California city bans church from helping the homeless—unless pastor pays $310,000

'Tis the statist season.

The local government in Fairfield, California, is insisting a pastor must pay $310,000 in fines levied against him and his church before he can resume the volunteer work he has done for nearly two decades.

Scott Mulvey and his City Church are known in the community for aiding the city's most vulnerable people. For years, the church's "life school" has provided essential services to the homeless and others in need, including a free medical clinic with volunteer nurses and doctors, job training, and overnight shelter. Mulvey’s goal is to help people find a path out of homelessness.

But when Fairfield officials 'red-tagged' the church for code violations in March of this year, the local government barred Mulvey and his congregation from administering many of their services. He and the church are currently only 'allowed' to provide food and household supplies.

Mulvey says the city previously supported his work and referred people in need to City Church—until he decided to run for city council in 2022 at the request of community members. He claims that after this, the city started sending police and other enforcement agents to his property. Meanwhile, officials claim the city warned him of the violations well before they red-tagged the building in March. They say Mulvey failed to comply promptly enough with a variety of concerns about code violations, zoning, permits, and licensing.

Mulvey's church has a small budget, and he has struggled to pay for the required repairs, which included replacing a leaking roof (a donor eventually helped with that costly project) and addressing mold and insect infestations, which are legitimate concerns.

He also struggled to pay the original nearly $18,000 fine, which ballooned to over $310,000 as time went on because he didn’t come up with the money in time. Mulvey claims he was never notified of how quickly the fines would rack up.

Despite the hardships, Mulvey has managed to resolve most of the city's claims of code violations, and he was hopeful he could return to the full scope of his volunteer work. In October, the city’s planning commission said Mulvey could restart his volunteer efforts in full before paying the astronomical fines. Shortly after, however, the city council reversed this decision.

Mulvey and City Church appealed the city council’s ruling in November. Community members attended to testify about the value Mulvey and City Church bring to the community: They fill in gaps in resources by providing shelter, medical care, job training, and food. Recovering addicts shared that their time with City Church helped them sober up and reclaim their lives.

While the council acknowledged the benefits Mulvey and the church bring to Fairfield (one councilman did refer to complaints about the church from community members), they were unwilling to clear his path to resuming operations. The decision came even though the violations have been resolved, as even a government official acknowledged during the hearing.

The local government claims they were previously willing to drop the fines but opted not to because Mulvey did not comply quickly enough (they also say they offered him a payment plan to lighten the burden). A city official also claimed that church workers turned away inspectors twice (while acknowledging the inspectors were allowed seven times) and that Mulvey did not follow through on an early chance to resolve the matter through “neutral arbitration.” For his part, at the November hearing, Mulvey issued an apology to the city for any previous misunderstandings.

The Pacific Justice Institute, which is representing Mulvey and the church, said they are hopeful they will be able to negotiate the fines down to a manageable level.

Whatever the details of the back and forth, a viewing of the November hearing shows that both Mulvey and the local government sincerely want City Church to restart operations. However, it seems government officials are hung up on procedures, codes, regulations, and their own authority. From their perspective, they have tried their best to clear Mulvey, but they can’t because he has flouted the rules too excessively.

Whatever local government officials’ beliefs about swift obedience to codes, permits, regulations, and administrative procedures, people are suffering as a result of their decisions. The church claims at least four people have died after being turned away due to the city's enforcement actions. Further, Mulvey has expressed concern about winter weather and the plight of people living on the streets. "It's getting really cold. There have been people from our [ministry] that have gone on the street and died. You are gonna see an increase in deaths. It's as though nobody cares. Nobody cares," Muley said last month.

A former Fairfield city council member (and vice mayor), Jack Batson, said he viewed documents related to the ordeal and believes the city is going too far. According to Batson, the case has been plagued by bureaucratic inefficiency and miscommunication between local government agencies (California state government procedures and requirements have further complicated this bureaucratic rat’s news). In his view, Mulvey has tried to resolve the matter in good faith, and the fines should be dropped and Mulvey allowed to carry on with his work—especially given his longstanding reputation for helping others in the community.

While some may justify the restrictions and fines over public health concerns, it is hard to argue that a pastor and his church should be banned from helping others in need because the city didn't get its payout. Assuming the public health concerns have been resolved, as they appear to have been (Mulvey has said he has several more repairs to complete once he’s operational again), there should be no further objections from the State.

Further, while such codes and top-down authority are unavoidable features of the current system, incidents like these should fundamentally call government authority into question: does (or should) the State have a right to demand money and prohibit someone from helping others because they didn’t comply quickly enough with centrally planned codes? For people living on the streets, code and zoning violations are likely a lower concern than where they will get their next meal or lay their head in frigid weather.

Cases like these are numerous. Whether it's a city health department pouring bleach over food meant for the homeless, police arresting people for feeding the homeless without permits, or other cities fining churches for providing shelter, they are all rooted in obedience to authority. Whatever the effectiveness or legitimacy of public health codes, in many cases, government officials often adhere to the strict letter of the law rather than the spirit.

Considering governments across the United States have failed to curb homelessness—especially in California—private actors are increasingly vital to solving this problem. As one Fairfield resident warned at the November hearing, “If City Church goes away, the homeless are going to lose. We are all going to lose.”