Church sues Colorado town to be able to shelter homeless in trailers, work ‘mandated by God’

CASTLE ROCK, Colo. (AP) — Behind a church surrounded by rolling prairie on the outskirts of this Colorado town sits a donated RV that Joe Ridenour called home for a year after he lost his job during the pandemic.

Being able to live in the RV, he said, allowed him to avoid returning to his native Kansas City, where he was afraid of backsliding into using methamphetamine again.

“Without this trailer and this church, I wouldn’t be alive. The drug use would have consumed me,” said Ridenour, who now has a maintenance job at the county fairgrounds and rents a room from a friend he met at The Rock church.

Last year, the town of Castle Rock ordered the non-denominational evangelical church to stop providing shelter in the RV and another camping trailer for violating zoning regulations. The church responded by suing the town, located between Denver and Colorado Springs.

Echoing arguments made by other churches trying to serve the homeless from Oregon to Ohio, the Colorado church argues that helping those in need is religious activity protected by the Constitution.

Its lawsuit is studded with references to the Bible’s exhortations to the faithful to take care of those in need. It also notes that surrounding Douglas County, one of the richest in the United States, has no other shelters for the homeless.

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