Vancouver activist Bill Chu

The immediate issue is the city’s decision to require Tenth Avenue Alliance Church to have a social services permit in order to operate a drop-in lunch program out of its building. The larger issue is whether this imposes a definition of ‘church’ which fundamentally changes the nature of Christianity.

Active church

Tenth Avenue is a Christian and Missionary Alliance congregation not far from City Hall, with a growing attendance of 1,200 and a variety of programs – including a daycare, an after-school kids program, a summer camp program and many others.

For the past nine years, the church has also run Oasis, from 10 am to 2 pm every Tuesday; Oasis offers lunch and a place to sit and talk, or just read the newspaper. Some 70 people attend each week, some of them homeless – and others who have places to live, but are struggling to make ends meet.

The church also offers an Out of the Cold program, feeding about 120 people every Monday evening and allowing up to 25 to sleep there that night. Those staying overnight are given breakfast and asked to leave by 7:30 am.

The church also participates in the provincial government’s Extreme Weather Response program, opening its doors to homeless people for an additional dozen or so nights when the weather is very bad.

Vancouver’s Housing Department offered advice in setting up the Out of the Cold program; but it was this program, as well as the Extreme Weather initiative, which eventually created a problem with City Hall.

In 2004, the church began a $3.35 million renovation of its building. Neighbours were informed of the plans and given a list of the church’s programs; but at two public meetings about the renovations, neighbours asked few questions about the two homelessness programs.

Complaints

However, several months later, when renovations forced clients of the two programs to temporarily come in the front door of the building rather than through the back door off an alley, neighbours began to take notice. In response to complaints, the church organized a meeting with its neighbours.

Senior associate pastor Mardi Dolfo-Smith told BCCN: “That’s when everything escalated.” Some residents were very angry. There were accusations circulating that the programs were bringing undesirable people in from other parts of the city, and that drug deals and petty crime were becoming common.

To be fair, Dolfo-Smith says, the residents had worked hard in recent years to drive prostitution and drug trafficking out of the area. Some owned heritage homes, and were concerned about property values going down.

On the other hand, the church argued that the homeless people it serves were already in the neighbourhood. Police statistics showed no increase in crime in the area. When a movement began to encourage the reporting of crimes in the neighbourhood, the number of petty crimes reported did increase, but there was no relationship between the crimes and the times the church ran its programs.  

The city Planning Department had already concluded in the spring of 2005 that the programs went beyond what one would expect for church use, and required the church to apply for a social services permit.

A conditional permit was granted, with several requirements: the church must record where its clients (the church calls them “guests”) come from; the church must send out volunteers in coloured vests to patrol the neighbourhood before and after the events; and the church must report regularly to the city and the neighbours. The church is still operating the programs under this permit.

In the meantime, activist Bill Chu, who is not connected to the church, became aware of the situation and became concerned about the precedent that was being set.

On April 5, he called together a group of about 20 religious leaders, which included representatives of the Canadian Jewish Congress and a local Sikh temple (which also runs a feeding program), because the city’s definition of “church” applies to all religious groups.

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Precedent

Chu explains to BCCN that, because other cities look to Vancouver as an example, this case could set a precedent that could create a problem for other churches across the country if it is not challenged.

He says the problem is “a lack of understanding of the rightful place of the church.” By insisting that a church’s normal activity is just running religious services and that it needs a special permit to provide “social services,” Chu says Vancouver’s Planning Department is “redefining church.”

He adds: “Being a caring community has always been a very integral part of the church’s mandate.” This, he says, is foundational – from the Genesis 1:25-26 command to care for the earth, to Jesus’ exhortation, “Blessed are the merciful.”

Chu says the city’s requirements put “an onerous burden” on Tenth Avenue that is not being put on other churches. He says requiring the church to patrol the neighbourhood is giving the church a responsibility that rightly belongs to the police. He adds that the requirement to determine where guests of the program come from is “dehumanizing,” defeats the purpose of the church opening its doors, and will put up a wall which might keep people from coming.  

Derek Creighton, a Vancouver lawyer with Access Law Group who used to work for the city, called the city’s zoning system “a flawed process”– since it has much less rigorous standards of investigation and evidence than courts do, but still imposes severe limitations on churches’ activities.

He says: “The impact could be quite significant on narrowing what is a church use.” It might be used to limit churches’ involvement in organizing political events on moral issues, for instance.

Rediscover role

Chu says one of the reasons society believes all churches do is have religious services is because that is all some churches do. Therefore, it is important for churches to “rediscover their role.” He says, “If we don’t use it, we will lose it.”

In addition, Chu says churches need to do a better job of communicating to society what they do. Therefore, he has asked churches in the Vancouver area to “tell us what they are doing,” so his group can report that to City Hall.

Don Hutchinson, legal counsel for the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, has been following the case and agrees “the issue is one of religious freedom to practice what one believes . . . Church involves worship within the four walls, but it also involves the outward expression of God’s love.”

He says the problem is not unique to Vancouver.

Some recent Supreme Court of Canada decisions “have indicated that freedom of religion is about private opinion and that church is a group of people meeting together to share that private opinion” – but discouraged “the public expression of private belief.”    

Hutchinson agrees that, as Christians, “We don’t communicate well what we are doing. People don’t realize that we are not just a building on the corner, but we are providing an asset to the community.”

He suggests Christians should challenge governments on how they would care for the poor, homeless and needy if the churches were forced to withdraw from these areas. He says it would put “a huge financial burden” on government.

Dolfo-Smith says Tenth Avenue is not “facilitating” Bill Chu’s initiative but is “participating” in the discussions – because it is worried about the impact the decision may have on other churches.

She says Tenth Avenue can comply with the conditions of its permit because it has a lot of resources, but “it would be very hard for a small church” to do the same thing.

In the meantime, the church is fully complying with the conditions of its permit. She says, “We want to work with our neighbours, and have good relations with them.”

In fact, she says that at the various city meetings, there were at least as many neighbours supporting the church’s work as lodging complaints.

Some hadn’t been aware of the church’s programs and have now become involved as volunteers. Others have begun attending the church.

May 2007