Why is the County Evicting Amish from their Homes?

Written By: David Mortimer  |  Posted: Monday, March 30th, 2015

                Unless the order is delayed by Circuit Court Judge Kristina Bourget, Eau Claire County will placard-evict an Amish family with young children. The rural Fairchild home is occupied by Amos and Vera Borntreger and their four children under the age of six. Their youngest is six months old.

When Amos and Vera faced placarding on March 1, the temperatures were below zero. Many "English" attending a prayer vigil outside the courthouse wondered if the Health Department would really allow its placarding eviction power to be used on a family with a baby. An extreme measure, placarding is used only about 40 times a year in our county, and nearly always in cases where the home is truly unfit for human habitation due to things like frozen pipes, meth contamination, or lead poisoning.

Placarding means that any day the Sheriff will put them out of their home and padlock their doors. Two years ago, the Sheriff put an elderly Amish couple-Henry and Sarah Mast-out of their home for the same reason.

People ask: Evict the Amish for not having a smoke alarm?

Actually, it's a lot more. The Amish have difficulties in nearly every step of the new building permit process. They build a lot of homes for their growing families, so this is a big problem. The very first step requires them to lie. The fine print states that the signer understands they are "subject to" the Uniform Dwelling Code (UDC), but some items in the code are strictly prohibited by 300 years of their religious tradition.

So far, 13 Amish families have been in court for failure to comply with the UDC, even though they pose no grave danger to themselves or others. These cases are 13 red flags that indicate something is very wrong with the UDC. The Amish were not involved in making the law, and nobody thought about its unintended consequences on Amish families.

The Amish correctly understand that UDC compliance could destroy the foundation of their religious community. They believe their trust must be in God and not in technology like smoke alarms. If the penalty were incarceration (rather than court dates, fines, and eviction), Amish families would be filling the new county jail. Today, whole Amish districts are wondering if it is time to move to another state. Some families have received generous offers on their farmland from frack sand mines. A day may come when there are no Old Order Amish in our county.

This is a classic David vs. Goliath story. Amos and Vera's fine is in excess of $42,700. Last summer, Amish families faced fines of up to $309,500. Many of these families are farmers of modest means with annual incomes below the poverty line. Many cannot afford attorneys. They have no public defender because the cases are not criminal.

Amish have an eighth grade education, and English is their second language. This prepares them well for rural Amish life, but not for defending themselves in a modern courtroom. Like most Americans, they cannot even begin to understand the court papers they are served. Thankfully, Amos and Vera have a very good attorney.

It's clear the UDC is harming Amish communities, and many people wonder how a law with so many flaws could ever have been enacted in the first place. The answer: pressure from politically connected special interests like the Wisconsin Builders Association. With 6,000 members, five lobbyists, social networking tools, and a million dollar political action committee (PAC) and foundation, the Builders Association powerfully represents its interests to the legislature.

The Amish, by contrast, have no lobbyists, no PAC, do not vote, and their religion actually prohibits them from running for public office or bringing a case to court. Since they have no electricity or email, the extent of their social networking is a handwritten letter to a legislator.

In the last legislative session, the Builder's Association opposed bills that would have fixed UDC flaws by providing an accommodation for the Amish. Those bills never made it out of committee for a vote. As a result, Amish families are now being put out of their homes.

While our legislators work to fix the law's flaws, the County Board should temporarily rescind the UDC. Spending a half million since 2005 to enforce the UDC on the Amish is both a fool's errand and poor stewardship of the county's tax dollars.

David P. Mortimer, MDiv, of Eau Claire, studied Protestant religious communities in seminary, is a member of the National Committee for Amish Religious Freedom, and testified on behalf of the Amish as an expert witness in Eau Claire County vs. Daniel D. Gingerich, a court trial on July 7, 2014. He helps manage the "Stand with Eau Claire Amish Families" Facebook page.