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Suit Challenges DC Land Swap With Christian Homeless Shelter

By Howard M. Friedman

A lawsuit was filed in federal district court in Washington, DC yesterday challenging a proposed exchange of land in which the District if Columbia would give Central Union Mission a former school building near the U.S. Capitol worth nearly $9 million, plus $7 million in cash and expenditures for renovation, so the Mission can relocate its homeless shelter there. In exchange, the District is getting a piece of land worth $2.68 million. The building the Mission would receive was formerly operated as a shelter by the city, and the Mission's attempt to relocate to another site it owned was blocked by neighbors.

Today's Washington Post and a release from the ACLU report that plaintiffs include taxpayers plus two homeless men who do not go to the Mission's current shelter because the Mission requires all residents to attend nightly Christian worship services. The Mission also requires all employees and volunteers to be Christians. The complaint in Chane v. District of Columbia asks that either the land swap be blocked, the Mission not engage in religious activities at the new building it is receiving from DC, or that the Mission pay fair market value for the building. Plaintiffs say the shelter is free to engage in religious activity, but not when it is subsidized by government funds. (See prior related posting.)

Full post as published by Religion Clause on September 19, 2008 (boomark / email).