Sarasota Church Vows to Keep Homeless Showers and Meals Open, Setting Up Religious Freedom Fight With County

A small Sarasota County church that feeds, clothes and offers showers to homeless people says it will defy a county order to stop those services by December, setting up a zoning fight that could test how far religious freedom laws protect ministries operating in residential neighborhoods. Remnant Church and its Remnant Cafe resumed full operations on its Ashton Road property in mid-October after a county code enforcement notice said the site is not zoned for a social service facility, WUSF and the Suncoast Searchlight reported. Church leaders say they plan to challenge the county under federal religious land use law rather than shut down a ministry they consider central to their faith.

A complaint, a notice and a cutback

Remnant was founded in 2015 by Pastor Frank Burns and his wife, Tammy Burns, who directs the church's homeless ministry. The cafe first operated out of a small building in downtown Sarasota before moving to the Ashton Road location in 2017. Before services were cut back, the campus offered coffee, meals, showers, laundry and clean clothing, and Tammy Burns has said the ministry served roughly 100 to 130 people.

The dispute escalated in August. Christine Nordstrom, president of the homeowners association for the Ashton Enclave Condominium, which has six homes across the street from the church, filed a complaint after she said she saw a man defecate behind a neighbor's house, according to WUSF. The zoning dispute followed years of complaints from residents of the condo community, according to earlier local reporting.

On Aug. 26, county code enforcement told the church that its outreach amounted to a social service use that is not allowed in a single-family residential zone. The notice of violation said the property is not zoned for a social service facility. In September, the church suspended showers and laundry for about three to four weeks, while continuing to serve food twice a week alongside Bible study and worship services.

On Oct. 2, the church announced it would bring the services back, and a neighbor emailed county commissioners about it. By mid-October, the cafe was again offering showers, laundry, clothing and meals. The county has extended its deadline to stop the services to December, and the church says it will not comply.

Nordstrom told WUSF she “expected more integrity” out of the church's leaders. Tammy Burns said the ministry is about “living out our faith,” and that failing to do what God called the church to do “would be sinful.”

The legal path ahead

The county has laid out two routes, according to earlier reporting. The church could seek commercial zoning and then a special exception, a process that would require public hearings before the county's Planning Commission and the County Commission. Otherwise, the violation can go before a special magistrate in a code enforcement hearing.

Remnant plans to fight. Church leaders intend to contest the notice before a county magistrate, appeal to circuit court if they lose, and possibly file a lawsuit. The church has split with its zoning lawyer and is looking for a constitutional lawyer; it has met with potential attorneys but had not hired one, WUSF reported. No magistrate hearing had been scheduled, according to county officials, and the county declined to comment beyond describing the code enforcement process.

The religious freedom question

The church's main argument rests on the federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, a 2000 law that bars governments from imposing land use rules that place a substantial burden on religious exercise unless they can show a compelling interest pursued by the least restrictive means.

Florida has a parallel state law. The Florida Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1998, in Chapter 761 of the Florida Statutes, says the government shall not substantially burden a person's exercise of religion, even through a rule that applies to everyone, unless it shows the burden furthers a compelling governmental interest and is the least restrictive means of doing so. The law defines the exercise of religion broadly, as an act substantially motivated by religious belief whether or not it is central to a larger belief system, and it entitles a winning plaintiff to attorney's fees paid by the government. Remnant has not said whether it will invoke the state law, but any challenge in Florida courts could draw on both.

First Liberty Institute, a national religious liberty law firm that is not representing Remnant, has urged the county to withdraw its notice. Tiffany Dunkin, associate counsel for the group, called such enforcement actions a “significant and widespread threat” to religious liberty.

Courts have sided with similar ministries before, WUSF noted. In 2016, a federal appeals court ruled for Harbor Missionary Church in Ventura, California, which had been denied a conditional use permit for its homeless ministry, finding the denial was not the least restrictive way to serve the city's public safety interest. But that case involved a permit the city could have granted, while Remnant's zoning district allows no social service exception at all, a distinction the county could press.

A case headed to the Supreme Court

The timing raises the stakes. In early October, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear a dispute from Park Hills, Kentucky, a Cincinnati suburb, in which the Missionaries of Saint John the Baptist want to build a shrine to the Virgin Mary behind their church on residential land. Neighbors concerned about traffic successfully challenged the zoning board's approval, and Kentucky's highest court ruled last December that the board lacked authority to grant the variance. The group argues that federal religious land use law overrides the local zoning outcome. First Liberty represents the Kentucky group.

A ruling in that case could shape how much weight RLUIPA carries against local zoning codes nationwide, including in disputes like the one in Sarasota County.

The homelessness backdrop

The fight comes as Florida's approach to homelessness has shifted. House Bill 1365, signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis in March 2024 and in effect since Oct. 1, 2024, bars counties and cities from allowing people to regularly sleep or camp on public property, in public buildings or on public rights-of-way. Local governments may designate camping areas for up to a year if they meet Department of Children and Families standards, including restrooms, running water, security and a ban on drugs and alcohol. Residents, business owners and the attorney general can sue local governments that fail to enforce the ban.

The latest point-in-time count found 931 people experiencing homelessness across Sarasota and Manatee counties in January 2026, down almost 20 percent from 1,150 in 2023, according to the Suncoast Partnership to End Homelessness. Most were counted in Manatee County. But the number of people at risk of losing housing has risen above 5,000 across the two counties, up from just under 3,000 in 2023, the partnership said.

What's next

The county's December deadline stands, and Remnant says it will keep its doors open. If the county moves forward, the case would go first to a code enforcement magistrate, then potentially to circuit court, where the church would argue that shutting down its ministry substantially burdens its religious exercise. Church leaders are still searching for a constitutional lawyer. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court's eventual decision in the Kentucky shrine case could set the rules for how federal religious land use law applies to fights like this one in Sarasota County.