Reverend Kevin D. Young is due in court Thursday — and the Thursday after that, too.
The head of the Montrose United Methodist Church has received more than a dozen citations. On paper, those violations are for things like storing litter, keeping junk and creating a nuisance, things outlined in Montrose municipal code chapter 6-3 and 6-4.
While those codes don’t specifically mention the 20 or so people who have been camping on church property in recent weeks, the violation notice delivered to Young does.
“You have 7 days to remove the homeless camp as well as clean up all trash, litter and junk from property. Failure to do so can result in an emergency abatement,” the notice reads.
The United Methodist Church began allowing unhoused residents to camp on a portion of their property after the passage of a camping ban in Montrose near the end of 2024. Since then, the effort has evolved, gotten organized and been dubbed “our community,” as members of the church and volunteers have grown to call it.
However, the “community” is not in line with city planning and zoning laws, Montrose City Manager Bill Bell said, and poses challenges for public safety, property rights and city order.
“We need to go in and protect the public's interest. We can't do what the Methodist Church or the transients want us to do in this particular case because we're talking about a very small group of people,” Bell said. “We have to represent the larger masses. Sometimes those are really hard decisions and those are not the ones we like to make.”
The spat between the church and the city comes as faith leaders in Colorado are asking legislators to consider ways to make it easier for religious institutions to help in the housing crisis. Young and the Montrose United Methodist Church Council see an obligation to help the residents suffering from homelessness, something Young said is outlined in Mark 12:30-31.
“Well, when a person asked Jesus, ‘can you bottom line for me,’ he gave a very simple answer,” Young said, “‘Love God with all your heart, soul, and mind and love your neighbor as yourself.’”
Camp or chaos?
Church staff say around 20 residents make use of the space — a U-shaped parking area adjoining the alley that’s since been outfitted with a portable toilet and dumpsters. Staff have met with everyone using the space and had them sign agreements as to how they’d behave and what was expected of them.
“They're very respectful and they're cleaning up all the time. They know that they are taking space back there and they want to be respectful,” said Beth McCorkle, director of communications at the church. “They come up and they clean and they ask, ‘What would you like us to do?’”
The space in question is next to an alley, but is a stone’s throw from Main Street. Bell said neighboring business owners have dealt with harassment from the people living at the church, who he says largely avoid the city’s unhoused shelter either because they have dogs or criminal histories.
“It started out with a couple little tents and they were handing out permits to the people as permitted overnight guests of the church. And on the permit it said how to handle their needles and how to clean up after themselves. And that grew from just a few to dozens,” Bell said.
Bell said activists are prone to understate the problems presented by Montrose’s unhoused community. He points to the city’s winter shelter for the unhoused as an available solution.
“Unfortunately, there's so many different types of people experiencing homelessness. We can build shelters and that will help the good people, but we're not ever going to allow violent individuals, sexual predators or people strung out on heroin who are unpredictable to be in those same shelters with families and kids and that kind of thing,” he said. “So that's what we're seeing right now. And we don't, as a city, believe that it's our job to figure out the solution for people who have made really bad decisions in their lives.”
Brandee Valdez is a resident of the church’s new community for the unhoused. She said it’s accurate to say there have been challenges with the group, but those have been sorted out. She said she’s having trouble squaring the city’s position with the church’s mission.
“I don't think it's fair,” Valdez said. Like many of the residents of the space, she’s lived in Montrose most of her life. Her now-22-year-old daughter even attended preschool at the church as a child. “It's the house of God. I mean, what do they do? They help us, (they help) everyone.”
Ordinance No. 2670
The citations the church has received aren’t related to the new camping ordinance, which is in regard to sleeping in public spaces such as parks. However, once that went into place, the church saw more people in need.
“Well, instantly, our unhoused community in Montrose has nowhere to go, so it was no surprise when people started showing up here,” Young said. “And so people began to show up and we started looking for ways to offer assistance.”
Both Bell and members with the church agree that homelessness has exploded in Montrose, though they point to different causes. For activists working with the church, the COVID-19 pandemic corresponded with a rapid rise in the number of unsheltered individuals. Bell said marijuana legalization brought in large numbers of 20-somethings without employment, and changes in criminal justice efforts have more people living on the street who might otherwise be incarcerated.
The ordinance is not exactly new. Montrose has had a version of the camping prohibition on the books for years, but Bell said the updates were meant to give enforcement operations more “teeth” after concern grew about safety in public parks.
“There were so many encampments that were being built along the river, in and out of the woods, in our underpass areas where our brand new connect trail goes through for bicyclists and everything, and people are just fearful of going down there, not to mention the eyesore,” Bell said, adding that cleanup operations for trash left by encampments used to be a bi-annual affair, but now are required monthly.
Jennifer Jones, who helps with nonprofits in Montrose working to assist the unhoused, said the camping ban change upended the community, particularly because of the explicit penalties associated with the new ordinance. A first offense comes with a $100 fine. If someone is cited three times, they “shall be punished by imprisonment for at least 10 days,” reads the ordinance.
“Montrose is the only city that we could find that has mandatory jail sentencing on their regulations,” Jones said, adding they looked at regulations for 20 other Colorado municipalities. “Nobody else utilizes mandatory jail sentencing.”
Many cities updated or added camping bans following a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in June, 2024, which declared it constitutional for cities to punish unhoused residents for camping, even if there are no shelter beds available. Kimbralea Freeman, who was unhoused herself and now helps with the community at the church, said those living outside feel like enforcement of the camping ban has increased.
“They're being chased around like cattle. They're getting citations, they're being thrown in jail. They're missing court dates and being thrown back in jail again,” she said.
Freeman said the stress of moving around leads to its own “psychosis” for the unhoused, making it more difficult for them to get back on their feet than if they had their own place to go.
“The difference that I've seen with the people that have got to stay here since they've got here is tremendous,” Freeman said. “They actually talk out loud … somebody yesterday told me, ‘I feel like I have a purpose. I feel like I'm loved and I feel like I'm supported.’”
Bell notes that Montrose police have a co-responder program to connect unhoused people with resources and that there has not been a rush of enforcement. He said the impacts of the ordinance likely won’t be fully seen till the warmer months when the unhoused population spreads out more.
“Hopefully it works as a general deterrent,” Bell said, recounting stories of encampments with trap doors and earthen cellars, “because we had to do something.”
Looking for compromise
Young said when he picked up his first citation at the police station, he was told the church had a week to make changes before daily citations would be given. On Thursday night, Bell received a stack of fresh citations.
“I worry about finding ourselves as a congregation needing to pay large fines. I mean, if we show up and have to defend 15 citations, I would assume that's something like showing up with 15 speeding tickets,” Young said. “I don't know where we'll get that money, but our faith just won't let us treat people in an inhumane way — to just turn an uncaring shoulder to people who are really without a lot of resources and need our help.”
Bell said fines are possible, but it will be up to the municipal judge. He also said Young was “evading the police and doesn't answer the door to receive his citations.”
The priority for the city, Bell said, is to see the area cleaned up. He’s meeting in executive session with the City Council on Monday to discuss possible remedies, since the city is prohibited from going on church property.
“I think our next big step would be to try to get an injunction from a district court to do a cease and desist order on the church. We can't just go on private property and clean it up,” he said.
Yes in God’s backyard
While Young prepares for court, other faith leaders in Colorado are preparing a legislative push for land use changes that would make it easier for churches to use their property for housing.
The Yes In God’s Backyard initiative, as it’s called, seeks to “break down barriers, enabling faith and educational institutions to develop affordable housing on their properties.” According to a fact sheet on the effort, proponents want laws that allow churches to rezone their undeveloped property for affordable housing; encourage collaboration between governments and religious institutions to address the housing crisis; promote equitable growth and create inclusive and affordable neighborhoods.
Earlier this year Gov. Jared Polis expressed support for proposals that would allow schools and churches to use their vacant property for affordable housing.
That effort does not discuss camping — sometimes referred to as interim housing — like that which is occurring in Montrose. Still, members of the Methodist congregation working on Montrose housing say local planning and zoning codes are being used as a hindrance to housing.
“I think the whole zoning is not a good thing, but carve us out of the bubble and put us in just a regular zone where this wouldn't be cited,” Neal Platzer, a member of the Methodist Church who has been working on the unhoused crisis said.
Bell said when he hears about such initiatives, his mind is split. He said he’s a firm “no” on anything that would undermine local control.
“The state should not be able to come in and tell local communities what they're going to do. That is not the role of the state government,” Bell said.
But at the same time, he wants to partner with religious institutions on the unhoused problem, with the needs of local property owners in mind. Montrose officials have started an advisory board called the unhoused roundtable to discuss solutions and more robust resources. Bell said his hope is that group will find common ground.
“By the end of the year, we're hoping to have a wraparound solution that we can all agree upon and then cost share on it and maybe apply for some federal or state money to help us out,” he said. “So I think the idea of that legislation's great, but it doesn't matter what legislation it is, the state shouldn't mandate anything to local cities.”
