Faith Groups Mobilize to Help Homeless Kentuckians

Alarm Bells Are Ringing as it Becomes Legal in the State to Kill ‘Unlawful Campers’

The Grants Pass Supreme Court decision has left unhoused people across the country more vulnerable than ever. Cities and states are wasting no time in passing laws and ordinances that further criminalize homelessness and allow for increasingly cruel and unusual punishments for being poor.

Nowhere are the harmful effects of this situation more evident than in Kentucky, where a law called the “Safer Kentucky Act” ironically permits the use of physical force against people camping illegally on private property. In some cases, even deadly force is allowed if the property owner or lessee believes the person is trying to “dispossess them of their dwelling.”

While Kentucky lawmakers are carving out legal loopholes that allow them to kill homeless people without consequence, various faith groups within the state are coming together to try and remove people from harm’s way.

Faith Groups Gather

Shortly after the Safer Kentucky Act went into effect, communities of faith gathered in Lexington to plan their responses. Three committees were formed, each of which will meet throughout the month of September to develop a concrete plan of action for each specialty area.

One committee is focusing on seeking out land to create affordable housing. Another is looking at ways residents can connect people to community and services, and the third is seeking to partner with the “Yes, in God’s Backyard” movement.

YIGBY?

Yes, in God’s Backyard, or YIGBY for short, is an organization that focuses on taking surplus land owned by churches and developing it into affordable housing for neighbors in need. In their own words, their approach is to “help congregations create a triple bottom line where they are providing mission-driven housing solutions, using environmentally sustainable materials, and contributing to their own financial well-being.”

While the official organization of that name seems to operate mainly in and around San Diego, the overall idea of repurposing parts of church property as housing for unhoused people is gaining traction in several locations. We’ve seen it in Colorado, at The Rock Church, and now it’s spread as far east as Kentucky.

After The Rock Church’s successful legal defense against NIMBY-driven town zoning laws using the powers granted to them in The Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, more and more religious institutions should feel empowered to create affordable housing options on their grounds if they so choose.

The law, which has been in effect for nearly a quarter of a century, protects individuals, houses of worship, and other religious institutions from discrimination in zoning and landmarking laws. Essentially, it prevents local governments from enforcing zoning laws that would substantially burden an institution’s religious expression.

Since many different religions profess values such as caring for poor people, helping the less fortunate, and even explicit edicts to house unhoused people, The Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act could be widely applicable and used by many organizations to turn spaces on their properties into pockets of affordable housing for their unhoused neighbors. Best of all, it can be acted on quickly to get people out of harm’s way today while building more permanent solutions for the future.

This Is An Emergency

Violence against homeless people has always been a problem, but making it okay to kill unhoused individuals is a frightening and dangerous move. This new law has made life much more dangerous for homeless people in Kentucky, and we need a strong response to fight back against it.

Homelessness has always been a life or death issue, but the passage of this law marks a low point in attitudes toward unhoused Kentuckians that is extremely dangerous. Though the belief that property is more important than people has run rampant in this country throughout its history, endorsing the use of deadly force against fellow humans in defense of real estate feels like an extreme stance for modern times.

Kentucky lawmakers signing off on the destruction of the irreplaceable in favor of the easily rebuilt without so much as a blink of an eye is cause for concern. It should undoubtedly factor into future voting decisions and communications with representatives for anyone living and voting in the state.

In the meantime, we need to pull out all the stops to get people into housing as soon as possible, or lives will be taken with the full support of the law. This is an emergency situation. With unprecedented risk comes the need for unprecedented action.

Criminalization Creates a Vicious Cycle

Although the bill’s most extreme aspects are extremely alarming, it’s worth noting once again that even the more mundane criminalization of public camping is counterproductive. It only locks people into the vicious cycle of having nowhere to go, receiving a citation, paying a fine, and having no money to pay for somewhere else to sleep—rinse and repeat ad nauseam.

This cycle keeps people homeless longer. We’ve seen it all play out this way in many other cities with heavy criminalization policies, and, surprise, surprise, the same thing is happening in Kentucky, too.

Only now, homeless Kentuckians have to make the eternal calculation of finding a spot to sleep that’s out of the way enough to avoid detection by police, in a safe enough area that they’re not likely to become the victim of a violent crime, and also not on any private property where the owner may decide to legally and fatally shoot them.

Talk to your representatives and ask them to reconsider this counterproductive law. Talk to your local faith groups and ask them to open their doors. Talk to your unhoused neighbors and ask them what they need. And talk to your friends and ask them about their attitudes toward homeless people. You may be surprised by what you hear, as anti-homeless rhetoric seems to be worming its way farther into people’s hearts and minds every day. We need to counteract it any way we can.

Republished with permission from Invisible People.

Invisible People is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to educating the public about homelessness through innovative storytelling, news, and advocacy. Since our launch in 2008, Invisible People has become a pioneer and trusted resource for inspiring action and raising awareness in support of advocacy, policy change and thoughtful dialogue around poverty in North America and the United Kingdom.

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