Surveilling the homeless: What will the City of Greensboro think of next?
From a formerly homeless friend’s Facebook wall:
“FREE PHOTO SHOOT-care to have your picture taken? -As of yesterday a new camera was put on the block. UNDER SURVEILLANCE-hmm… the block has been put on surveillance. There is a nice camera that takes your picture, and then tells you that you need to go. Its posted.”
Sometime in May, a homeless man named Mark Hoffman left his park bench near Friendly Shopping Center and Centenary United Methodist Church in Greensboro. His absence caused much concern to the many people who had grown accustomed to seeing him over the years, sitting on “his” bench or attending services at the church or visiting a restaurant at the shopping center. Like other folks involved in homeless outreach, I hoped to hear that Mark was OK, wherever he was. His daughter Kimberly wanted more. After reading of his disappearance in the paper, she longed to see her dad again.
The Salvation Army of Greensboro’s winter shelter closes until next year.
A homeless man sleeps outside Greensboro Urban Ministry.
Erik put a blanket on the man sleeping outside the shelter.
The cold weather shelter programs at both homeless shelters ended yesterday, and Greensboro Urban Ministry Executive Director Mike Aiken and Salvation Army Major Paul Egan say they won’t reopen before next winter unless the weather becomes life-threatening. Salvation Army was providing emergency shelter for about 40-50 people, and Greensboro Urban Ministry’s overnight shelter was sheltering dozens more. Those 80 or more homeless people are now back on the street. Where are they sleeping?
Our NightWatch team found that the group of homeless people who met us in the parking lot of Grace Community Church had more than doubled from last week. The efforts of Grace’s outreach staff and the Family Service of the Piedmont housing support team had decreased the numbers of folks sleeping outside at Grace from more than a dozen regulars last summer down to an average of three recently, at least one of whom will be moving into permanent housing this week, but with the closing of the winter shelters, we saw a new group of faces at Grace on this night.
When we got to one of the big bridges downtown, we found that the number there had doubled, as well. Our friend JM, who has the spot nearest the path, announced that “the bridge is full.” There were men sleeping in every available space underneath the bridge. The spaces between the bridge’s support beams are just wide enough to hold a mattress, and all of the mattresses were occupied.
But the hardest thing for me came later in the night, when we went to check the parking lot of Greensboro Urban Ministry before going home for the night, and we found at least a half dozen people sleeping there, some of them on the concrete right outside the doors of the shelter — including a woman. As I knelt down to speak to them, feeling helpless and trying to think of what in the world I could say, one of the men locked eyes with me and softly said, “It’s just inhumane.” His eyes welled up and he turned away. I put my head down and prayed, “God, please help me…” I felt sick. Words were inadequate.
I thought of Mike Aiken, the director of that shelter, who is involved in every effort that I know about to end homelessness. I thought of my earlier conversation with Jackie Lucas, the director of the Salvation Army shelter, who told me that she’d been able to move five people into transitional housing before winter shelter closed. She’s also involved in efforts to end homelessness, and she’s always looking for new ways to stretch limited resources to better serve homeless people. I know and love Mike and Jackie, and I’m thankful for their service and commitment to serve and show God’s love to homeless people. And I also realize that neither has the space, the staff or the funding to shelter everyone.
And then I looked back to the face of the man in front of me — a kind, intelligent, dignified and weary survivor, who is trying to get his life together — and I hurt for him. He told me that he’d lost his job and just recently found a new one, but he hadn’t gotten his first paycheck yet. He was struggling. “It’s like Job,” he said, and there was both resignation and determination in his voice.
He continued on, telling me that he knew that it was going to be alright, that his trust was in God. I reached for his hand, and asked if I could pray for him. When he nodded, I began, “God, I know You’re here with us,” and beside me, he said, “Yes, You are.” His voice was firm and strong and the intimacy with which he spoke to his God was unmistakable. I did not feel strong. I felt small and inadequate and humbled by the strength of the faith of this man, steadfastly trusting the Lord even as he spent the night on the hard concrete outside the closed doors of a homeless shelter.
On the drive home, I prayed out loud for the man of faith to be rewarded, for this to be the year that JM finally leaves the bridge and gets a home, for my friend who sleeps at Grace who’s moving into housing and who needs to be encouraged [prayer answered], for a homeless friend who has found his voice and is using it to advocate for others, for LV whose heart is beautiful even though he doesn’t realize it yet, for V who is a precious princess, for all my friends who need a home and hope and a new start, for my friends who work tirelessly to provide shelter and housing but can’t do it all and who need to be free from the burden of thinking that they have to, for my friends who serve on the street, for the Church and the community to have the eyes and the heart to see the needs of their homeless brothers and sisters and to respond, and for God to give me faith, wisdom, and strength to serve in love, and grace, mercy and forgiveness for my many failures and shortcomings.
I soon learned that hours before I prayed that prayer, God had already begun to answer me, by sending His word to me through a friend. When I got home from NightWatch, I saw that Jordan Green had posted this on my Facebook:
Thought of you when I read this:
2 Chronicles 4:7-10:
“Yet we who have this spiritual treasure are like common clay pots, in order to show that the supreme power belongs to God, not to us. We are often troubled, but not crushed; sometimes in doubt, but never in despair, there are many enemies, but we are never without a friend; and though badly hurt at times, we are not destroyed. At all times we carry in our mortal bodies the death of Jesus, so that his life also may be seen in our bodies.”
“… Then it was Sony’s turn…She picked the cd ‘Come and Listen’ that had songs on it from a Dance Fundraiser that we had for my dear friends the Byers before they left for Germany. I turned it on for her and then got distracted with talking to another child.
A few minutes later I heard a ’sigh’. I looked over to see Sony with the speaker to her ear and tears in her eyes. She looked up at me and said one simple yet profound word, ‘Beautiful’. The Chorus was playing “This is what it means to be held, how it feels when the sacred is torn from your life and you survive. This is how it feels to be loved and to know that when everything fell you’d be H-E-L-D…
Sony does not know what the words to this ‘English’ song mean but you could see in her eyes that her spirit did. Just as ungodly music brings darkness to our souls, Godly music brings hope to our hearts even if it is another language…”
Sometime in May, a homeless man named Mark Hoffman left his park bench near Friendly Shopping Center and Centenary United Methodist Church in Greensboro. His absence caused much concern to the many people who had grown accustomed to seeing him over the years, sitting on “his” bench or attending services at the church or visiting a restaurant at the shopping center. Like other folks involved in homeless outreach, 
