In a vicious lawsuit trying to shut down the Sunrise Community Church’s homelessness ministry in Austin, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton showed zero interest in seeing the church, which reported serving more than 30,000 people in 2023, resolve neighborhood complaints. Instead, you could almost see him licking his lips at halting the largest provider of homeless services in Austin in his 40+ page complaint. For extra Scrooge points, it was filed during Thanksgiving week.
From Houston’s Chron.com:
In announcing a lawsuit on Tuesday against Sunrise Community Church’s homelessness ministry in Austin, Ken Paxton, the Republican attorney general of Texas and far right Southern Baptist, didn’t mince words. “By operating a taxpayer-funded drug paraphernalia giveaway next to an elementary school, this organization is threatening students’ health and safety and unjustly worsening daily life for every single resident of the neighborhood. We will shut this unlawful nuisance behavior down.”
The legal complaint (which you can read via a link in the Chron article) describes the church’s operations as a “depravity.” It further states, “Sunrise may contend that its operations are altruistic and well-intentioned.” As if that is anything but the case.
There is a real problem in the neighborhood. The Austin-American Statesman notes, “The center has become the subject of growing complaints from residents who have reported finding needles, trash and feces nearby. Its proximity to Joslin Elementary School has been of particular concern. Included in Paxton’s lawsuit Tuesday are police reports, affidavits from several residents and links to local media coverage that details those concerns.”
But there is absolutely no Christian spirit of charitableness to be found in the mean-spirited complaint. You’d think a state that plans to infuse Christianity into public schools’ curricula would want to work out a solution with the church and its neighborhood. But Paxton didn’t even put up a show for it. I don’t see “pro-life” Gov. Abbott stepping in to help either.
Sadly, this is not a surprise. Southern Baptist Paxton has a “history of suing organizations that seemingly don’t align with his religious and political beliefs,” Chron points out. A scathing column in Dallas Morning News details how he legally harassed an El Paso nonprofit, associated with the Catholic Diocese of El Paso, that offers Christian hospitality to migrants. The Sunrise Community Church is part of the generally liberal, Protestant Reformed Church in America, according to Chron.
So, what would happen to all the unfortunates who take advantage of Sunrise’s homelessness ministry if Paxton’s lawsuit succeeds? Presumably, it would make an already serious problem worse. I hate to say it, but I think that is his ultimate goal: Not to help resolve tensions between a much-needed humanitarian service and a badly-impacted neighborhood but to make the blue city of Austin worse off.
It would also literally endanger the lives of some homeless. That’s right up the alley of Texas’ “pro-life” state government, too. As I recently wrote, maternal and infant deaths have surged in Texas since its strict abortion ban was enacted. The state’s committee that reviews all maternal deaths in Texas just decided not to review them.
The possible good news is that the Sunrise’s executive director, Mark Hilbelink, doesn’t seem the least bit intimidated. He issued a statement saying the center will continue doing its work and is “committed to being a good neighbor” to all residents, businesses and Joslin Elementary, the Statesman reported. “As a church, he said the center’s mission is to ‘take care of the poor,’ and that a laundry list of state and federal laws, including the U.S. Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, would protect the center from the lawsuit.”
Also, as you can see in the video above, Austin City Council member Ryan Alter is already working to address the problem. The state government should be helping, not trying to make it worse.