A week after Boise Mayor David Bieter's summit on homelessness, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that the city's Community House shelter discriminated against women and children.
In the ruling handed down Thursday, the court ordered Boise officials to reopen its homeless shelter to the women and children who lived there before it was converted to a men-only shelter in 2005.
In addition, the 9th Circuit ruled religious services at the shelter, even though they are voluntary, violate the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which provides that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion." ................
The city of Boise took over Community House in 2004 after the nonprofit Community House Inc., which had been running the shelter, ran out of money.
In September 2005, the city turned over operation of the shelter to the nonprofit Boise Rescue Mission Ministries, which also operates the Boise Rescue Mission and City Light Home.
The Rev. Bill Roscoe, executive director of Boise Rescue Mission Ministries, said he wanted to operate Community House as a men-only shelter because it is inappropriate to have families sleep in the same facility as other members of the homeless population, and having separate shelters for men and women results in fewer police calls.
So the city told the families, women and children who lived at the shelter they needed to move to new housing the city had arranged for them.
Community House Inc. sued the city, claiming the city discriminated against women, children and families and violated the Fair Housing Act.
The former operators also claimed the city crossed the line separating church and state because the Rescue Mission held religious services on site and asked people who declined to attend prayer meetings to explain why before they were fed or sheltered.
The case first went before U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill, who ruled in 2005 that Rescue Mission officials could no longer ask residents why they didn't want to pray.
Winmill also ordered the city to find new housing for the displaced women, children and families because the housing the city had provided was too close to registered sex offenders.
Winmill's ruling did not go far enough, the federal appeals court said.
"There is a serious question that sheltering women and families at Boise Rescue Mission separately from men would benefit women and families by satisfying a required safety need," Thompson wrote.
But the court also said it's possible the city may be able to provide evidence at a later stage in this litigation proving the men-only policy is justified by safety concerns.
"Fortunately, the court opened the door for us to establish what everyone already knows: that sheltering women and children with homeless men is not safe," Roscoe said.
The 9th Circuit ruled that the District Court should have stopped the Rescue Mission's religious activities at Community House because they raised serious questions about governmental indoctrination of religion.
"This is much like the 9th Circuit's decision a couple of years ago ordering the phrase ‘under God' from the Pledge of Allegiance," Roscoe said. "... If the First Amendment means anything, it means that people can pray wherever they want, including publicly owned property."
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