City officials are pushing once again to remove a homeless encampment outside a downtown Baltimore church, but the pastor of St. Vincent de Paul Catholic Church says he'll go to jail if necessary to stop them.
The latest salvos in the long-running dispute come just weeks after the city and church announced they had come to an agreement that would allow social workers to enter the leafy park at the end of the Jones Falls Expressway to help connect the settlement's residents with government services and housing.
But city officials say the conditions in the camp are deplorable and need to be rectified. A recent survey of homeless people living there found that most - more than 80 percent - are likely to die within the next seven years from existing illnesses and poor living conditions.
The nonprofit that helped with the survey said the results were worse than any other homeless cluster it had surveyed, including camps in Los Angeles and New York City.
"My impression is that it is an especially vulnerable group of people who are attracted to that area," said Becky Kanis, who works for Common Ground, a New York-based nonprofit that helped city officials interview park residents last month.
Kanis said that 17 of the 21 people interviewed had at least one risk factor for increased mortality, including cirrhosis of the liver, end-stage renal disease and more than three emergency room visits in the past three months.
The St. Vincent parish has supported the homeless for years. Parish members refer to the park, which is church property, as a sanctuary. So far, the church isn't budging from that position, and its religious leader has said that even if the city declares the situation at the park a public health emergency - which would give officials the legal muscle to remove homeless people from the property - he will not go down without a fight.
"This is a church, and as pastor of this church I can't tell somebody that I am going to have them locked up if they sleep on my bench," said the Rev. Richard Lawrence.
"The first time someone is arrested for sleeping on a bench, I will be the second person arrested because I will go out and sleep on a bench myself."
City officials deny that they are preparing to use legal means to oust the homeless from the park. Even before the survey, they tried to convince the church that it would be a good idea to close the park.
