Our Homeless Neighbors

2013-06-09

1 Homelessness is a subject that most people, I am sure, would rather avoid. Just by their presence, the homeless point to many problems in our society, problems that many people would like to just go away. And that is precisely why we need to pay attention to the problems shown to us by the existence of the homeless. We need to pay attention because our religious tradition is one that says, if the ideal of heaven is real, it is the task of humankind to bring that ideal to pass in this life and not wait for a better life in the sweet by-and-by. This idea of heaven on earth has been called the Beloved Community by Dr. King and others. This terms first known usage came from the philosopher, Josiah Royce, who taught at Harvard University until his death in 1916. Royce said, Since the office of religion is to aim towards the creation on earth of the Beloved Community, the future task of religion is the task of inventing and applying arts which shall win all over to unity . . . Judge every social device, every proposed reform, every national and every local enterprise by one test. Does this help towards the coming of the universal community? Because homelessness is a real impediment to the realization of the beloved community, this topic should be addressed. This of course assumes we agree that the human task is to create heaven on earth or to build the beloved community. If so, addressing homelessness is a good place to start. Another reason to talk about this topic is from a sense of compassion that addressing the conditions that cause homelessness might prevent it occurring for others in the future. I have had two encounters with a homeless person in my life. The first time was when I was six or seven years old and was with my grandmother and probably my sister too. We were in my grandmothers car parking in front of a strip mall when a man approached our car asking for money. My grandmother told the man she could not help him, but that he should seek help from someone like the Salvation Army. My grandmother answered my barrage of questions by saying that the man probably had no place permanent to live. This was an unnerving experience for such a young child as I was then. The second experience I had was when one of my college roommates convinced us, his other two roommates, to let this guy, Phil, crash on our couch on a temporary basis. Phil was a guy with huge problems, not entirely of his own making. He had some sort of cognitive, learning difficulties, perhaps dyslexia, certainly attention deficit disorder, among other things. I learned that he was prone to substance abuse, probably in order to self-medicate from one of his mental disorders. My roommate was very good at dealing with people and set down understandable rules, house rules if you will, for Phil to follow. Eventually,
1

Our Homeless Neighbors

2013-06-09

either from breaking too many of these rules or from his own decision, he finally left and we never saw him again. Yet, Phil was the greatest blues harmonica player I had ever heard. Every person, whether they are homeless or not, has something to offer to the rest of us. Through these experiences and like many others, I came to believe common myths about homeless people. The homeless are just detached, single adults. They are just winos or drunks. They are Vietnam Vets who cannot adapt to civilian life. The homeless are mostly folks who are mentally ill. They would rather live and beg on the streets, then to work to support themselves. These generalizations about the homeless each contain a small element of truth about them. Yes, a few of the homeless have some of those issues. Some of them have mental illnesses. Some of them have substance abuse problems. Some of them are military vets suffering from post traumatic stress disorder or some other mental illness. Yet taken together in wholesale fashion is a complete distortion of whom the homeless really are. Stereotypes and generalizations make it easy to dismiss the larger questions and problems. It makes it easier to blame them for the poor life-choices they made, when often bad choices are made when the good choices are not known or not available. Poor choices for those living at the margins are often the only choices. We need to see the problem of homelessness through different lenses. We need to move from some of the stereotypes I just mentioned, and others besides, to today's reality of why people are out on the streets. We need to see more than just the stereotype of a person pushing a grocery cart loaded with black plastic bags. We need to know that families, a parent, usually a mother, is living with her children in a car. We need to know that mentally ill people are on the streets, mostly because they cannot get treatment for their illnesses. Apart from all of those myths, the biggest one is this - homelessness only happens to these types of people I just listed. In reality, it could happen to just about anybody. I always learn something myself well working on a topic such as this. While I knew that families with children were becoming an increasingly greater share of the homeless population, I had no idea to what extent that was true. Those agencies providing for families without homes are inundated with requests. Close to half of the homeless population are those younger than age 21. We met one family, briefly, in the reading from Marion Wright Edelman. The Harris family is a mom, Stekeshia, and her two sons. She was laid off when she became pregnant with the youngest child, but she didnt get her job back after her baby was born. The boys father helped out for a while, but then left. She
2

Our Homeless Neighbors

2013-06-09

babysat for other children, worked off and on for temp agencies, and qualified for food stamps. Her sister helped with rent until she couldnt afford it. She let Stekeshia and the boys move in with her and her children, but it eventually did not work out and they ended up at the family shelter. She continues to look for work. This past week, I met with Kevin, the executive director of Stepping Stone Emergency Shelter in Anoka, and Sue, a volunteer. Kevin told me that the HUD census conducted in late 2012 showed that Anoka County has 468 single homeless adults. This is the population that their agency tries to serve, but with only capacity for 39 men and 21 women. Family Promise of Anoka County is the agency that provides emergency housing for families through a network of 18 volunteer congregations. This volunteer network provides sheltered housing for four families per night. Nothing that I have read, nor anyone I have talked to, knows how many families are homeless in any given night in Anoka County. Whatever that number is, I can guarantee you its greater than the four families who are in the Family Promise network. These people, whether they are single adults or families, are our neighbors. Who is my neighbor?, a learned man once asked a famous Rabbi long ago. The Rabbi told the man this story: a man was traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho when he was ambushed and beaten by robbers and left for dead. A television evangelist was passing by on that same road, and seeing the man lying there, passed by on the other side of the road. Then came a famous media pundit who is always claiming that he's looking out for you, he too saw the man beaten up and lying in the road that he too passed to the other side. Finally, a Muslim school teacher came that way, saw the man lying in the road and he helped him into his old Volvo station wagon and drove him to the hospital. The Rabbi, after telling this story, asks the man and his friends who were with him, which one of these was this man's neighbor? People who are homeless, though they have no homes, are nevertheless, our neighbors. Stepping Stone Emergency Shelter and Family Promise of Anoka County are doing a small part to take care of our neighbors. Of course, bigger, societal solutions are required. The economy has to be fixed and reformed in such a way that work is valued more and taxed less than investment activity. Financial scams must be rooted out and the criminals who are walking free today must be punished to deter future bad actors, even those at the top of the economic food chain. Too big to jail must be a thing of the past. We must get serious as a society to equate mental illness with any other kind
3

Our Homeless Neighbors

2013-06-09

of physical illness. Public investments made in mental health services have been shown to have far greater payback in terms of greater productivity and less frequent criminal activity. Ironically, the term, homeless, is a bit of a misnomer. A home is an idyllic construct and can be far removed from reality. What people really do need our houses, physical, tangible houses. We must return to public policies that create incentives to build affordable housing stocks. In the meantime, we can ally ourselves with those agencies trying to stem the tide. No, we cannot be one of those congregations in the Family Promise network. We do not have the space, nor the people to do that work. We can partner with these agencies or with other congregations to do a small part of the work. We could supply a meal to the Stepping Stone Emergency Shelter, which would feed about 55 people, once every so often. We could do this, perhaps, all by ourselves. Or, we could partner with one of the other Anoka County congregations and share in the food preparation for that program. You should know that I have heard the calls urging us to be more involved in the community, as our mission states. I have invested a certain amount of time to research some new possibilities and I will continue to do that as opportunities present themselves. Talking about becoming more involved in the community is a good thing, but talking about doing something is not the same as actually doing it. And by the way, that reward of that warm, tingling good feeling you get when you do something good for somebody else only happens when you actually do it. This is building the universal community, the most important task of our lifetimes.