It sounds like a match made in heaven.
Central Union Mission, which since 1884 has been providing social and spiritual services to Washington, D.C.’s homeless and those battling addictions, needs to relocate by October 2009. The government of the District of Columbia needs to utilize successfully its Homeless No More initiative as well as spur business and residential development in key areas of the city. So the District government is giving Central Union Mission the Gales School, a historic school building near Union Station. In exchange, the mission is giving the District three adjacent parcels of land on Georgia Avenue and Newton Place, a key area of the city. A win-win situation?
Enter opponents waving the banner emblazoned with “separation of church and state” to forbid the planned agreement between the D.C. government and Central Union Mission. They are suing the District government to stop the transaction and deprive the mission of the property. The attorneys are the usual suspects, the ACLU and Americans United for the Separation of Church and State.
Somewhat startling, but not really surprising, is the identity of the lawsuit’s head plaintiff. Topping the list of eight plaintiffs is the bishop of the Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C., the Rt. Rev. John Bryson Chane. Chane, a Bostonian a’ la M.A.S.H.’s Charles Emerson Winchester III, leads a cast of characters who could cheer the heart of any community organizer. One plaintiff, a leftist biology professor named David Schwartzman, is currently a candidate for DC Statehood Green Party. Another, Joseph M. Palachios, is a priest who teaches sociology and champions liberation theology. All are united in their objection to Central Union Mission’s and the District government’s properties swap because in their eyes it is “the use of public funds to support the propagation” of religious faith.
Let lawyers argue about whether the property exchange constitutes the District government actually “supporting” the “Christian activities” of the mission, but isn’t it strange for a Christian church leader to side with the ACLU and others against a Christian ministry? Chane cares about the poor and the homeless. After all, before becoming an Episcopal priest, he was a community organizer, braving the dangerous South End of Boston to fight for the disenfranchised. And the bishop, whom one might be tempted to name “the Biden of the Episcopal Church” because of his vast experience in foreign policy, is a staunch advocate of the Millennium Development Goals. These far-reaching goals, sometimes called “the new Beatitudes,” are the United Nations’ way of encouraging more prosperous nations to share the wealth with the less fortunate. Bishop Chane, like most leaders in the mainline churches, calls upon Christians to help the poor by addressing the systemic ills of the United States.
But Central Union Mission is called to help the poor by addressing the systemic ill (original sin) in the human heart. The “facts” of the lawsuit, meant as negatives to show why Central Union Mission is disqualified for a property exchange with the District government, read like the accomplishments in a promotional brochure. The mission’s unapologetic goal, the lawsuit frowns, is “glorifying God through proclaiming and teaching the gospel, leading people to Christ.” The mission’s vision, it shudders, is to “transform the lives of the people . . . into Godly, productive members of society by meeting their physical, spiritual, and emotional needs.” Guests are required to attend worship services and other Christian activities. Although the lawsuit implies that the homeless are “coerced” to take part in religious activity, the mission states that it does not force the guests to participate, only to attend. Central Union Mission provides every possible spiritual opportunity for guests because it believes that the only lasting “renovation” of the human heart comes from a transformative encounter with Jesus Christ. The plaintiffs’ objection is to Central Union Mission’s embodiment of the very beliefs that are at the heart of the Christian faith. If the District were exchanging properties with a secular provider, there would be no objection, but there would also be no track record of transformed lives like that which belongs to Central Union Mission.
Meanwhile, all of the work of Central Union Mission is threatened by the debate over whether the proposed property exchange does constitute the use of public funds to support the propagation of an admittedly and unashamedly Christian ministry. As part of the deal, the District government will also give the mission $7 million towards the renovation of the quite dilapidated school. The mission, in turn, has agreed to preserve the architectural integrity of the 1881 school, designed by Capitol architect Edward Clark and listed on the District inventory of historic sites. Bishop Chane’s lawsuit argues that since the properties the mission is exchanging are assessed by the District at only $3.79 million and the property the mission is receiving is assessed at $8.93 million, if one adds the additional $7 million for renovation, Central Union Mission will receive a net financial gain of approximately $12.14 million. Thus, the District government would be assisting the “gospel mission” in “carrying out its religious ministry.”
Central Union Mission’s refutation posted on its website says that the almost $9 million quoted value of the Gales property is misleading. Demolition of the existing, historic structure is prohibited and renovation of the school building will far exceed the cost of construction of a new building. The mission intends to invest twice the amount that the District is investing to transform the school into a comprehensive services facility sheltering 150 homeless persons. It will also include on-site counseling, intervention, and medical services.
The mission adds that the quoted value of the Georgia Avenue properties does not reflect a 2008 valuation of the three merged parcels into one 18,500 square-foot plot. The mission states that a recent professional appraisal of just one of the parcels, 3510 Georgia Avenue, N.W., was $4.9 million. And this does not even begin to take into account the potential of the parcels in the development boom along the Georgia Avenue corridor where the District is already transforming the area into a series of “great retail-anchored neighborhoods.”
Finally, Central Union Mission states that the District intended to operate an emergency homeless shelter at the Gales School in any event. Shelter is a desperate need in a city in which the homeless population has increased by 39 percent in the past two years. The mission says it would have cost the District upwards of $1.5 million annually to subsidize or pay in full a contractor to run the shelter. Under the deal with the mission there will be no operating subsidies from the District. Nor will taxpayer dollars fund the mission’s programs or services. The mission has not requested or received government funds. It wishes to be free to remain an uncompromised Christian ministry to the homeless. It does not see the exchange of properties as “receiving government funds,” but as a business transaction.
Bishop Chane is paying scrupulous attention to the “jots and tittles” of First Amendment law, wanting to prove that the District of Columbia government is making an illegal gift to Central Union Mission. Sadly, he is missing the true gift of transformed, clean and sober citizens that Central Union Mission is giving to the city.
No comments yet
