As we headed back to our cars around 2:00 a.m., after a night of street outreach, our NightWatch van rolled through the intersection of Lee and Eugene — “the block.” And then we saw them, on the sidewalk. People. Homeless people. Sleeping on the sidewalk. Outside the homeless shelter.
We turned around and came back, pulling into the parking lot. There were more. Beside a bush, in parking spaces, on the porch of the health center. Ten in all. Ten homeless men and women, sleeping outside, on concrete, a few yards away from the tall, closed gate that encloses the homeless shelter.
We got out and quietly began putting together bags of snack food, hygiene items and bottled water. One by one, we went around and gently laid the bags beside the sleeping forms. One or two had a single blanket, and several were lying on cardboard boxes. Most were using the curb for a pillow.
Four of the ten woke up as we walked among them. One was a woman I met about seven years ago at Grace. She’s been homeless off and on as long as I’ve known her. She’s usually glad to see me, but this time, she seemed ashamed to be found sleeping outside in a parking lot.
The men hungrily ate the catered sandwiches we’d brought them. “What is this? This is really good,” one of them asked me. I wasn’t sure which sandwich we’d given him, but I asked if he and the man beside him wanted more. They both nodded “yes,” and said “thank you.” I said, “You’re very welcome,” but then added, “I’m so sorry you’re sleeping out here. Was the shelter full?” (It usually is.) The man closest to me then rattled off the exact date that he’d be eligible to get back into the shelter again — not until July. The other man nodded. “I’m so sorry,” I said. I couldn’t put into words what I was feeling, but “I’m so sorry” wasn’t enough.
We regularly visit homeless people who sleep under bridges, in the woods, in cars, and in other outside places that each has chosen to be his or her “spot.” Some have pitched tents, some have built shelters, some have mattresses or even furniture, and most have some belongings at their spot. But people sleeping on concrete outside the gates of a homeless shelter — well, that just felt different to me. It made me feel sick.
I walked over to a young man who was sitting up with his back against the wall, quietly eating his sandwich while a man jerked in his sleep beside him. I put my hand on his shoulder. “Do you have enough to eat? Can I get you anything else?” “I’m fine, thank you,” he said. “I’m sorry you have to sleep out here,” I said. “I’m OK,” he said, and I couldn’t tell if he was trying to reassure me or himself. I tried to smile, but I felt like crying, so I squeezed his shoulder and said, “God bless you. Good night.” And I walked back to the van, thinking, as I always do at the end of NightWatch, how it’s not right that some of us go home every night, and some of us never do.
