A church pastor in Abbotsford has been told not to feed the homeless in a city park after residents and businesses complained that drug addicts and aggressive panhandlers were overrunning the area.

Pastor Christopher Reiners of the Peace Lutheran Church told CBC News two or three volunteers from the congregation have been doling out cereal and hot coffee to about 20 people on Thursday mornings in the city’s Jubilee Park for the past six weeks.

Last week, three city councilors and concerned neighbours met with Reiners to ask him to stop.

"We were told by some people … that what we were doing was contributing to the problem or was, in fact, creating the problem,” said Reiners.

Bob Bos, the President of Abbotsford's Downtown Business Association, who attended the meeting, said businesses are finding people sleeping in their doorways and elderly residents were too scared to get out of their cars to visit the seniors' center,

After the church volunteers clean up and leave, the homeless remain, and the problem gets worse, said Bos.

"The church says, 'Yeah, we take everything that we bring with us.' Maybe they do, but that's when the drug dealers show up,” he said. “They may have had 15-20 people that they feed. But next thing you know, there's 30 out there.”

City councillor John Smith said the church doesn’t have the city’s consent to feed people in the park and suggested the city could help the church transport the homeless from the park to the church for breakfast.

The Abbotsford police and the city’s parks department are planning a major crackdown in the area because of the complaints, said Smith.

According to the recent Upper Fraser Valley Homeless Survey, half of the homeless counted in the region were located in Abbotsford, which had 235 homeless people in 2008, up from 226 in 2004.

While he’s ready to discuss solutions, not feeding the homeless isn’t going to solve the city’s growing problem, said the pastor, and for now, he plans on continuing his work in the park.

"For Christians not to care for the needy is simply not an option. It's part of our calling," said Reiners.