Curry Café: Saint Timothy’s Episcopal Church, Helping the Homeless and Underserved

This week on Curry Café, host Ray Gary leads a compelling conversation on the long-standing impact of Saint Timothy’s Episcopal Church in the Brookings community and the recent conflict with city government. Joining Ray are Father Bernie Lindley, the church’s vicar and a local fisherman, and Robert O’Sullivan, a former high school teacher, Lutheran pastor, […]

Episode Transcript

(00:02):
Hello, KCIW
listeners, and welcome to Curry Cafe, where we
put together a panel of volunteers and guests
who discuss various topics from whimsical and fun
to more serious subjects.
Well, hello, and once again, welcome to another
edition of the Curry Cafe. My name is

(00:24):
Ray Gary, and I'm
more or less gonna be hosting the show
today. And it's
as Richard said, we have whimsical and serious
subjects, and I think it's gonna be kind
of a serious one today. We have 2
very honored guests
who will introduce themselves in just a minute,
and I will start off the program after
they introduce themselves with my

(00:44):
segment called lie of the week.
So why don't we start
with you and we'll go around and introduce
yourself, who you are, what you do,
and why you think you should be here.
Hi, Rick. I'm father Bernie. Thank you for
having me. Well, Rick is the host, but
you're Ray. And thank you for having,
me here with you today on the cafe.

(01:07):
Do you think you need any introduction? Father
Bernie?
I mean, other than that, I mean, was
will that just come out during the show?
Well, I'm the priest of Saint Anthony's Episcopal
Church. And, I think quite a few of
our listeners here on KCIW would know who
I am. Okay. And that you
weren't born here but were raised here. Well,
I was born in Crescent City. Yeah. Close

(01:28):
but Close enough. Yeah. Yeah.
I'm Robert O'Sullivan.
I,
have had a rather unusual life in that
the first kind of half of my adult
life,
I was largely in, media and politics in
California.
And,
then in my late forties, early fifties,

(01:50):
I decided to become a high school teacher,
which I became both in English and social
studies,
teaching things like US history and civics,
as well as a part time Lutheran pastor.
And I did both of those roles for
a good 20 plus years.
And, like father Bernie, I,
wound up being the pastor of the church

(02:11):
I was as a teenager. It's unusual for
that to happen, but
we share a fair number of things in
common that are unusual for men of the
alleged cloth.
So both of these guys have made a
career out of talking.
So, I probably won't get a heck of
a lot in, so I'll just get some
stuff in here quickly. We we talk about

(02:32):
our,
presidential candidate.
I saw I saw him being interviewed,
a couple of times this weekend, and one
of the interviews, somebody asked him about his
concern about the environment.
And he talked about, oh, when he built
buildings, he was so concerned about the environment
and he says, you know, I was I
I won awards for the way I would

(02:52):
mix the sand and the water. I got
the wrong awards.
Then he pulled this silly stunt of of
working for
a little while on Mickey D's. I don't
I I still don't get that. Is that
was he trying to catch up with Kalama
or, Kamala?
I don't know. Might have liked the clown
suit possibilities.

(03:12):
What? Might have liked the clown suit possibilities.
He was trying out for the for for
for Ronald.
Ronald McDonald.
That should have been the Hamburglar though. That's,
that's another story.
Is that Burger King or something else?
Okay. Let's see. Oh,
if he's not elected, Christians will not be

(03:34):
safe in this country.
I don't know why.
FEMA spent more money on the immigrants so
they don't have enough money to help people
in the areas that were recently
affected by the storms.
None none of this is true, by the
way. These are just things that he has
said.

(03:55):
And I'm reminded of of
he he used to be a regular guest
on Howard Stern's radio show. And if you're
you're familiar with Howard Stern's radio show back
in the day, that alone should disqualify you
from being president if you, will put up
with being a guest on that stupid
program. But, anyway, he used to brag about
when he owned the Miss America

(04:16):
teenage something or other, and he could just
walk right in the in the guest room,
and then there would be all these wonderful,
beautiful women
naked, and
because he owned it, he could he could
he could go in there.
This is an adult man saying this, not
a kid.
Oh, okay. We I think we've already talked
about his discussion about Arnold Palmer.

(04:39):
I I guess he would classify that as
locker room talk. I would
classify it as, like,
middle school locker room talk. I thought
Probably had enough of the lie stuff.
Yeah.
There are an awful lot of early voters.
There's millions and millions of early voters, and
I I bet you those people all have

(05:00):
all their Christmas shopping done already too.
Okay. I guess that's it. So we can
go on now to the subject at hand,
and I have 2 guys that are staring
at me like vultures, like I can't wait
to say something. And
so
take it away.
Well, you know,

(05:21):
Pastor Robert and I, we've been working together
on various different issues around homelessness, but it's
not just homelessness that's our main issue that
we're concerned about. It's all the people who
are underserved within our community.
And
there's plenty of people who are housed, but
it's precariously housed.
They're
one paycheck away from losing their housing.

(05:43):
There are
very many
people who are having their,
you know, they're having their
homes taken away from them from inability to
pay, and they can't have another place to
live. It's not like we have a lot
of options
when it comes to housing in our area.
I was talking to a guy who's a
construction, you know, he's like a contractor,

(06:05):
and,
I'm very glad we need more contractors. We
need more building. We need more homes. The
thing that I worry about, though, is that
the homes that we're gonna build here in
this community are going to be,
3 quarter of a $1,000,000 homes and up
instead of the kind of homes that we
need in order for the workforce people to
be able to live in, the people in
the work, you know, need to be. One
might become vacation homes as well. Yeah. That's

(06:25):
a concern, isn't it? Contractors are business people,
and you go where the money is when
you're a business person. Well, we have to
figure out how to incentivize low income housing.
And, you know, calling it low income housing
makes it sound like, you know, it's less
than,
you know, that's sub subpar housing. And what
we need is workforce housing.
Originally, when Brookings
came into,

(06:46):
became a community, it was a mill town,
and there were homes for the mill workers,
and a lot of these homes that are
down on, say,
Hemlock Street and Spruce Street
and up on Pacific Avenue, all the different
ones that are kinda in the heart of
downtown Brookings,
those homes were made specifically for mill workers

(07:06):
to live in. They were small. They were
modest, but they were
sturdy and are still there now
and
affordable.
And we need more of that kind of
housing in our community, the kind of, we
don't need
2,500 square feet homes. We need 1200 square
foot homes. Yeah. And to incentivize
the contractors for, you know, the developers for

(07:27):
building those homes, we're gonna have to come
up with better strategies.
I have some friends that wanna move here,
and they have a substantial income. And there.
Their budget is half a $1,000,000,000, and they
have not been able to find anything. I
have a very similar story. Yeah. Well, that
kinda goes to show, doesn't it? Yes. It
does. Half a1000000, and you can't find anything
to buy because it's the market starts at
600,000 or 700,000.

(07:48):
So we got we we we have to
figure something.
Maybe,
apartment complexes. We have to we have to
come up with better alternatives to, the housing
in our community.
So it's kind of my understanding that one
of the reasons that we have trouble
building, for instance, a subdivision with this kind
of housing is that
everything involved in before you put a shovel

(08:11):
on the ground is is full of red
tape and is incredibly expensive,
getting permits and things of that nature. I've
had friends tell me that, that they I
I know a guy that he owns a
piece of land, and he would like to
put on, like, a 4plex. Mhmm. And he
said that it was gonna be cost prohibitive,
because of the, whatever, sewer hookups or whatever.

(08:31):
So,
the most affordable place to live in our
area would be the manufactured homes, you know,
the parks, the, you know, I call them
trailer parks. I don't know if maybe there's
a better name for it. Manufactured home parks.
I think they prefer.
Yeah, I suppose. But, But those are going
up as well. Well, unfortunately,
there is one particular park that I'm aware

(08:52):
of where the space rate is $700 a
month, and this park is not the deluxe
park.
It's,
it's it has numerous different problems, and
it's
where our working class people are living is
in this
particular park, but parks like it. And $700
a month space the reason why people originally
wanted to live there is because the space

(09:12):
rent was like 400 a month. Mhmm. Well,
now it's gone from 400 a month to
700 a month. And why is that? It's
because these different out of town investors,
you know, they bought it, they formed an
LLC, and they're extracting money back to Sacramento
or wherever it is they live. Maybe it's
Portland, wherever it is that they live,
and

(09:33):
now, our people can't afford to live there
anymore. And when I say our people, I
mean the residents of Brookings
that are providing
the,
the ones that are stocking the shelves in
the grocery stores, the ones who are
working in the banks,
the ones who are
making sure that
people are having their lawns mowed and, you

(09:54):
know, taking care of our community
on minimum wage type jobs.
And, we have to make sure that they
can afford to live here too. I I
have a suggestion
about where this should go next, and it's
giving a little history of Saint Tim's as
always being involved in in
being sensitive to real live human needs, which

(10:16):
a lot of churches don't pay much attention
to.
Oh, okay. Yeah. I,
forgot to do this, which I frequently do.
We have a way you can cut get
in touch with our guests here by sending
us a text, and the phone number is
541-661

(10:37):
4098.
It's 541-661-4098.
And you can call up and compliment our
guests or call them naughty names or do
whatever you like, and we have operators standing
by. So
let's not waste our operators standing by money.
Give us a give us a text. Have
an opinion.
Yep. Our operator's name is Linda. Mhmm.

(11:00):
So the, yeah, housing is a big issue
for, for our community at large, but also
access to healthcare is a really big thing.
We need to make sure that more we
need more primary care providers.
We need more we need more dentists that
see low income people.
As you well know, Ray,
once somebody's on Medicare, that doesn't mean that
they're gonna have,

(11:22):
dental coverage.
Mhmm. So,
we need to come up with better ways
to be able to provide for the care
of, people of all ages when it comes
to access to mental health, when it comes
to primary care, when it comes to access
to dental care, when it comes
to physical therapy, all the different things that,

(11:43):
we might be able to find in,
other communities and, in fact, have to travel
to go get those services,
to other communities. I see a a,
eye professional twice a year, and I have
glaucoma and a few other little things that
that they take care of,
but it's, it's pretty much my guess that
people who don't have coverage or don't have,

(12:05):
any kind of disposable income see an eye
doctor twice a year.
Highly unlikely.
I I know I don't.
So, when it comes to dental care, there
fortunately, there's a new dentist, that's going to
see Medicaid patients here in town. His his
practice is, it's in a soft opening right
now. Eventually, it's gonna roll out more,

(12:27):
and, potentially, it will have 2,400
patients,
because of the lack of people who can
get care, dental care that are a Medicaid
people. That sounds great. You know,
whenever I go to my doctor for a
for a checkup or whenever I have something
that I know
they can't fix here or deal with here,
I have to get in the car and

(12:47):
go to Medford.
And I loathe calling them to get in
the car and going from going to Medford
other than though my trip to Costco, but
that's really a problem. If you need any
kind of a specialist pretty much, you're gonna
have to pack up and go. And our
working class folks, they're not gonna be able
to go to No. Medford. You know, they're
not Costco shoppers, first of all. Right. And

(13:08):
so that that benefit that, like, you're talking
about, I was going to Costco. I mean,
that's fine for a lot of us. It
was fast. But for the working class people,
they they don't have Costco memberships. And
to to actually go to Medford and come
back, they'd have to miss a day of
work. They would have the the cost of
the gas, the wear and tear on the
car, which may or may not be reliable
enough to get there.
So

(13:29):
to roll out better care here,
I'll kind of give an example of how
desperately this, like, dental care is needed here
in our community.
We,
over the last probably 12 years, we've had
a dental van from Medical Teams International has
come to the church on different occasions
and parked at the church to offer

(13:49):
free dental care to anyone who meets the
income criteria, which is
not that hard for people to do. They're
here in town today.
Oh, are they? Yep. They just closed up.
They just finished, just a few minutes ago.
That's what I was on when I was
coming here, I was getting an update on
how many people that we saw, and it
was 18. We excuse
me, it was 16. We had 16 people

(14:10):
that were seen by the dentist on that
mobile Dillan.
So, it's to have it come on a
Sunday isn't, you know, ideal for us, but
we take what it comes our when they
say, Hey, we got a free day, we
can come on that Sunday, I tell them,
Yes, and we'll figure it out because How'd
the community find out about that, that this
is the first I've heard of it for
this? Oh, yeah. Not something I've been paying

(14:30):
attention to you. Yeah. So we like I
say, we've been having these periodically for the
last
12 years, maybe and it might even be
more. I lose track of the time. It
was some it was probably around
2012, I suppose, when we had our first
dental van visit. And sometimes it'll only come
twice a year. Sometimes it'll come 6 times
a year. It just depends on the funding
because it's all grant funding. Right. And so

(14:52):
we have to request grant money, and it
comes from various different sources.
And then they have to have the availability,
and there's, but we knew
about 2 weeks ago that it was coming,
and so it was advertised out on some
different Facebook pages mostly. Oh, okay. But there
were also
other outlets that were
I don't even remember.

(15:13):
We have a team of people at St.
Timothy's that
make sure that our ministries run smoothly,
and,
you know, that's promotion of
that was not my we we have a
what we call a soapbox feature here. I
think that's what it's called, where somebody could
come in and do a 2 minute recording
about just about anything, and that would be
an ideal place to to advertise that, I

(15:34):
think. Yeah. It would because and what part
of what happens is once we get the
word out, then word-of-mouth kinda kicks over too.
But
we had, like I say, 16 people, and
I got to meet, you know, interact with
some of them this morning, and it was
pretty cool because they were doing some other
screenings. They had a nurse that came with
them, and they were doing some A1C screenings,

(15:56):
and they could do it in real time.
They had the device set up on the
counter that they feed the blood sample through
so that they can while you're there,
during your dental visit, you can find you
can find out what your A1C is, so
that your blood sugar
level.
So they are they doing fillings and like
on the spot? Yeah. And, you know,
extractions is going to be the thing that

(16:18):
they can they're going to get the most
value for their time Absolutely. On an extraction
because it's gonna take the pain away, and
it's gonna solve the problem.
You know, it's
not that, you know, certainly
we would wish that people could get root
canals and it could be solved that way.
Right. Obviously, that's
what happened. Well, I happen to know from
firsthand knowledge from last Tuesday that a root

(16:38):
canal is $2,200
in Grants Pass. Yeah. Not a lot of
fun. Not a lot of fun. And I
I have good dental coverage and I think
it would cover half of that.
But it it's it's more fun now than
it used to be. It used to be
hell on earth but it's
I guess they perfected it now so it's
not as bad.
It doesn't mean anything as not as bad.

(16:59):
I I think,
something that's important to
realize historically
is
what a role Saint Tim's has played in
this community.
I moved here with my wife in 2015,
2016,
and it soon became pretty clear that,
Saint Tim's was a place to go for

(17:19):
a lot of services.
And as COVID came on and the city
just about shut down in many, many ways,
Saint Tim's was
probably the first place around where you could
get COVID shots. That's where I got mine.
And also,
while other people, other
social services were

(17:40):
were shutting down, the county health department was
shut down, St. Tim's was the place to
go to get help,
and they did a remarkable job.
And curiously,
what has become another major force in the
community,
Brookings Corps,
basically got its shot at Saint started at

(18:01):
Saint Tim's.
And,
it's always been a place. The food bank
was started there.
It's always been a place where people
know that if they can't get help at
other places, Saint Tim's was a place to
go, which is made it controversial
in its neighborhood. Yeah. Absolutely.

(18:21):
Yeah. And but but part of its controversy
is
due to a geographical
fact that it's next to a large public
park,
Azalea Park.
And,
people in the neighborhood who,
have complaints about somebody going through their trash,

(18:41):
blame it on somebody going to Saint Tim's
for lunch or something like that. While really,
it might be someone who is camping out
in in Azalea Park the night before and
trying to find a few soda bottles to
get a little spare change.
And,
but this congregation
has faced
extreme discrimination
and a lot of,

(19:02):
just unfactual
stuff.
And it's too bad,
but,
basically, the taxpayers
have been,
forced to pay probably over $1,000,000
if you count all the tax dollars that
go into the federal government in the lawsuit,
where the federal government took the side of

(19:23):
Saint Tim's.
And when you look at, other ways in
in in which,
court employees,
judges were all involved,
over 625,000
went to lawyers who were involved in the
lawsuit.
And,
this could all have been avoided
if the city council,

(19:44):
who got a complaint from 29 or 30
complaints about vagrants and undesirables
hanging out in their neighborhood,
if the city council at that time tried
to work with the church to
to try and stop a lot of these
alleged complaints from happening.
But rather than that, the city council decided
to start getting tough on the church.

(20:07):
And unfortunately,
they apparently didn't even have a high school
civics understanding
of constitutional
law in this country.
That, there
in many ways,
the history of liberty in this country
is involving
telling governments that they should stay out of

(20:27):
certain things. They should stay out of,
interfering with the freedom of speech, with the
freedom of the press, with the freedom of
religion and the practice thereof.
And they have to treat those things differently.
They just can't assume, well, it's in our
city
and it's a land use,
issue
And we can ignore that all all the

(20:49):
other stuff because we live on the banana
belt and we're a banana republic all on
our of our own and it doesn't apply
to us.
And all of that litigation
could have
not happened if they simply had that understanding
that you have to treat churches differently.
That understanding is not only in the federal
constitution.

(21:09):
It's even more clearly stated in the Oregon
constitution,
which says no law
in any form whatever
should interfere with people's religious
exercise.
And for Christians,
especially if they take seriously
the parable of the last judgment in Matthew
the latter part of the Matthew 25,

(21:31):
recognize
that to be truly faithful to their lord,
it means being sensitive
and responding
creatively and lovingly
to those who are the least among us
in the words of that. In as much
as,
the in the parable,
we're we're reminded that if people are sick

(21:54):
or they're naked or they're hungry or they're
a stranger, foreigner,
that they should be treated with love and
respect.
And in the words of a famous
Roman Catholic theologian who just died,
who is the founder of liberation theology,
that Christianity should have a

(22:15):
peculiar
bias
on behalf of the poor. And Saint Timothy's
has shown that with
I I like to say
in in spades and
and,
in diamonds and clubs and especially in arts.
That's good. I think, the
when you talk about that peculiar bias, I
think our city council had just exactly that.

(22:37):
They have the bias against the club. Against.
Yes. And that's at the that's at the
heart of the issue.
And we're glad that Saint Tims was willing
to stand up and say, no. You can't
do that. And they're part of an a
worldwide communion of churches. And because they're related
to churches all over Oregon and all over

(22:58):
the United States and all over the world,
they could have the
resources to
fund,
a a lawsuit that made it clear that
the city should not do what it was
trying to do. When I first moved to
Brookings, I was going to a
a city council meeting. I happened to mention
to a friend I hadn't been here very
long at all. There was something that interested

(23:19):
me,
and my friend said, well, you're just wasting
your time. Don't go to that because they've
already made up their mind, and whatever you
say
is not gonna change their mind. And I
was shocked to find out that that was
exactly true. And they've they've made some decisions,
and I won't talk about it because I'm
sick of talking about it, that actually endangered
the community by,

(23:40):
removing the possibility of this
network or
station.
So, you know, Ray, I wanted to kinda
piggyback on some of the stuff that pastor
Robert was saying because
the the petition, this whole thing started because
of a petition, you know, with the 29
signatures,

(24:00):
and specifically,
it it wasn't super clear. It said, we
wanna remove have the vagrants removed from the
church or something along those lines, But what
they were referring to, I have no doubt,
was our car camping thing that we had
going on because in the middle of the
pandemic,
the city council had had a hope that,
all the 15 churches that are in the
city limits, that each one of the churches

(24:22):
would have 3 cars
in in their respective parking lots with people
in it, and that would take
and
so that, the unhoused folks would have a
place have places to be so they wouldn't
just be roaming around, you know. Because at
the time, we didn't know what to expect
out of this pandemic.
And in fact,
Brookings was a little bit later with the
deadly part of it than the rest of

(24:43):
the country was because during the delta wave,
August of, 2021,
we certainly did see
a large number of people dying from COVID
19, but we had already by then, though,
we had already, like, had some fatigue, you
know, some COVID fatigue, you know, people who
were people like, the social distancing was becoming
old by then, and so we let our

(25:04):
guard down, and then people and then we
had that delta wave was very devastating for
us. But what happened, though, was that we'd
already had, at that point,
like, 6 or 8 months' worth of people
living in our parking lot, and none of
the other churches did have that parking
going on. Yeah. And they had asked us,
asked all of the 15 churches to do

(25:25):
that,
so it wasn't our idea. We didn't ask
them if we could have the 3 cars
in our parking lot. They asked us if
we would be willing to house the 3
cars in our parking lot. It made sense
to us. We did it. There were requirements
that were involved that had to do with
sanitation.
We made sure that that was all being
met,
and the people were, they were kind of
doing fine, but after a year, they started

(25:46):
to devolve.
They started to have some issues that were
happening within themselves.
Now, so let me finish this spot just
quickly because this is kind of the important
part is that when the petition went around,
I firmly believe it was to end the
car camping.
And at that point, it made sense that
we should end the car camping
because the Delta wave was over with. Other

(26:06):
churches weren't doing it. Other churches weren't doing
it. We needed to move past that. And
so we did stop the car camping,
which made me think that we had satisfied
what the petition was initially requesting. But then
the city council decided, no. We need to
stop. We need to slow down the number
of days a week that you feed people.
Well, the two things, I didn't see that
they were related,

(26:27):
but yet this this is where we were.
Anyway, I'm sorry, Linda. That's okay. I have
a text coming in. There is a text.
Alright. Yes. And I'll read it to you.
Yeah. Operator that has been standing by now
has a function. Okay. There we go.
It says the text says,
manufactured
home parks are having trouble throughout the country

(26:48):
with large companies
buying out the parks
then forcing out the
oops. Forcing out the
current residents by raising space rents.
Those residents are usually seniors on low fixed
incomes
or families trying to survive
on low wages.
Was there any dialogue at all between the

(27:10):
city council,
the petitioners,
and Saint Tim's to prevent a lawsuit?
Well, those two ideas didn't quite I I
it took a change there, but,
the I I fully recognize, you know, that
that thing happening with the manufactured home parks.
But then when you switch to the dialogue
to try to prevent the lawsuit, absolutely,

(27:32):
because one of the things that we did
was we said, okay, we realize there's a
problem with the car camping. We will stop
it, and we did, and
the people and the cars, they went on
to wherever else they went on to, that
they weren't on the church grounds anymore. And
then we set up a rule that said
that no one can be on the church
grounds after 6 o'clock at night. It's a
it's
a agreement that we have with the city

(27:52):
police. So the city police, if they're driving
by and they see somebody after 6 o'clock
on the church grounds,
you know, and I hate to use the
word loitering, but, you know, if they see
somebody loitering, they can trespass that person, and
they're no longer they'll no longer be allowed
back to the church, and we've had to
do that on a few different occasions. But
that's because,
you know, we wanna make sure that we
minimize, and and I know that, you know,

(28:14):
there's probably
at least one of our neighbors that lives
near in close proximity to the church that
would laugh at what I have to say,
but we really do care
about our impact on the community,
on the on the homes that surround us.
We very much care about that. In fact,
this morning, when the dental van got there,
it was like 650 or 655.
It wasn't even 7 o'clock yet. It was

(28:34):
still dark out, and, you know, it's got
a diesel engine, and it's kind of loud.
I'm thinking to myself, man, you know what?
We need to get this guy plugged in
so he can get everything turned off because
we don't need, you know, this big Winnebago
thing
making a bunch of noise in our neighborhood
when it's still early and it's still dark.
And, you know,
that's a rare occasion. That's not something that

(28:55):
happens regularly, but we're very much concerned, and
so we did go to the city and
we said, What can we do in order
to,
in order to make this okay?
And they said,
well, I don't even know what they said.
They said,
well, we're
gonna make this ordinance. Do you want to
feed 2 days a week or 3 days
a week? And I said, well, we currently

(29:15):
feed 4 days a week, so what are
you talking about?
So their idea, we wanted to sit down,
we wanted to have a conversation, we wanted
to get around a table, and we wanted
to talk about how we can, what we
can do in order to mitigate
the, you know, the impact of our ministries
on the homes that are surrounding us.
And instead of having a conversation,
what they, what the city council told us

(29:37):
was we're gonna we're putting in an ordinance,
and do you do you want 2 days
or do you want 3 days?
And, of course, the ordinance, as the federal
judge eventually said, was patently
unconstitutional
because they don't have the right to tell
churches how to perform their religious duties in

(29:57):
their facility.
And what got really worse by the council
was
they not only decide tried to limit the
time and the number of feedings,
they came up with this cockamamie scheme
saying that, there are too many social services
going on in the church and that it
was their right to say,

(30:20):
that they can't be there anymore. They didn't
define social service. They didn't pay attention to
the constitutional law,
and they didn't pay attention to a federal
law, which was passed in the year 2,000
by both houses of Congress
unanimously.
It's called the Religious Land Use

(30:40):
and
Institutionalized
Persons Act,
and it
had a remarkable
history.
It passed congress
unanimously
by
voice vote.
The
every no one objected.
The sponsors of it, the major sponsors of
it in the US Senate was one of,

(31:03):
there were 2.
One of the most conservative members,
Orrin Hatch of Utah,
and one of the most liberal members, Teddy
Kennedy of Massachusetts,
and it passed unanimously.
And it says
that
a city or any other government
agency
has to have a compelling

(31:24):
state
interest
that cannot be
resolved by other means.
And that means something real serious. It it's
it's
not just another land use issue,
which the mayor claimed that it was even
after the judge ruled and and all that.
Because
the federal

(31:45):
legislation
says you can't mess with churches
unless you have this compelling state interest, and
they clearly didn't.
Yeah. And and to piggyback on that, you're
saying that
they had to come up with the least
restrictive means. Yeah, the least restrictive means of
reaching that interest. And we wanted to enter
into a dialogue around that, and then they
said, no, we're gonna do this ordinance.

(32:07):
And when they said we're gonna do an
ordinance, I said, we can't sign up for
an ordinance that we will immediately be in
violation of. We can't sign up for a
permit, because that's what the ordinance was, a
permit to feed 2 days a week. I
can't get a permit when we're gonna be
feeding 4 days a week. I can't get
your permit from you, and then immediately, because
I know I'm gonna be violating it. So
once, so we had to retain legal counsel.

(32:29):
Once we did that, we couldn't have a
conversation anymore.
I couldn't, we couldn't talk to the city
anymore, because now we are,
you know,
because
lawsuits are adversarial by nature,
and once we've entered into this adversarial
relationship,
we can't find how are we gonna supply
the compromise at that point? Doesn't the city

(32:49):
council have lawyers
that that Well, I just And is this
pretty simple advice, Ron. Well,
well, what are you gonna do there? I
mean,
the
I mean, I mean, you're saying that this
is a given that that's a that that
that the government cannot
mess with the church feeding people. That's what
the judge said. That's what the federal government

(33:10):
said as well. Doesn't the council have an
attorney that they said this is what we
wanna do and that attorney says So so
not not only did
so you got
not only did the judge say that, but
before the judge even said that, the United
States Department of Justice said that,
and they said, no. We don't think so.
You know, you can't fight city hall. We're
city hall. You can't fight we do we

(33:32):
we set the rules here.
And I think that I I don't understand
what
I I have to believe
that their legal team, because there's more than
one lawyer involved in all that, told them
this is not gonna be this isn't gonna
go well for you guys. But by the
same token, those lawyers are still collecting a
paycheck. Mhmm.
So what do you do there? Judge security.

(33:53):
Well, I I I don't know what to
make of that. I mean, I don't wanna
get overly cynical, but somebody I do. I
I do it all the time.
Somebody well, I
for me to get too cynical is gonna
it's gonna interfere with my ability
to do my job. But as a pastor
It makes me a job.
Yeah.
It's job security for me to be cynical.

(34:13):
For whatever reason,
I had a friend many, many years ago.
He was a mentor for me. And he
said, you don't hire a lawyer and then
disregard their advice.
And,
sadly, I feel like
the lawyer the legal advice that was given
to our city council was ignored.
So now was this the old city council

(34:33):
or the so called model? Well, apparently apparently,
it was every all of the above. But,
you know, those that happened in closed sessions.
I don't know all the details around it.
I don't know what they were told, of
course.
But what I do know is that we
prevailed, and here we are. In their argument
for,
what was
the the escalation they did in this through

(34:54):
an abatement procedure.
What an abatement procedure is something that city
and county governments
often use
if there's a problem on the property with
something like vermin
or too many
vehicles or too many
boats or whatever and and making the place
Public health. An eyesore. And and public health

(35:16):
is is the main thing about it, although
sometimes aesthetics plays into it as well. And,
they
tried to
fine the church $720
a day
until it removes
certain social services from the property.

(35:36):
So they did apparently, they never even looked
at the big
the first couple of of items in the
in the constitution.
And that and they especially
did not pay attention to the land religious
land use ordinance
because that says you can't do it. And
their justification
for doing it was somebody in the,

(35:57):
planning department was told to plant or to
write a
a summary of why this should be done.
And so they apparently googled
the word church,
and found 2 definitions saying that the church
is a building for Christian worship.
Oh. And they found one from very prestigious
dictionary, you know, Oxford English Dictionary

(36:20):
and another, the Webster's,
Merriam Webster in in the US.
But the problem is they looked at one
definition,
and that's all they did. Of course. And
it's obvious it's not just Christian.
It's not just Christian, but it's also But
it's more than just worship. It's communities of
people. It's communities of people committed
to good deeds. And,

(36:42):
anyway, they're they're saying
based on
a totally illogical
and slightly bizarre,
idea
that churches
could not be helping people to get health
care. They could not be feeding people. That
all of the that's not worship.
And if it's not worship, it doesn't belong

(37:03):
in a building built for worship. That made
no sense. I'm not I'm not a particular
religious person to say the least, but isn't
that a lot of the stuff that Jesus
did?
You bet you're married, Rider. Yeah. It seems
that way. Let me let me get this
phone number run again in case you want
to
jump in. You can text us at
541-661-4098.

(37:26):
541-661-4098.
Oper-661-4098. Operators are standing by. So one of
the things that I wanted to comment, Ray,
is that,
you
know, so that the lawsuit's over, the money's
been settled out, you know, they paid their
attorneys all the way through. You know, that
amounted to $225,000.

(37:47):
Then they were responsible for a portion of
how much our law our legal fees were.
We didn't get compensated fully, but
our law firm agreed to an amount that
was
$400,000. At law firms, it's plural. I get
there's more than one law firm. And so
the whole cost to the taxpayer of the
city of Brookings is 625,000.
That's how that amount got re and that
didn't go to us. I mean, the church

(38:07):
didn't see any of that money. That went
to our to our legal,
our our legal
team. But what the thing is is what
we wanna do now is focus on moving
forward, and when I talk about this housing
problem that we have, what we want to
do,
what we want to strive toward
is, like a like a tiny village, like
what's going on in Medford, and there's there's

(38:29):
a they have it go, in
Eugene, certainly. To a certain extent, they have
it in Eureka.
And
what's going on in Grants Pass. Mhmm. You
know, they have kind of a tent city
thing going on that isn't what I want
what I would like to see are little
structures
and people, a piece of land with a
fence around it, where they have restroom and

(38:49):
hygiene and all the different things that they
need,
you know, in order to
survive and be, and be,
to
get their basic needs met. Isn't there something
like that in Medford?
Yeah. It's called, opport well, I forget what
they're all called. Hope Village, Opportunity Village. There's
different ones throughout the state and throughout the
region.
And so there would be tiny structures of

(39:10):
some kind, you know, that might be pallet,
what do they call them pallet homes or
pallet pallet shelters.
There's the Conestoga types.
There's things that look like storage sheds.
The Medford one with, Rogue retreat, they're like
little duplexes where the structures have, you know,
there's a common wall, and they want,
but regardless of what that looks like, a

(39:31):
piece of land
to be able to place this,
that is the sticking point. We can build
the structures. That's not the problem. We can
always get we can always figure out the
structures. What we can't figure out is the
land that we need in order to put
this
tiny home village,
and,
you know, we might only get 30 people
in there, but out of because there's probably
200 people that are unhoused at any given

(39:53):
time in the city, you know, in our
area,
and so say we only get 30 in
there, but then there's also, you know,
a newly opened
shelter.
There's a home where there's already 10 people.
There's going to be a winter shelter program,
you know, that we've had in the past,
and that'll get another 20 people off the
ground

(40:13):
into,
Is this what CORE is doing? Yeah. So
could you briefly explain exactly what CORE is?
Well, well, Brookingscore response is very much involved
in making sure that people stay housed and
get housed,
and that's,
and they're also very much concerned, like we
are, with people's
health, you know, access to primary care,
providers and

(40:35):
making sure that people are able to pay
their bills, so they don't lose their housing.
So,
we share that common mission.
You You know, they're a secular organization. We're
a church, but we still have the same
set of values,
and
we want to actually be able to work
with them,
so that we can get this tiny home
village thing set up,

(40:55):
but the sticking point is is where do
you put it? You gotta have the land.
You gotta have a place to put these
structures. And within city limits would be far
more preferable. Would be preferable. So we want
we absolutely wanna be able to work with
the city moving forward to be able to
provide
a viable place for people to stay while
they transition into a better life. Okay. Our
operator is earning a living right now. She
has another text for us. We do have

(41:17):
another text. Here it is.
Do father Bernie and pastor Robert feel the
out outcome of the 2024
election
will have a big impact on how organizations
like Saint Tim's
will be able to continue helping homeless and
underserved people?
So, you know, one thing about that, Linda,
is that,

(41:37):
I'm not I'm not a political animal. I
don't have a political party that I belong
to.
I've been unaffiliated
from a political party. I'm not even independent.
I'm unaffiliated.
I don't vote in primaries, you know. I
certainly vote, but I don't vote in primaries
because, you know, I don't belong to a
to
a political party,
but,
you know,

(41:59):
we want to maintain the separation between church
and state.
As a congregation,
we we we don't comment on political candidates.
What we do comment on are legislation that
affects the people that we serve. So if
there's legislation that has to do with rolling
out and expanding food stamps,
we're gonna be in favor of that. If

(42:19):
there's a political candidate that,
you know, may or may not
fit what we think is appropriate or well,
not we, I. We don't we don't have
I mean, that none of that. I don't
have an opinion on any of that. So
the fact of the matter is is regardless
of who becomes president, we're gonna continue to
serve people who are underserved.

(42:40):
Okay.
A a lot of people drive down the
street, and they see these
homeless encampments or maybe 1 or 2 tents
or and they all not all, a lot
of them just seem to have a horrible
mess like 10
these huge garbage bags and,
and then and then wonder, you know, what
is this all about? What are these people
doing here? Why,

(43:01):
just do not understand the homeless situation at
all.
And I going back to what you said
earlier that just because you have a job
doesn't mean you have a place to live
because
if you're pumping gases, I'm not I would
imagine you can't find a place. Well, many
of our people who are unhoused have jobs,
and they've had jobs for years, in fact.
But where are they gonna live? Yeah. And
so that kind of comes brings us back

(43:22):
full circle too, that we don't have a
there's no place for the
the the rungs on the ladder to climb
out of unhoused
status, into house status, those rungs are too
far apart. We need to put some smaller
rungs in between so that people can make
their way from living on the ground to
living in an apartment or whatever. And I
I don't wanna be a drive by psychologist

(43:42):
or something, but it looks like a lot
of these people have some mental problems. Well,
there's no doubt that they do. And,
you know, we need we need better services
for them in that regard. And Adapt is
doing they're doing a good job, but they
need to bring in more people,
more professionals, so that they can care for
the people. But when they wanna bring someone
in,
where where's that person gonna live?

(44:04):
So this housing thing,
it it it it it takes in all
of our problems. My favorite is where are
their wives gonna shop? Well The thing you
hear all the time why there's no doctors
here because their wives have no place to
shop.
Mhmm. Well, I I
there's there's all kinds of reasons why people,
you know,
retirees like to live here because, you know,

(44:24):
it's beautiful, and
and, you know, they sold a house down
in
San Jose for a1000000 and a half. Right.
And they got a pocket full of money.
They can afford to live here. Mhmm. But,
when it comes to the people who are
working in the stores,
and, you know,
we used to talk about people pumping gas,
which is, you know, now that we have
the self serve thing, but,

(44:45):
we we need to be able to
get them to a point where they can
save up their money, where they're not just
living
to survive, but living to be able to
move towards stability in their lives. That that
is so paramount in importance to us as
a congregation. I think a lot of people
just don't understand. They say, well, I made
it. Why why haven't they made it, you
know? Right? As a teenager, I got a

(45:06):
job, and I did
but I had the and I was talking
to a friend of mine the other day,
that we both had the the the advantage
of, first of all,
being born with,
at least enough intelligence to get by in
the world, which a lot of people aren't.
That we were also raised in or in
some way influenced by somebody

(45:27):
who,
taught us a work ethic and things like
that.
And a lot of these people just were
not. Well,
that has there's many different levels to that.
People experience different levels of trauma. Mhmm. And,
you know, like say Stability
in family life when they're young. Right. Yeah.
That's yeah. That's pretty much what I was
saying. So we we were brought up in

(45:49):
a normal house home, so at least
pretty close to normal, or enough that we
were able to survive and go out and
get a job and do what you're supposed
to do. The number of people that have
that have grown up
in this in this area, but, you know,
maybe they grew up somewhere else and they
ended up here,
that the number of people that experienced
adverse childhood experiences is tremendous. Mhmm. And so

(46:10):
maybe they're, you know, we're talking about
children
that are being
molested, raped by a family member
or a trusted friend,
and
that person is,
has all kinds of emotional and mental issues,
PTSD,
a full gambit of things in their lives.
He's gonna be looking into that next week's

(46:32):
program, by the way. Well, it's a good
topic. Thanks, Ryan. That's a good that's a
really good topic, Ray. I'll be listening in
because what what happens when those people aren't
given the I mean, first of all, we've
society has allowed them to be completely broken
by not intervening. And then not only that,
they never got justice. Whoever it is that
perpetrated that, violence against that person was never
brought to justice. I used to be a

(46:52):
sexual abuse investigator. That's what I did with
the Alaska state troopers, and,
before I became an investigator, I was on
patrol, and it was just amazing the things
you'd see going into houses.
And there was one small community I I
would,
I was
would go to, and I got a call
about a domestic incident at a certain house
and I knocked on the door and there

(47:14):
were, like, 3 kids in there, and a
small community, they all knew me, and they
said, oh, hi, Ray, and sat down and
continued to watch television. Mom's in the bedroom.
You know, it was so
the house was so hectic that the idea
of the cops coming to the door didn't
mean anything to them because they had that
television show to watch and mom was in
the bedroom.
I'd like to mention a whole other element,

(47:34):
relating to Saint Tim's
is when
the onslaught by the city against the church
was getting real serious,
it also became clear that there was little
in the way of local,
media and journalism
to let the local people know exactly what
this is. What do you think on that?

(47:56):
All about the the local,
pilot list,
didn't cover it very well.
This
radio station did, but it's limited in its
resources.
And the only other,
nearby,
media outlet, the Lost Coast,
whatever Outpost. Yeah. Outpost did a a good

(48:18):
job. But,
so I personally kind of made it my
job, as it were, to
try to find ways of publicizing it worldwide
through YouTube
and a website called progressivechristianity.org
so that people
who

(48:38):
anywhere
from now on wanna find out what happened.
We have a whole playlist on
on YouTube of maybe 13 items about Saint
Tim's.
I
the the progressive
the Progressive Christianity website has had 4 major
articles.
And I've been getting,
communications
from South Africa, from Australia,

(49:00):
and
a whole number of places within the US,
either sympathizing with the church or saying, hey.
The same thing is going on here in
Minnesota.
Our church is right near a big park,
and we're we're serious in our efforts to
to feed the the poor.
And some churches,

(49:21):
do,
feedings
that are related to their missionary or proselytizing
efforts.
And Saint Tim's and Episcopal Church generally,
and a lot of other churches
don't do that.
They they they're offering a meal and the
fellowship and human interaction that takes place

(49:42):
during that meal. And,
they're they're not trying to convert anyone.
They're just showing respect and love, which they
understand by their faith is what they're supposed
to do.
But, imagine if it's if
a church didn't have the connections that an
Episcopal church has. If they got serious about

(50:03):
feeding the poor in the same way that
Saint Tim said and and the city started
prosecuting them, they wouldn't stand a chance because
they didn't they didn't have
the type of support of the Episcopal church
and a law firm that is noted for
its
willingness to do
work.
That means legal work on behalf of the

(50:26):
public.
And if they do that and if they
lose the suit, they're they're willing to swallow
the expenses.
But if they win the suit, they get
their resources, and,
I I don't quite know the negotiation
after,
the
the the federal judge's decision,
but it seems to me they cut their

(50:47):
own fee in order to stop the
really absurd
abatement procedure, which was still alive and could
go could have gone on and created another
lawsuit, which would be
far more damaging. Well, absolutely, they did pester
over. Absolutely, they cut their fee
and,
took
probably
2 thirds of what they would have actually

(51:09):
been, you know, what their billable hours were
because
they wanted to move things forward. And I'm
glad they did. Oh, yes. Because it was
already,
it had already taken up far too much
of our, you know, emotional and spiritual energy
as it was. But I'll tell you,
the one thing that really,
you know, Ray was talking about, well, the

(51:29):
garbage, you know, when we see the people
and they're unhoused in the garbage.
When I see that,
my thought is is what can I do
to make that situation better? Instead of demonizing
the person, my thought is how do I
organize to be able to figure out how
to collect their garbage? How do I help
clean up the mess? How do I help
empower them to clean up their own mess?

(51:51):
These are the thoughts that I have. My
thought isn't they must be scumbag individuals, you
know, that are subhuman.
My thought is is that if they're living
like that, it's my it's my responsibility to
give them the hand up so that they
don't have to live like that anymore. I
would guess. I don't, again, don't wanna play
psychiatrist. That's the people who are living in
this
5 huge bags of garbage next to their

(52:12):
tent are probably some of the mentally ill
people or people with the mental problems. Well,
one of the things about that bags of
garbage is if you're on Highway 101,
the,
Oregon Department of Transportation will pick up those
bags. Oh, did you? Yeah. There's I I
don't know what the schedule is or how
that all works, but they have asked them
to keep their garbage alongside the road. Oh,
good. Like once a week, they'll come by
and get it. So it's not what it

(52:33):
looked like to me going by. So when
so it's been put there in in if
it's been put out toward the road, it's
deliberately set there for them to pick it
up. But the scheduling, you know, it's not
they don't go by daily and whether they
go by weekly or however that works.
But that's only on the that's only on
state roads. So if it's a county road,
it's not gonna work like that. I've I've
lived here for about 6 or 7 years

(52:54):
now, and
in that time, I have never once been
bothered by a a homeless person. I think
I had one ask me for a match
one time, and they legitimately wanted a match.
It wasn't that wasn't the
opening line. And then one day, I was
I was coming out of the studio here
and and getting in my truck, and there
was
a a homeless person there with a dog.

(53:16):
My dog had just died,
and I had a bunch of biscuits in
in in the glove compartment.
So I asked this guy if he wanted
the biscuits, and he was actually a little
reluctant, and then then he he took them
and, so well, okay. The next day on
Facebook,
which
I was on for a very short period
of time, this is one of the reasons

(53:37):
I left,
there was criticism
of me interacting with a homeless person and
giving them something out of my truck.
For their dog.
For their dog. Well, you couldn't tell if
you were across the street or somehow just
handing them something, otherwise, one of these dog
biscuits.
But I think it is the is the
the homeless police that are Well checking on
these people. Well, you hit on something. And

(53:59):
and not only
at 4:41
or something like that, he was saying
But what you're hitting on is somebody's driving
by Mhmm. And they're looking out their windshield,
and they've decided that they know what all
those interactions were. They've decided they know all
the things that need to they fill in
the gaps on the story.
They they see the person. They make the
decision about, you know, why doesn't that person

(54:19):
have a job? Right. That they look capable
of working to me. They have no idea
who that person is. They have no idea
what the challenges they face. No. Where does
he get the nerve to give them something?
But that they and they have no idea
that what you're doing is giving dog treats
to the dog. Uh-huh. They have no idea
that they can a hand sandwich or or
something really good. It's none of their business.
So what I would say is that what

(54:40):
we need to do as a population, as
a community, is not have contempt prior to
investigation.
We need to we need to
recognize within ourselves our prejudices
when we have come to conclusions based on
no information. Alright. We need we we all
need to take because we're all guilty of
it. I do it too. I have plenty
plenty of people that I, you know, make
thoughts or, you know, fill in gaps. I

(55:01):
have no idea what I'm talking about. But
I try to recognize that and keep my
mouth shut if I can.
At the at the at the time that
this
incident happened, because I was on Facebook about
2 weeks, and I real started to realize
I'm starting to dislike people I otherwise like
because of some of their comments. And I
don't know if that was just a a

(55:22):
short period of time where there was a
lot of Facebook stuff about the homeless.
And one friend of mine was talking about,
well, you have to carry a baseball bat
in in your car and and talking about
how much trouble it was to get into
Fred Meyer, and that would be a good
news for the they actually talk about
giving poisoned food to the homeless camps and
things like that. Yeah. That stuff drives me

(55:42):
crazy. Is that so was so was I
looking at a short period of time in
Facebook, or is that always like that? It
depends. I avoided it. It goes in spurts.
I try to kind of pay attention to
what's going on, and it goes in spurts.
Yeah. But the fact is is that unhoused
people are far more likely to be the
victims of crime than the perpetrators of crime.
And and, you know, sometimes

(56:03):
they get into, you know,
they're hanging out. They spend a lot of
time with each other, and they might have
altercations amongst each other. A lot of that
has to do with the a lot of
that has to do with the mental health
stuff, though. We're we're running out of time,
but very quickly, there there was one vocal
person who used to go to council meetings
a lot who was very vocal about about
the homeless, and one of the things he
says is we have to clean up the

(56:24):
drugs, and when we clean up the drugs,
the homeless will leave. Yeah. That's I would
it's not that simple even even at all.
And they're not gonna leave. They were they're
from here in first place. Right. These are
people that went to Brink and Sober High
School like myself.
These aren't people who,
showed up here because somehow or another, they
they're looking for the easier, softer
ride, you know? Yeah. These are people that

(56:44):
are they're our own people.
Sit down to 3 minutes. Sister Cora Linda
Cora Rose.
Cora Rose,
when she testified before the council,
said the first day she went to work,
and then she's a lawyer as well as
a Lutheran deacon.
And the 1st day she went to work
at Saint Tim's, she was shocked that 5

(57:06):
of the people
that were needing help in one form or
another were classmates of hers. No, that's the
time. From Kings Harbor
High. And,
there there are transient
homeless
all over this country. And there are people
trying to find a good place to
somehow survive and perhaps, maybe

(57:27):
maybe thrive. We used to have a guy
who did,
he was
he had this unbelievable
Alabama accent, which is the reason I grabbed
him to to do a show,
and he would tell these little stories about
when he was homeless and things like that,
and he said that he was
he was on the road once and he
had this camera and he's in line

(57:48):
for for some kind of a food thing,
and people are not not wanting him to
take their pictures
because
they just didn't wanna be seen like that,
and and he said and he couldn't understand
you. He said, you know, a lot of
people don't realize that you may just be
a few minutes away from being homeless yourself.
Wouldn't take too many turns of faith.

(58:08):
Okay.
Now we're down to 2 minutes. Wrap up.
Well, so
one of the things that I wanna, you
know, I guess to summarize,
our position as a church,
we very much care we care deeply about
creating stability in the lives of people, and
you can't have stability in your life if
you don't have a place where you can

(58:29):
be.
So housing is extremely important to us,
and we wanna we wanna see better, more
better options and more options for people who
are excited. You've got one minute. Tell us
how tell us how we give Saint Timothy's
money. Oh, well, you just write in check,
send it to the church. That's the simplest
way. Okay. Can you do it online? Do

(58:49):
you have Yeah. Our website, sainttonoftheapiscale.org.
Okay. I I want to say in the
50 seconds we have left how proud
Brookings, I think, should be of Saint Tim's,
especially
of sister Coral Rose and and pastor Bernie,
but a whole group of volunteers who are
seriously
involved in

(59:11):
in
in getting help to people who really need
it. And they see this as part of
their own faith and their own commitment,
and Brookings should be very proud.
Okay. You've been listening to
Curry Cafe,
where we have informal discussions like the one
you just heard. You wanna be a part?
Go to kciw.org

(59:32):
and send us an email. We can have
you on if you wanna be.