Simple dreams
posted: August 5, 2008 | category: homelessness
tags: homeless needs, hunger
“I want to end hunger. No one should be homeless without someone who cares. I keep it simple.”
My formerly homeless friend Tim dreams simple but big. He has what he needs now, and he’s focused on helping other people. He’s making progress, too. Go, Tim. Good man. 
The eyes have it
posted: August 5, 2008 | category: substance abuse
tags: alcohol, crack cocaine, music
Don’t you know I know? I know those eyes…
Get help. More:
- AA, AA Greensboro
- NA, NA Greensboro
- “The 7 Stages of Crack Cocaine Use”
- “12 Steps, With Bible Verses”
- “What You Need To Hear About Crack Cocaine”
My church struggles with how to love our homeless neighbors
posted: August 4, 2008 | category: community, faith, homelessness
tags: alcohol, crack cocaine, homeless news, housing, policy
Blankets, clothing and other items left out in the open by homeless people who sleep outside at Grace Community Church are stacked beside the dumpster a few days before it’s scheduled to be emptied, giving them a chance to retrieve their things.
My church, Grace Community on West Lee Street, is struggling with how to answer the question: How do we love our homeless neighbors? Grace is known for serving the poor and homeless. We have a weekly community dinner for the homeless, a financial assistance ministry, a permanent supportive housing ministry (moving people from homelessness to housing), and a yearly Christmas Banquet for our homeless friends. We have members involved in urban mission projects, street outreach ministries, the Ten Year Plan to End Homelessness, the homeless coalition, the day center initiative, as well as close friendships with homeless and formerly homeless people. But one of the biggest struggles that our church faces is how to love and serve the homeless neighbors who sleep on our church property every night. (It’s not just the sleeping that’s a problem. It’s the mental health and addiction issues, sanitation problems, liability concerns, sex offenders sleeping at a place frequented by children, etc. But that’s another post.)
Shepherding Pastor Will Dungee spoke about it at the end of a recent sermon:
[Listen to all of the sermon, “Who Is My Neighbor?,” here.]
When he said all that about the Holy Spirit speaking to us in the church about what we should do, I wanted to stand up and read Isaiah 58, which talks about true worship and says, in part, “Share your food with the hungry, and give shelter to the homeless.” (My blog gets its name from Isaiah 58.) But I didn’t stand up. I sat there and prayed instead. Because I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to read it. And I have a lot of questions and a lot of concerns about our response to our homeless neighbors, but I don’t even pretend to have the answers.
After the service, the first person I saw was Pastor Will, and he immediately asked what I thought of what he’d said about our friends. I told him that I was really struggling with us having this big heated and cooled building that we only fully utilize a couple of times a week, while our friends sleep outside. And then I started crying and I ran to the bathroom. (I know, that sounds so lame. It’s embarrassing for me to write it. I almost never cry. But this has been getting to me for a while, and when Will asked me about it, I just kind of lost it for a minute. But you know what? I want my heart to break for every single thing that breaks God’s heart, so hey, maybe it’s just a God thing that I cried about it.)
I haven’t had a chance to talk to Will since then. I know that he and our other pastors and elders are struggling with what to do. I talked to a friend of mine about it. Here’s how our conversation went:
Audrie: “If we opened up every single church in Greensboro, nobody would be homeless. Nobody would be hungry.”
CM: “What’s the worst thing that could happen if we let homeless people sleep in our church?”
Audrie: “Somebody might smoke crack in the bathroom. Or have sex.”
CM: “And then what? I mean… so…?”
Audrie: “Yeah.”
Audrie: “You can stand up and speak in a meeting in front of the mayor but you won’t stand up in your church? I think the prompting of the Holy Spirit was there. What would have happened if you’d responded? You would have stood up and read the passage and sat back down and everybody would have looked at you like you were psycho. Just like they did with Jesus. What’s the difference?”
CM.: “[Sigh.] I know.”
Audrie: “There’s injustice here! And we’re calling ourselves Christians? Hello! Open the doors to the church!”
I used to be bold. She is kicking my butt on boldness these days. I need to pray…
I’m really thankful that my church is struggling with this situation. Some churches don’t struggle with the poor or homeless at all — they don’t have any connection to them or they don’t acknowledge them. So I think it’s a blessing that we’re where we are as a church, and it’s an honor to be given the opportunity to love and serve our homeless neighbors. As Pastor Will says, “The bottom line is, we have to love…” And what a gift that is. Amen.
Please pray for us at Grace as we seek the LORD on what it looks like for us to love our homeless neighbors the way that Jesus wants us to.
Picture this: DayWatch at the Central library and Coliseum Inn
posted: August 4, 2008 | category: community, faith, homelessness
tags: downtown, Greensboro, homeless news, hunger, photos
This past Saturday, Deb and I did DayWatch (street outreach to the homeless and others) at the downtown library and Coliseum Inn, with members of her church, Mosaic. Please click on the photos below for descriptions and details about what we did, who we served, and more.
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- Line up!
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- Serve it up!
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- Eat up!
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- Homeless vet
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- Stylin’
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- Street supplies
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- Coliseum Inn
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- Hotel home
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- Setting up
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- Dinner
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- Serve you?
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- Friends
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- Takeaway
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- Helpers
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- The load-out
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- Miss Deb
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- Cara Michele
Shine your light and let the whole world see
posted: August 3, 2008 | category: faith
tags: lyrics, music, video
Donate toys for homeless kids in High Point
posted: July 28, 2008 | category: homelessness
tags: homeless needs, youth
Via email, from Partnering to End Chronic Homelessness:
The United Way of Greater High Point, is holding their Annual Toy Drive for Homeless and Foster Care children. Financial and toy donations should be sent or delivered to the United Way of Greater High Point office, located at 201 Church Street in High Point, or the management office at Oak Hollow Mall by August 31st.
Your gift will make a difference in the lives of homeless children and those living in foster care and shelters throughout Guilford County. Thank you for helping us help them.
GPD on Segways: Losing cool points
posted: July 23, 2008 | category: community
tags: news, police
When I found out from friends at GPD that developer Roy Caroll was donating two Segways to the CCRT (downtown bike cops), I had to laugh. And I promised to make fun of them when they got their Segways. Actually, I didn’t wait. I went ahead and teased them about it right then. (Their responses were very amusing, but our usual protocol is that I don’t blog our conversations.)
The Segways have since arrived, and city officials announced the donation at a press conference today, where Officer Ryan Todd showed off the Segway’s moves to reporters. From what I hear, that public enthusiasm is for real. Ryan apparently really likes cruising around on the Segway. But even Ryan can’t make that thing look cool.
I’ve been reading what some other bloggers have to say about cops and Segways, and DCist, in “Cops on Segways: Hilarious or helpful?,” sums it up well:
“Washington has had a love-hate relationship with the Segway for some time now. Certainly, they are useful modes of transportation — who among us begrudges the UPS man, or even the tourists, from trying to zip around our city’s streets in a more efficient manner? But at the same time, pretty much no matter what you do, if you’re riding one, you look like a douchebag*…”
DCist also muses on where Segways fall on the “Embarassment Scale,” and on whether Segway cops are more or less geeky than bike cops. I can answer that: Hands down, no contest: Bike cops are cooler. (Although at GPD, it’ll be the bike cops who ride the Segways. Most of the time, I think.)
On the Cop Coolness Scale, I think it goes like this:
Epic cool: cops on Harleys
Way cool: cops in squad cars
So cool: cops in unmarked cars
Real cool: cops on horses
Definitely cool: cops on bikes
Still cool: cops walking a beat
And then….
So not cool: cops on Segways
Sorry, Ryan. And the rest of you CCRTs, who have to ride one. But I’m serious about bringing the Hello Kitty stickers and glitter and pimping those Segways out, y’all. Let’s do it. 
*I apologize if DCist’s descriptive language offends any of my readers. But when I read it aloud, the people with me all cracked up laughing (as I had) and we agreed it was pretty much spot-on, so I used it.
Post about the DNC and Denver’s homeless gets a response
posted: July 22, 2008 | category: homelessness
tags: homeless news, politics
A couple of days ago, I wrote a post about the reaction to the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless’ plans to give free movie tickets and bus passes to homeless people during the upcoming Democratic National Convention in Denver. The next day, I received an email through my web site’s contact form, which begins:
“We would like to clarify some information related to your recent post about Denver’s homeless and the Democratic National Convention. A statement from the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless that clarifies the situation here in Denver is available at http://www.coloradocoalition.org/Road_Home_Q_and_A…”
The email continues on with more information about Denver’s Road Home and emphasizes the organization’s concern for and commitment to the homeless in Denver. I looked up both the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless and Denver’s Road Home. The Colorado Coalition for the Homeless is a non-profit, as is our county’s homeless coalition (of which I’m a member.) Denver’s Road Home is the organization responsible for implementing Denver’s Ten Year Plan to End Homelessness, similar to our local Partnering to End Homelessness task force (of which I’m also a member.)
I was a little surprised that somebody in Denver read and responded to my post. And I’m a little puzzled, too. Although the contact email address and url on the contact form are from Denver’s Road Home (whose web site is registered to the United Way), the IP address of the responder resolves to the City and County of Denver. So I don’t know who actually contacted me. But I posted the Q&A link above so that my blog readers can check out that info. And if anyone from Food Not Bombs or any other advocacy group in Denver contacts me with info, I’ll post that, too.
I still wish I could go to Denver and hang out with homeless people during the convention. I wonder if any of them blog?
The DNC & Denver’s homeless: hiding or helping?
posted: July 20, 2008 | category: homelessness
tags: Food Not Bombs, homeless news, politics
The Colorado Coalition for the Homeless says that free movie tickets and bus tokens won’t be used to hide Denver’s homeless during the upcoming Democratic National Convention, but will instead be offered as “an escape from the heat or the activities of the convention or the security procedures.”
But some folks remain unconvinced:
“It just sounds like another way to get rid of them,” said Kayne Coy, 17, who volunteers feeding the homeless twice a week at Civic Center Park through the Food Not Bombs organization. As for the convention, Coy said: “I’ve heard rumors that all the homeless people are going to be sent away to Aurora or somewhere else.”
And homeless people have their own opinions:
Debbie - and this is merely a hunch - will probably be going to jail next month. Unless they are giving away free booze and marijuana at the movies, the zoo or the Nature & Science museum - along with the free tickets to those venues they plan on giving the homeless during Democratic National Convention week - I can’t see Debbie budging from the dirt beneath the Speer Boulevard bridge she has called home the past 26 years… “I don’t care who is coming,” she slurs, “they try to move me, I’ll kick someone’s ass. I hate the movies, can’t stand the zoo.”
…To Mike Weaton, it all sounds like a setup. “It’s not being ungrateful. It’s called having to survive. People will see you at the movies or the zoo, and the next day out here with a sign in your hand. You’ll never get a penny. They’ll think you’re faking this. I like the movies and the zoo, but I think I’ll pass.”
I wouldn’t mind being in Denver next month. Not to see the convention. But to hang out with homeless people and see how all this plays out. It could get interesting.
Update: Read “Post about the DNC and Denver’s homeless gets a response“
darkness and light
posted: July 18, 2008 | category: faith
tags:
“I will love the light for it shows me the way, yet I will endure the darkness for it shows me the stars.”
– Og Mandino
This is for friends who are going through some valleys right now, and for those of us who need a little rest and healing. And for you, too, if you need it. Peace.
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