BRUNSWICK, Ga. – The Justice Department announced that it filed a lawsuit alleging the city of Brunswick, Georgia for closing a faith-based resource center for those experiencing homelessness.
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The DOJ said the city’s attempted closure of The Well, which is associated with the United Methodist Church, violated the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Person’s Act (RLUIPA), a federal law that protects religious institutions from burdensome or discriminatory land use regulations.
“Federal law protects the right of religious groups such as The Well to use their land to help others,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said. “This division will continue to vindicate the rights of groups to exercise their religion and fight local land use laws that unlawfully restrict those rights.”
The lawsuit alleges that since 2014, The Well has offered showers, laundry, meals, and other services to the unhoused.
Officials said the city touted The Well’s services as part of the city’s efforts to reduce and end homelessness, but the city later tried to close it and blamed it for unrelated criminal activity in Brunswick.
The Well adopted safety and security measures suggested by the Brunswick Police Department, but the city filed a lawsuit in state court seeking to close it.
The complaint alleges the attempted closure burdens The Well’s religious exercise and that the city lacks a compelling interest and has not employed the least restrictive means of enforcing its purported interest.