What Should I Do About Homeless In My Neighborhood?

Tim, nicest guy ever

When someone sees a group of homeless folks in the local park or a couple living in a van on their street, people are trying to figure out how to get rid of them.  Because, they figure, they don't belong there.  

Perhaps that's true.  Or maybe it's not.  Folks on the street are, more often than not, citizens of our town, of our neighborhood.  They just don't have a place they own.  So local public property is the only place they have.

What if we don't like them in our neighborhood?  We need to deal with them, and ourselves. But calling the police is a bad idea.  First, because we should really be calling the police for criminal activity, that is what they are trained for.  Also because it puts them in the uncomfortable situation of being someone else's babysitter.  If someone is trespassing on your personal property, then you can call the police.  But no matter how much I wish I could, it's not right for me to call someone for parking on the street in front of my house.  Even so, no one should be calling the police because homeless folks are on public property.

Here are some things that I did about the homeless in my neighborhood.

1. I invited homeless folks to my house, to eat dinner with my family. I listened to them to understand their perspective and their lives. While some disturbed me, others became my friends.
2. Talking to the city about giving space for them to be. Perhaps I don’t want some of these folks sleeping in my neighborhood (if they were noisy at night or whatever), but they have molecules so they have to be somewhere. So I spoke to city hall and the mayor and worked with them to create a piece of unused property that they could stay, even if only temporarily. I helped a homeless camp organize and establish rules for their camp. They were able to live peacefully for months there.
3. Some of the folks, after I got to know them well and could trust them, I invited into my house to live with me and my family. I established rules and work for them to do and they lived with us for a while until they could get another place set up. This option isn’t for everyone, and it isn’t for every person who lives on the street, but if one gets the right “match” it can work out well.

Culture Clash

I took the opportunity last night to be yelled at for an hour and a half.   I was told that I was abusing some, enabling others and that I ruined a neighborhood.  For the most part, I couldn't deny it.  I just sat and listened.

For the most of 15 years we have had a ministry to the homeless on a corridor in suburban Gresham.  We provide some food, showers, and a place for the homeless to get out of neighborhoods and businesses.  Some of the homeless were already in the neighborhood, but many of the homeless wouldn't be in that particular place unless we were there, assisting them.

Mind you, the day shelter program works.  We provide a place of peace and opportunities for people to change their lives.  Many of the folks coming to our day shelter have been doing work, gotten housing, gotten jobs, gotten in treatment, and become full time employed.  Mind you, that isn't just from our program by itself, but we are the first step up, the place where people learn to live in community, the place where people find out about the basic helps, the place where they can get the basic needs to sleep that night, the place where they can rest from the stress of their lives in order to have enough brain cells to figure out what they can do with their lives.

Of course, not everyone who wants a shower or clothes or a bite to eat are ready to change.  Most people aren't.  And some people, a few, have pretty anti-social behavior.  They yell and scream.  Many people drink in public (of course, they don't have anywhere else to drink).  And, of course, this impacts the neighborhood.

I invited the neighborhood to come and talk to us about any issues they had, and six people did.  Boy, they were angry.  And they don't like our ministry.  They said that these people just needed jobs and we asked them if they could get jobs for them.  Well, sure, they said, if they don't have a record and have ID and have some experience.  But the prevailing attitude of the meeting is that the homeless are bad, dangerous people and if they can't be out of the neighborhood, they need to be unseen, unheard.

According to these people, there is an impact on the neighborhood, although minimal.  There is a park bench on which our folks drink... that's not good.  In the house next to our church, the couple who lives there are often woke up early on Saturday morning by our people waiting for us to open.  That has to change.  Sometimes there are people on the property when we are closed, which makes the neighbors nervous.  And some of our people go through the recycle bins on trash day.

But they weren't angry just at these true problems.  They were upset that these folks were not acting "appropriate" in church.  (One person said in our sanctuary, "I wouldn't let people speak such shit in the Lord's house."  We all laughed.)They were angry that these people had no work to do, were "loitering".  They were angry that our program was "enabling" them to live an "anti-social" lifestyle.  They were angry that we didn't have enough rules. They felt that these people should just tow the line.  Their line.

They didn't understand that the homeless has a different line.  A different culture.  A different point of view.  I am not saying that the homeless culture is an always successful one, but it works when you are forced on the street.  And the middle class needs to remember that it is their culture that forces homelessness as an option. One neighbor talked about his son, how he wouldn't "follow the rules" and so was kicked out.  "And I don't care" he said, "if he's sleeping in a car.  He can't come home."

One person in the group said it clearly, "I hate to sound like a cliche, but I just don't want it in my neighborhood."  Meaning the homeless.

It is not my job to tell these neighbors to accept the homeless culture.  They have a right to their culture, their way of life. They have built it, and they can have it.  The homeless also have a right to their way of life as long as it doesn't interfere with anyone else.  I can't tell them not to live that way.

What neither the homeless nor the neighbors understand is that it is our task, the church's task, to help both sides accept the other.  To bring peace and cooperation to the neighborhood.  To help all in need, no matter who they are, and to create community of love.  It is almost impossible to bring love amidst warring factions.   But it can be done.

The first step is listening to the needs and demands of each side.  The second step is to build trust on both sides.  Eventually, for there to be peace, we must have relationship between the two camps.  I hope we will be given a chance to do that.

I hope I don't die of a heart attack before that happens.

Answering a Phone Call

Yesterday, I received a phone call from a nervous neighbor.  She was polite enough, "I'm glad that someone is helping these people," she said, meaning the street folks.  However... yes, when we get a call from the neighbors there's always a "however".  She saw some folks pushing each other out in the street, cussing up a storm.  For herself, she might have been irritated, but her young daughter was there "and she could have been watching through the slits in the fence".  And she certainly heard the language.

Investigating the situation, it turns out that there was a person who was not a regular who was drinking in the church.  He was also lightly groping a couple of the girls.  Because he refused to desist, he was asked to leave. He also refused to do this.  So they had to work with him, getting him out, and this led to the front of the church, next to the street, where I guess it devolved into a pushing and cussing match, where at least one person was almost pushed into traffic.

Not good.  We need to do something about it, and we must. And I told the neighbor this.

But she was not satisfied.  She said, "Why can't these people act better when they are at the church?  Are they receiving this help for free or do they have to work for it?  My daughter said that she saw a drunk person vomiting on the church grounds while she was at the park a couple years ago?  Are people sleeping there? How many people do you have there, anyway?"  No matter what I said, I couldn't ease her upset about the fact that she is in a community that has an unwanted population that our church is pulling in.

What I couldn't say is that if we weren't creating a place for folks that has rules and food and people to watch over, then they'd be out in the community, without rules, hungry and with no one they trusted to suggest they act differently.  They'd be in someone's front yard or street-- if not yours then someone else's.

Instead, with the day shelter, they are in a safe place-- safe for themselves and safe for others.  They have a place to cook their own food, to connect in a non-violent place.  They can be respected and so not find any reason to be violent or dangerous in any way.  Sure, a few of the people will occasionally act out, but the community as a whole teaches them that such behavior isn't welcome.

Very rarely we have situations like yesterday when those who are helping snap and act in a way that in not in accord with the church atmosphere.  But that's rare, very rare.  The fact is, without the day shelters, the community would be in a worse state.

I want to keep everyone safe, and I'd like to have the neighbors be content with our work.  I am hoping that we will all be working together to create a unified community of peace and everyone working together.  I heard today that the police are directing the homeless to the day shelters to keep them out of the community at large.  That's fine with everyone.  Praise God there's a place for everyone to go.  It is our hope that our folks will eventually work for these neighbors who have problems with them now.  Maybe even to be paid.

Relationships With The Poor

This article is adapted by Amigos MCUSA from a book review by IsaacV
on the Young Anabaptist Radicals blog, available at:
http://young.anabaptistradicals.org/2008/07/08/book-review-simple-spirituality-by-christopher-heuertz/#comments

Relationships that open us to God

Christopher L. Heuertz doesn't claim to offer any secrets to spiritual
success. Instead, he shares what God is teaching him through his
friends, who happen to be the poorest of the poor.

In Spirituality: Learning to See God in a Broken World (InterVarsity
Press, 2008), Heuertz's spirituality isn't a call to close your eyes
and think about God; instead, friendships with the poor make
friendship with God possible.

Our parents were right: we are who we hang out with. Our friends shape
who we are. That's not something to run from. Humans are relational
animals. There's no such thing as autonomy; it's a delusion. The
fibers of our being, Heuertz notes, "are made for relationships" (54).
But we can choose with whom we form these friendships. Our hope is
that the church may be a place where those friendships can happen. But
what does it mean when our churches don't welcome the poor?

Are we on the side of the poor?

Or, to put it more strongly, what does it mean when we aren't begging
the beggars to worship with us? Heuertz doesn't mince words: "If our
community makes no room for those who are poor, our community loses
all credibility" (58). While Jim Wallis is trying to fight for justice
on the national scale, Heuertz offers a much more intimate vision, one
that transforms our daily lives: "We work not for justice for everyone
but instead to ensure that we're on the 'right' side of the poverty
line" (58). Are we on the side of the poor?

That's his question. This isn't a political platform for a lobby
group. Rather, it's about what side of town we live on. Who are our
neighbors, who are our friends, who sits next to us when we worship,
who eats at our table? These questions mess with our lives. They haunt
our everyday decisions. But these questions also send us to the poor,
who offer us intimacy with God. And typically God shakes up our lives
so God can offer us an unimaginably better one.

Overflowing abundance gets messy

Jesus: "I have come that you may have life, and have it abundantly."
But overflowing abundance gets really messy. "We want to let God in,"
writes Heuertz, "but usually on our terms. We want to make room for
Christ to reign on the thrones of our hearts, but only a clean Christ
who doesn't make a mess of our lives" (63).

Heuertz writes, "Jesus' ministry was not to the upper class, the
educated, the elite or the most influential social figures. Jesus came
and ministered among those who were poor, with the poor and as a poor
man. His ministry was to the children, those who were begging, victims
of leprosy, the woman at the well, the woman caught in the act of
adultery, the tax collectors, the fishermen communities and those on
the margins.

Following Jesus alongside common people

"Jesus came to the common people and lived alongside them. As a
church, we must learn new ways to celebrate our faith inclusively so
that those on the margins of society will feel welcome – and so that
our love and acceptance of the other will aid in our paths to
holiness. Jesus' ministry was marked with a distinctive compassion for
the oppressed poor" (69).

I am grateful to Heuertz and his friends for showing me that such an
abundant life is possible. I can't begin to do justice to Heuertz's
storytelling; that's what makes the book a must read. Read it for the
stories of real life, of real friendship, of people we can never meet
because they are dead now. And also read it for the joy of abundant
life, the joy of Christ's resurrected life, a life broken open for
us..