As we were leaving church this evening after the early service, we encountered a homeless man, lying in a fetal position, on the sidewalk in front of the church. Released from the hospital a couple of hours earlier, cops had dropped him off here because of the men’s shelter. Unfortunately, he couldn’t walk the twenty yards to the shelter entrance and shelter staff were not going to come out to help him. We called 911 and EMT’s transported him back to the hospital but as they left, they told me that he would probably be back on the street in an hour or so.

He’s not the first person discharged from a hospital to end up at the shelter later the same day. It happens regularly.

The fault in this does not lie with the hospital, or the police, or the shelter staff. The fault lies with all of us, with a society that turns its back on the most vulnerable.