| LIVING ON EMPTY ... a parishioner's look at the cities' homeless shelters | 
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Almost 2000 years ago the Scripture writers referred more than once to the tragedy of having no place to sleep in security. Having a safe place to be at night that is familiar or welcoming is considered by all of us as an essential of life. Yet the reality for many is to spend part of each day in search of a place to sleep in Minneapolis.
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The estimate for the total number of homeless and precariously housed persons (persons at imminent risk of losing housing) in Minnesota on October 26, 2000 is 21,329. This includes estimates of those who were “doubled-up” in temporary living situations with others; living on the streets; or residing in shelter or non-shelter locations. This is almost triple the estimate of 7,980 made on October 24, 1991. |
So frequently in the St. Joan of Arc Sunday bulletin, one’s eye scans those brief invitational paragraphs, subtly inviting the parishioner to consider a wider ministry or even to risk leaving the security of Sunday song and sermon to come face to face with some unknown ministry of the gospel. One of those invitations appeared a while back. It simply invited those parishioners interested in a tour of the city’s homeless shelters. This is the story in part of an evening in search of a bed.
The tour I took on an unusually hot April night, started in a part of town that once knew a different life. 28th and 1st Ave still is home to an old proud Methodist church. At six in the evening a small group of men and women start to gather waiting for 6:30 when the doors are unlocked and the lucky forty can find safety and very limited comfort for one more night. I was early so I met the lead staff with two scriptural names of Monica Nilsson and Mary Gallini. The church basement in it’s transformational life as a shelter was very predictable but what strikes you hard is the faces and determination of the staff. They are for the most part young and in the midst of sad times, they have a way of quietly reflecting the words of the New Testament...“Whatever you do, to the least of my brethren, you do for me.”
We have all been numbed by the pictures of those we label as homeless. I didn’t see different, but I heard different. I heard Monica and Mary quietly talk about how life for too many does spiral downward and the ability without work to find money for today’s rents becomes impossible. Not everyone has someone who can be that bridge person to the next piece of luck. We have been told by those who want us not to think about the problem that most homeless are struggling with mental illness or chemical issues. True, it is part of the story but it is not the story. People in 2002 do run out of luck and their mental illness is the nightmare of what they are experiencing. The chemicals may help to numb the reality of it all. Judging motive or condition doesn’t fit when you watch the staff work with their guests. It is so much Dorothy Day, Francis, or those Methodist women who held the doors of their church open at night while the men went down town for a permit to open a temporary shelter.
As we moved from shelter to shelter they were fast filling up and there was a quiet and not so quiet struggle to get comfortable in your assigned space, mostly a mat and some floor. The remark was made to me that if you really want to get in touch with your life, spend a night or two as a volunteer in one of the shelters; it has a way of prioritizing things differently. Or as City Pages said...”Best Place to Cleanse your Soul!”
Chris Oppegard, a member of St. Joan of Arc went out on the same tour. She had worked in the shelters and later presented me with a very thick notebook which turned out to be the definitive report on the homeless issue in Minnesota. It was done by the Wilder Foundation and published in August of 2001. As one pages through the statistics, your heart sinks. There are paragraphs talking about the children who are homeless (2,418 is the estimate for last year), women (1,560), and it goes on. It talks about veterans, men, battered women, teenagers, etc. The number of children in this state without permanent shelter alone would fill the St. Joan of Arc gym twice!
| Nearly one-third of homeless parents (32%) report they have been unable to obtain needed child care. One out of 10 homeless parents (10%) report that they were unable to obtain needed health care for at least one of their children and 11 percent of homeless parents report that there children have had to skip meals in the last month. - The Wilder Report on Homeless adults and children in MN - August 2001 |
So often at St. Joan of Arc the word community is used. It is one way we try to define who we are as a group of people. As Chris Oppegard pointed out, the women, men, and children who have lost homes also have lost their community, the very support system all of us use to get from one life event to another. I asked Chris what it was that attracted her to volunteering from time to time in the shelters. She paused and then quietly said, her brother was a veteran and he is out there somewhere. When she helps in some way in the shelters, she hope someone else is doing this for him. A night wandering by van from shelter to shelter and looking into the faces of these men and women tells you that they all no doubt had community somewhere else but for now their community has to be what the gospel staffs of these shelters help to make for them. The problem is that each night is a struggle to find one that is not full.
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