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Religious Homeless Shelter and Treatment Program Not Limited By Fair Housing Act

By Howard M. Friedman

In Intermountain Fair Housing Council v. Boise Rescue Mission Ministries, 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 82459 (D ID, Sept. 10, 2009), an Idaho federal district court held that the homeless shelter component of the Boise Rescue Mission is not a "dwelling" and therefore is not subject to the religious anti-discrimination provisions of the federal Fair Housing Act. It also held that both in the homeless shelter and in the Rescue Mission's second component-- a residential recovery program for individuals with drug or alcohol dependency-- the Religious Freedom Restoration Act bars application of the Fair Housing Act to prohibit the Rescue Mission's religious activities or religious favoritism of certain participants. Plaintiffs in the case challenged preferential treatment of homeless shelter residents who participated in the shelter's religious programs, and and also complained of required participation in Christian religious activities for those in the New Life Discipleship/Recovery Program. Expanding on its RFRA holding, the court wrote:

The court ... finds the following to be core ecclesiastical matters with which the government may not interfere: a religious organization's teaching, preaching, and proselytizing to individuals on its own property; a religious organization's preferential treatment of guests on its property who attend religious services; a religious organization's limiting participation in a residential addiction recovery program to individuals who are or who wish to be of the same faith; and a religious organization's imposing requirements that guests and residents on its property attend and/or participate in religious services and activities.

Full post as published by Religion Clause on September 14, 2009 (boomark / email).