A church in La Crosse, Wisconsin is standing its ground and letting those without a home sleep on the back yard property over what city officials are calling illegal.
Workers at the Wesley United Methodist church said they will continue to let the homeless call the church’s backyard home at night when they need a place to rest.
“For over a year we have been hosting homeless people on our property so this is not new,” Forest Clark, the church’s interim pastor, told WKBT News. “Even the Salvation Army sends folks down to us when they get filled up.”
The city of La Crosse is reported to have about 200 homeless people.
Neighbours, however, have complained to the city and after an investigation from La Crosse’s Fire Prevention and Building Safety department, the church’s kind act was deemed illegal.
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“There are safe guards that need to be in place to have an actual campground like hand washing facilities like running water,” a fire department official told WKBT.
Kwin Kettleson is one of the people who sleeps on Wesley United Methodist’s yard at night and said to WKBT sleeping on the ground is her only option.
“I went to the Salvation Army, I went to the church charities, I went to other churches and nobody could help me,” Kettleson said. “It’s a fact of life some of us are houseless or homeless.”
Wesley United Methodist church is licensed only as an indoor shelter and don’t have the proper permits to have camp-like activities outside.
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