Church says city is ‘playing with people’s lives’ as shelter legal battle escalates

July 28, 2026

Officials in Ocean City, Maryland, have filed a countersuit against a local church in an ongoing legal battle over whether the congregation can operate a barracks-style homeless shelter.

The Christian Post reports that the Ocean City mayor and city council filed an answer and counterclaim against St. Paul’s By-the-Sea Episcopal Church in U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland on July 20, in response to a lawsuit the church filed last month.

The legal battles date date back to February, when the town gave St. Paul’s an April 1 deadline to stop letting homeless people sleep in tents on church property or face daily fines.

The church beat that deadline by a day, opening an indoor overnight ministry called “The Shelter By-the-Sea” on March 31, operating nightly from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m.

According to the Rev. Jill Williams, the church’s rector, between 25 and 39 people sleep there on a given night.

In response, the city began issuing $1,000-per-day citations against Williams and the church’s senior warden, Dan Harris, starting June 8, alleging the shelter violated local zoning code.

According to the Christian Post, the city’s counterclaim asks the court to “find and declare that the Ocean City zoning code” does not “impose a substantial burden on Counter-Defendants’ religious exercise,” and to declare that “the neutral and generally applicable Ocean City Code provisions at issue are constitutional.”

The city also seeks “a permanent injunction, enjoining Counter-Defendants from and against continuing to operate the subject housing shelter on the Church’s property, or any other housing shelter on such property that is not expressly permitted by Ocean City.”

Williams told Episcopal News Service that “[City officials] had the choice to just back off, and they chose to double down and completely try to categorize this as only a zoning issue while ignoring the fact that it’s a mission and a religious freedom issue.”

Last month, Williams told the Christian Post that her church was suing the city, saying that she and congregants “do not view this as a zoning issue,” but rather as “a matter of religious freedom and our ability to live out our faith.”

Photo: top, Credit: Jill Lake/Director of Outreach