said, “it buoyed our spirits.”