The Rock, a non-denominational Christian church on the western edge of Castle Rock, is suing the town after being told its practice of sheltering people experiencing homelessness in RVs on church grounds violates local zoning rules.
The Rock has been using the two RVs to shelter people experiencing homelessness since 2018. Castle Rock first notified the church of the zoning violation in 2021.
The lawsuit, filed in March, argues the town is impeding the church’s First Amendment right of religious expression — both in Castle Rock and in wider Douglas County — where there are no other local shelter alternatives for the homeless.
“The church has repeatedly tried to work with the town. They’ve gone through every possible meeting, every possible review board,” Jeremy Dys, a lawyer representing the church in the lawsuit, said. “There was nothing left for them to do but to seek that their rights be vindicated in federal court.”
The lawsuit claims the town is “apparently operating on the cynical thesis that they do not want the homeless in their area.”
“The Town has retained defense counsel to rigorously defend the zoning authority of communities,” Castle Rock Communications Manager Melissa Hoelting wrote in an emailed statement to CPR News. “The Town has no further comment on the active litigation.”
Representatives from Castle Rock have previously said the use of RVs as temporary shelters violates zoning rules the church agreed to when the property was annexed into the town in 2003.
The issue, the town says, are a red camper trailer and a white RV in the church’s back parking lot. The two shelter options followed a Winter Shelter Network program the Rock began in association with other local faith organizations and Douglas County in 2016, wherein the church welcomed unhoused people to stay in the building’s auditorium when it wasn’t being used from November to March.
Court documents in the lawsuit say most of the individuals and small families the church was temporarily housing in the two RVs were referred to the church by the county, through its Homeless Engagement, Assistance and Resource Team (HEART) or the local department of human services.
After Castle Rock notified the church of the zoning violation in November of 2021, town representatives then told church pastor Mike Polhemus that the issue “would be considered resolved if the church agreed to limit the RVs/trailers in use to two,” according to the lawsuit.
Then in September of 2023, Castle Rock formally charged the church with a zoning violation for the use of the RVs as temporary shelters. Douglas County Communications Director Wendy Holmes said the county stopped referring unhoused people to the church at that time.
Dys said the church is hoping for a District Court injunction in the lawsuit in the coming weeks, to allow the RV program to resume while the case plays out. The town’s zoning rules are superseded by the church’s right to practice its religious beliefs, he said, particularly those that prioritize providing assistance to the vulnerable.
“Of all the efforts that the town has — to try to reduce those who need temporary shelter,” Dys said, “Why would a town punish those who are seeking to get people off of the very streets that the town is trying to clean up?”
Regarding future shelter options, Douglas County has provided a little over $1 million of its American Rescue Plan funding toward Aurora’s Regional Navigation campus, a property dedicated to resources for unhoused people that is expected to open in 2025. Holmes said the money given by the county will reserve a handful of shelter beds at the campus. Local HEART staff will transport those who need them up to the Aurora site.
