Arizona Episcopal church continues serving unhoused, low-income people despite lawsuit threats

[Episcopal News Service] For more than 25 years, Grace St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Tucson, Arizona, has unconditionally served unhoused and low-income people in its community. The parish offers various social services, showers, a food pantry and a cafeteria for anyone in need.

“Our ministry to unhoused people and to people who have homes but can’t make ends meet is a central part of who we are as individuals and as a church,” the Rev. Steve Keplinger, Grace St. Paul’s rector of 13 years, told Episcopal News Service.

Grace St. Paul’s, located in the Blenman-Elm Historic District in Midtown, has operated its ministry with little resistance from its neighbors until the past two and a half years, when Tucson’s homeless rates significantly increased. Now, an average 140 people – more than double from previous years – seek assistance every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Neighbors have complained and filed police reports about litter, small fires set for warmth, discarded drug paraphernalia, public defecation and other concerns, and have asked Grace St. Paul’s to move or stop its ministry. Those residents have now threatened to sue the church. 

Police have reminded residents during community meetings that Blenman-Elm borders the University of Arizona – which has over 54,000 students – and its football stadium and several fraternity and sorority houses, where it’s not uncommon for parties to get out of control. 

Some residents have gone as far as to try to keep unhoused people away. For example, in 2023 a neighborhood association hired a contractor without requesting a permit to remove over 50 trees from Navajo Wash, a dry stream bed where unhoused people had camped in the shade. And earlier this year, an appeals court sided with a neighborhood association holding the city liable for the “public nuisance” the camps create.

Some Blenman-Elm residents first threatened to sue the church in July, when they hired an attorney to send the church a letter demanding that the church discontinue its ministry for unhoused and low-income people on its property. 

The letter said if the church doesn’t stop or move its services, the residents would sue the church “to protect themselves and their property.”

Keplinger told ENS the church has no plans to stop serving its clients or move its ministry and that it has retained an attorney in case a lawsuit is filed.

Grace St. Paul’s ministry, staffed by about 10 volunteers a day, includes a pantry with free food to go and hot meals on site three days a week. Its social services include assistance with obtaining IDs, birth certificates and other documents, job searches and access to free laundry vouchers nearby. Throughout the year, the church hosts small parties, including a holiday party around Christmas, for unhoused and low-income families to help the children feel a sense of normalcy.

Aileen MacLaren, a parishioner who volunteers at the pantry, called Joseph’s Pantry & Café, and social services desk, told ENS on Oct. 29 that she’s been worrying about the tens of millions of low-income Americans who are expected to see a pause in receiving federal food assistance beginning Nov. 1 as the government shutdown continues. This is a “massive example,” she said, why food ministries, such as Grace St. Paul’s pantry and café, are “crucial” for communities.

“The services we provide let the wider Tucson community know that we care about them,” she said. “For the church, it’s a Christian imperative.”

To help address some of the neighbors’ concerns and to keep the neighborhood clean, Grace St. Paul’s volunteers regularly pick up trash and the church’s restrooms are open 24 hours a day.

The church has posted signs saying clients cannot stay on church property past 2 p.m., to appease the neighborhood associations. The rule is not enforced on “extreme” weather days; Tucson’s daily summer temperatures exceed 100 degrees Fahrenheit. On those days, people are permitted to stay sheltered under the church’s breezeway away from the sun.

The parish also partners with a mental health care facility and El Rio Health community medical center who regularly set up mobile units on church property to provide additional services. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs coordinates with the church to reach out directly to unhoused and low-income veterans. (There are at least 32,882 veterans nationwide who are unhoused as of January 2024, according to the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans).

As of January, about 2,218 people in Pima County, where Tucson is the county seat, are unhoused, according to the county’s latest annual Homeless Point-in-Time Count data summary report. Homelessness nearly tripled between 2020 and 2022.

Keith Bentele, an associate research professor at the University of Arizona and a board member of the Tucson Pima Collaboration to End Homelessness, told ENS that Tucson’s spike in homelessness reflects a nationwide housing shortage that’s worsened due to inflation, rising housing and living costs, job losses, the end of the COVID-19-era eviction moratorium and other reasons.

“Some people manage to get out of homelessness rather quickly and some people take a little longer. But then we have people who are chronically homeless, and they often have a disability or suffer from mental illness,” Bentele said. “It really depends on individuals’ circumstances.”

Additionally, according to Bentele, unexpected large expenses like a hospital visit or debt accumulated by long-term medical treatment can force people into homelessness.

MacLaren said that many of the problems leading to and worsening homelessness are systemic rather than “personal irresponsibility.”

“There are so many reasons why people lose their housing. Their house could have burned down … or any other emergency comes up,” MacLaren said. “The last thing these people need is to be shamed for their circumstances.”

Keplinger said that Grace St. Paul’s understands the community’s concerns and is willing to continue discussions on how best to maintain its ministry while keeping Blenman-Elm clean and noise-free.

“As a congregation, we’re not willing to shut down our program or move out of our neighborhood. …Unhoused people need to eat, go to the bathroom, shower and drink water, just like everyone else,” Keplinger said. “I believe we have a theological and moral obligation to do this work, and, of course, it’s in Scripture. We try to pattern everything we do on Jesus.”

-Shireen Korkzan is a reporter and assistant editor for Episcopal News Service. She can be reached at skorkzan@episcopalchurch.org.