Church Plans Homeless Shelter, so Government Responds With Plan to Confiscate the Property

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A church in Toms River, New Jersey, with plenty of space as it owns 10 acres of land, proposed building a 17-bed overnight shelter as a way to reach out to the needy and help the community.

So officials in the town retaliated with their own plan to confiscate the land and turn it into pickleball courts.

“It is clear that this is being done in retaliation for the church making an application for a homeless shelter,” Harvey York, the church’s lawyer, told Fox News.

Citing the constitutional standards regarding protections for freedom religion as well as the federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, he said, “I don’t know that you’ll find a lawyer who will say, ‘Oh, yeah, they have every right to do this; they’re going to win.'”

It is the Christ Episcopal Church that has found itself in the middle of the city’s bull’s-eye.

And York said while some residents are happy with the idea, “the majority” is shocked and dismayed.

(Read more from “Church Plans Homeless Shelter, so Government Responds With Plan to Confiscate the Property” HERE)

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