A homeless man was arrested this month on suspicion of stealing items from the Vashon Lutheran Church, near where he was living in a tent.

The 29-year-old man was arrested on Oct. 1 after sheriff’s deputies found him in possession of goods that the Lutheran church had reported stolen over the weekend of Sept. 27, according to Detective Jason Stanley, a spokesman for the King County Sheriff’s Office.

The case has been forwarded to the King County Prosecutor’s Office, where it is still under review, and the man has not yet been charged.

The man was discovered living in a tent in the woods near the church, Stanley said. He has been arrested several times in the past for trespassing on Vashon.

The church’s property manager, James Dam, said that something didn’t seem quite right late last month when he noticed that all of the church’s wastebaskets were missing.

“When we realized that they were gone, we started looking around to see if anything else was missing, and that’s when we discovered all of the other things that were taken,” he said.

Included among the stolen property was copper wiring, tools, extension cords, a step ladder, shelving and communion bread. According to Stanley, the man claimed to have acted alone and admitted to also drinking the communion wine. Dam did not say how the man got into the church.

All of the stolen property was in the man’s possession when sheriff’s deputies discovered his camp. He was arrested on suspicion of second-degree burglary and released from jail after his first hearing.

Dam noted that the church, for its part, is concerned about the man’s well-being.

“We have to feel compassion for those driven to this sort of thing,” he said. “We have to be thinking along the lines of what are we not doing that we need to do to keep this from happening.”

The church was unaware of the presence of the camp until it was discovered by deputies. It is on the property of the nearby Vashon Meadows neighborhood.

Bob Horsely, president of the Vashon Meadows homeowner’s association, says he spoke to a man at the camp after the church notified him of its existence and the man told him he would be gone within two days. Horsely did not know if the man he spoke with was the same one who had been arrested.