Oregon city agrees to pay $400,000 after church wins lawsuit to preserve feeding ministry
Bernie Lindley sorts bread for the food ministry at St. Timothy's Episcopal Church in Brookings, Oregon. (Courtesy photo)
An Episcopal church in Oregon that successfully fought a city ordinance limiting its homeless feeding ministry has won a $400,000 settlement in its lawsuit against the city of Brookings.
The city agreed to pay $375,000 to cover St. Timothy’s Episcopal Church’s legal fees in the 2022 lawsuit and an additional $43,000 to the Oregon Justice Resource Center, according to Oregon Public Broadcasting. The settlement comes after a federal judge ruled in favor of St. Timothy’s and the Episcopal Church in Western Oregon.
Brookings is located about 10 miles north of the California border along the Pacific coast. At the time of the March 27 judgment, St. Timothy’s was serving an average of 73 free meals a day, four days a week, in defiance of the city’s ordinance that had attempted to restrict the meals to two days a week.
