I don't know anything more about these groups than what I'm reading in
the documents, so I can't help there. But I kinda want to stress just how nakedly bad-faith these arguments are.
The complaining neighbors are claiming the church will get "great financial gain" by working with a local non-profit to turn some church space into a homeless shelter. Hunh? Short of outright fraud, how do you make big bucks running a homeless shelter? That's some giant BS, and the neighbors don't explain. They point to the costs of the renovations and then, I guess, assume no one would spend that kind of money unless it was for financial gain.... therefore this is for financial gain?
The most
generous explanation of their argument is this: the church isn't really going to be running a homeless shelter. They are leasing space to Somerville Homeless Coalition, and SHC will be running the homeless shelter. Because the church is leasing out the space, this is nothing more than a financial agreement, same as any other landlord renting space to a tenant for a profit.
But that's crap. For religious reasons, the church wants to run a homeless shelter, so they're pooling resources with a non-profit to do that. The church has the space, and is putting in the money for appropriate renovations. SHC has the expertise and will run day to day operations. Homeless people will stay on church property. The
church is providing food, supplies, and volunteers from the congregation. The jackass neighbors are pointing to any of this resource pooling as some evidence that money is changing hands in a nefarious way. But no. This is two groups working together on a homeless shelter. The only thing we can learn from the fact that there is a long term lease is that the church wants to run the shelter long term. Good for them.
(Just bleakly funny, but the neighbors'
full complaint also has this gem: they don't think a homeless shelter serves any "religious purpose" as required for the zoning law they're arguing about. But they give an example of what the law would allow.
A parking lot. The neighbors would have no problem if the church was building more parking spaces, because that serves an obvious religious purpose. But not a homeless shelter..... Jesus.....)
