Category Archives: homelessness

Grace Church: A Transient Hotel with a Steeple

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The author of a recent letter to the editor published in the Wisconsin State Journal was intending to be witty, sarcastic, even bitingly critical when he described Grace Church in that way. I doubt he had any clue that it’s an apt description of a church. St. Augustine of Hippo referred to the church as a hospital for sinners and interpreted the inn in the parable of the Good Samaritan as the church where peoples’ sins and wounds are healed. In the letter to the Hebrews, the Christian life is described repeatedly as a sojourn in a foreign country. Christians are homeless in this world, yearning for our eternal home.

Of course, the letter’s author wasn’t referring to spiritual homelessness. He was referring to the fact that since 1984, Grace Church has opened its doors to the homeless.

Why is the men’s shelter at Grace Church? One answer is that there’s nowhere else. The shelter opened its doors on a one-year trial basis in 1984. The need is as great now as it was then and over the years no alternative location has been found.

There’s another reason it’s at Grace. In Matthew 25, Jesus tells a parable of judgment in which the righteous are rewarded because they clothed the naked, fed the hungry, welcomed the stranger. The righteous asked when they had done those things to him and the king replies, “Just as you did it to one of the least of these, you did it to me.”

Like millions of other Christians in Madison and around the world, we shelter the homeless and we feed the hungry because in their faces we see the face of Jesus Christ.

Maybe we should make it our new motto: “Grace Church, A Transient Hotel with a Steeple.”

State Street update

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More articles on the city’s proposed crackdown on people hanging out at State and Mifflin. There are several interesting nuggets here. Mayor Soglin places some blame on other communities and the State Department of Corrections sending parolees here after being released from prison. I’d be curious to know how widespread this practice is, but over the years I know it happens frequently. For example, I’ve seen police cruisers from Monona drive right up to the shelter and drop someone off. And just last week, I encountered a man who said he’d been released and sent to the shelter from the Parole Office. Often, there’s no alternative. Their home communities lack the resources to help them or places for them to live.

Something else I find very interesting. My sense is that the number of men coming to the Drop-In shelter this summer is down significantly from previous years. In recent days, the numbers have often dropped below fifty. There may be a couple of reasons for this. One is the limit on the length of stay (60 days, not including inclement weather). At our First Monday meal this week, we had more “walk-ins” than guests from the shelter, which suggests many are not accessing the shelter system. But that also may mean that they are not accessing the network of social service agencies that seek to help.

One simple solution, well not so simple because we’ve not been able to create one in Madison, is a day center where homeless people could spend their days and access the services they need. If there were such a facility, homeless people could go there, and the police could deal much more effectively with those who commit the crimes.

From Channel 3:

Frederick “Chile” Burton is a self-proclaimed mayor for his homeless community, even though he said not all of the people congregating in that area are homeless.  Burton said with shelters shutting down during summer days, there are few other places to go.

“What are we supposed to do?” Burton asked.  “We can’t go to the shelter until 7:30.  At the same time, they have to come down here.  They come down here where they feel comfortable at.”

From Channel 15:

Madison Mayor Paul Soglin attributes the crime surge partly to the state Department of Corrections dumping offenders released from prisons from around the state in Madison without a place to stay, stressing the shelter StSsystem.

“We plan to talk to some of the other municipalities that are using their staff, their vehicles and literally driving their residents to downtown Madison,” he said. “I’ll tell you right now we will drive them right back.”

From the Capital Times (paywall)

What can we do?

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What can we do? What should we do?

Tami Miller asked me this question a couple of days ago. She was referring specifically to our response to homelessness. I promised her a response but it’s been a busy couple of days for me filled with meetings and lengthy conversations with parishioners about all manner of things.

During these past few days, my attention has also been diverted by the growing debate over the same question being asked about a very different situation—the appropriate US response to the ongoing violence in Syria and especially to the claims of the use of chemical weapons against civilians. As I’ve read that debate, I was struck by the same anguish, uncertainty, and helplessness that many of us feel in Madison. “We’ve got to do something!” is a common refrain in the debate over Syria, although the prospect of the situation improving as a result of our actions is doubtful.

We see suffering, either in images on TV of distant conflict or natural disaster, or as we walk down State Street in Madison. We’ve got to do something! The need is great; the suffering profound, our compassion, guilt, generosity, compel us to action.

Those of us who are involved in direct ministry and outreach to homeless people know the complexity of the situation. We know all about the many reasons why people become and remain homeless—illness, mental illness, poor life choices, imprisonment, alcohol and drug abuse. We also know about the systemic issues, a medical system that fails the neediest; racism; lack of education; family systems that have been in cycles of poverty, violence, abuse, etc., for generations; a 2% vacancy rate for rental housing in Madison. There are also all of the ways our local, state, and federal government have pursued policies that contribute to the problems that they are trying to solve. We know that the help we offer is often little more than a bandaid.

The problems are complex. The need is so great. What can we do? What should we do?

We should do what we are doing.

We should be advocates. We should be advocates for those who have no voice and no power. We should call our institutions: government, schools, universities, businesses, communities of faith, to respond to the need in our communities. We should demand that they serve the needs of the powerless, the hungry, the weak. A society is judged not on what it accomplishes, on its wealth or military power, but on how it treats those who are at its margins, the impotent, widows, orphans, the elderly.

We should be compassionate and merciful. As Americans, we claim that all are created equal and endowed with certain inalienable rights. As a Christian, I believe that all are created in the image of God, that we share with the vilest criminal, the disabled, the mentally ill, a common human nature that reflects the nature of God. The humanity that unites us across race, class, and gender demands that we build a community in which all have access to the basic necessities of life and all are able to flourish as human beings.

When we can do nothing more than offer a sandwich, a sleeping bag, a kind word, perhaps a hug, we are offering what is often called a ministry of presence, a willingness and commitment to be among those who Jesus called “the least of these.” Jesus told us that when we feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the prisoner, we are feeding, clothing, visiting Jesus Christ himself.

The problems will remain. The suffering will continue. We cannot solve the world’s problems, whether it’s the homeless in Madison or unimaginable horrors in Syria. The love we share is the love of Christ. When we share that love we are affirming the dignity of every human being and we are bearing witness to the image of God that we all reflect. We are also calling ourselves and our community to our better nature and to a deeper humanity.

We have to be the conscience, the moral compass of our community. Our voices call our community to become better than it is, to be a place and a people that protect the neediest among us. Our actions, as futile as they may be, challenge everyone to reach out beyond themselves to their neighbors in need and join in the effort to help those who cannot help themselves.

So Tami, that’s what we have to do. We have to continue to advocate, to help, and to be present with the weakest members of our society. It’s hard, exhausting, and often demoralizing. In our actions, our presence, and our love, we bear witness to God’s redemptive love and grace. And through it all, we need to pray.

Homelessness: What should we do?

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Tami Miller is one of my heroes. Singlehandedly, she has helped to start a movement and has helped to change the debate in Madison. For more about her and her efforts, visit Feeding the State Street Family. 

She commented on a previous post of mine. I’m putting it up here to make sure people see it. Her fundamental question is: “What should we do?”

What can we do- as ordinary, “regular” people to help our homeless neighbors- right now in practical and useful ways? Our weekly food run has been hit with bigger crowds than ever-we keep running out of food- I have been told that Savory Sunday has also been running out of food- our Midnight run takes less than 30 minutes to hand out supplies for 100 people living outdoors…I now have 42 remote camping sites that I visit— it feels like the economy and the circumstances here in Madison are causing a swelling in the numbers of those who are homeless… yet growth for services is slow paced, and often argued against and it just can’t keep up… no one wants a 24-7 day center in their neighborhood… and homeless people are dying out here (5 deaths in the past months). It scares me.I am frightened for my homeless family. I know that we are doing God’s work, but the problems seem so overwhelming Father. I pray each day for my homeless brothers and sisters- I pray for God to give us direction, to give me direction- I give it back to Him because this is HIS thing. I wish I could hear an audible response to that prayer…

My heart breaks to see the desperation and the fear. To see people hungry, cold or overheated, sick with little healthcare and no medicine, addicted with no available treatment beds or turned away from detox, mentally ill with no treatment, injured, spat on, raped or beaten because of who they are and how they have to live. I am just a farm kid Father, I feel like I have no answers…I want…so much to make things better, and to have those who control the money, and who have the power those who look down on people with less to see my homeless family through my eyes, or far better- through God’s eyes. What do we do? How do we Pray? How can we be better, do better than we are? Right here, right now??? I ask this earnestly, and with hope… How do we become a city and a people that puts our fellow human being’s basic needs first?

I’ll offer my response when I’ve had more time to think about it.

 

Update on the “criminalization of homelessness”

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The stories  about Columbia, SC and Raleigh, NC to which I linked have generated a lot of press and interest across the country. Barbara Ehrenreich’s piece, which was written The Guardian, has received less attention.

It’s easy for us to criticize those benighted folks in the South for their attitudes toward the homeless. Ehrenreich points out that this movement is national, not regional. Even the mayor of a progressive city like Madison seems to share the opinion that bleeding-heart do-gooders are partly responsible for the presence of homeless people in downtowns.

Some additional material on both stories:

The group that was prohibited from serving breakfast to the homeless in Raleigh, NC is Love Wins Ministries. They provide additional background to the incident and their decision not to be arrested here.

Kudos to Bishop Michael Curry of the Diocese of North Carolina, who has this to say about the situation:

… the Mayor announced that no one would be arrested for feeding the homeless in Moore Square and that the city would work with those doing so. Further she said that neither she nor the City Council were aware of this until yesterday. As a side note many of our clergy and congregations are supporters of Love Wins Ministries and we were making phone calls yesterday about this. Additionally, we were working to make our Diocesan House parking lot available for this minustry, which is also downtown, near Moore Square, if that proved necessary or desirable. It appears that for the moment the matter has been resolved and the city is working with the ministry. (Quoted on Episcopal Cafe)

Bishop Curry’s letter to the Mayor and City Council of Raleigh is now available here.

From my source on the ground (or close to the ground), some additional info on Columbia, SC. The Columbia City Council has mastered the craft of Orwellian doublespeak. Their program to restrict homeless people to a remote shelter is known as “Columbia Cares.”

I’ve heard nothing from the Diocese of Upper South Carolina nor from Trinity Cathedral, both of which are located smack dab in downtown Columbia.

The criminalization of poverty and homelessness

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Mayor Soglin is in very good company. The criminalization of homelessness is taking place all over the country.

Barbara Ehrenreich (Nickel and Dimed in America) writes about it:

the criminalisation of poverty has actually intensified as the weakened economy generates ever more poverty. So concludes a recent study from the National Law Centre on Poverty and Homelessness, which finds that the number of ordinances against the publicly poor has been rising since 2006, along with the harassment of the poor for more “neutral” infractions like jaywalking, littering, or carrying an open container.

The report lists America’s 10 “meanest” cities – the largest of which include Los Angeles, Atlanta and Orlando – but new contestants are springing up every day. In Colorado, Grand Junction’s city council is considering a ban on begging; Tempe, Arizona, carried out a four-day crackdown on the indigent at the end of June. And how do you know when someone is indigent? As a Las Vegas statute puts it, “an indigent person is a person whom a reasonable ordinary person would believe to be entitled to apply for or receive” public assistance.

Some other examples:

It’s apparently illegal in Raleigh, NC to feed the homeless.

Columbia, SC is setting up a concentration camp for the homeless:

Concerned that Columbia has become a “magnet for homeless people,” and that businesses and the area’s safety are suffering as a result, council members agreed on Aug. 14 to give people on the streets the option to either relocate, or get arrested, according to the city’s “Emergency Homeless Response” report.

Cooperative homeless people will be given the option to go to a remote 240-person bed emergency shelter, which will be open from September to March. The shelter will also be used as a drop-off for people recently released from prison and jail, too.

Some statistics on homelessness in Dane County

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The City of Madison has released its annual report on “The Homeless Served in Dane County.” The full report is here: 2012 Annual Report Final print . The Executive Summary is here: 2012 Annual Report Executive Summary Final

Providers report that they offered shelter to nearly 3400 individuals in 2012, a 10% increase over 2011. Of those individuals, around 42% were families with children; the next largest group was single men, around 40%.

I’ll quote from the summary:

Two-thirds of all individuals who stayed in shelters reported they had lived in Dane County for longer than a year. Only a few percent reported living here for less than a month. These numbers reflect a dramatic change from data collected in the 1990’s when nearly two-thirds of homeless persons reported living in Dane County for less than a month.

And:

The reported data make clear the imbalance between the need for shelter and local capacity to accommodate that need. There are currently nine shelter programs, each serving distinct populations – families, single men, persons fleeing domestic violence, etc. The total capacity among reporting providers is about 310 beds, plus 65 seasonal and overflow beds. Few, if any new beds have been added to the system in the past year. There is also some ability to use motel vouchers for short term stays when necessary, though that is a more costly proposition.
Limited shelter capacity has led to rationing.

There: an admission of fact: “Limited shelter capacity has led to rationing.” Whether or not shelter providers, social service agencies, and local politicians want to admit it, rationing of space is long-standing policy.

One important thing to note about these numbers. They only reflect what is reported to the shelters at intake, and by the shelters to the city. In other words, this report doesn’t account for people who don’t try to access the shelter system. Thus the report doesn’t reflect the true scope of the need nor the true total numbers of homeless people. The only report that attempts to do this is the semi-annual Point-In-Time survey (conducted on January 30 and July 30).

In other news related to the homeless, Brenda Konkel points out that 5 homeless people have died in Madison in recent months.

Homelessness, Prison, and Probation

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I’ve blogged a lot about the relationship between our medical system and homelessness. Another societal institution with deep and perverse ties to homelessness is our criminal justice system.  Chris Hedges writes about his experience working with a prison support group in New Jersey:

Big Frankie, Little Frankie and Al, three black men who spent a lot of time in prison and have put their lives back together in the face of joblessness, crushing poverty and the violence of city streets, abruptly stopped appearing at the prison support group I help run at the Second Presbyterian Church in Elizabeth, N.J. This happens in poor neighborhoods. You see people. You make plans to see them again. And then without explanation they vanish. They get arrested for something, often trivial, after the police randomly stop them, run a check and find they owe fines, missed a court date or a meeting with a probation officer, owe child support, violated probation or have a couple of ounces of pot. The big mechanical jaw of the legal system gulps them down. And since they are poor and cannot afford bail they stay locked up. And that appears to be what happened to Big Frankie, Little Frankie and Al.

In fact, just that happened this morning on Capitol Square. We had asked a couple of guys to help us with some work at Grace. Overnight, after someone else on the square was picked up for marijuana possession, the police ran the ids of everyone else in the area, and the guy who was going to help us got picked up for a probation violation.

Noah Phillips wrote a wonderful, and heartbreaking story about the criminal justice system and homelessness from in Madison just last week. It points out some of the struggles people have in negotiating the system after they’ve done their time:

But in this shelter system, Brooks ultimately ran afoul of his probation conditions — twice. The first time was for using his truck, without his parole officer’s permission, to ferry people and food back and forth to the night and day shelters. For that, he ended up in jail for another 66 days. When he got out, he was placed in a halfway house and found a full-time job at Home Depot.

But he lost that job when he got sent back to jail after clashing with his case manager. Miller is not surprised that Brooks has had a tough time meeting the conditions of his probation in the shelter system. Those being paroled simply need more help readjusting and getting their lives back together.

Richard Beck puts some additional background behind these stories. The US incarcerates a higher percentage of its citizens than any other country on earth (including Cuba, North Korea, China, and Russia).

Madison Area Urban Ministry does remarkable work in this area.

So, Mr. Mayor, where do you want homeless people to hang out?

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An article in today’s Madison State Journal interviews Mayor Soglin, local business owners, and others about the “problem” of homeless people hanging out on State St. at Capitol Square. According to the mayor they are “nurtured by well-intended people with clothing, bedding and food, making the area even more of an attraction.” Well, we know who he’s talking about, don’t we?

And don’t get me wrong. I know how uncomfortable it can be to walk through that area. For all the hellos and kind words I receive from those I know, I’ve also had many unpleasant encounters.

But here’s the deal. Where are homeless people supposed to spend the day? The shelters close first thing in the morning and then they’re on their own. When a newly-homeless person comes to Grace, I direct them to the benches along Capitol Square, or to the Capitol, or yes, to “Philosopher’s Grove.” If they’ve missed the free van to Hospitality House, they’ve got no way to get to the only place that’s open for them during the week. Those benches and “Philosopher’s Grove” are very poorly suited as locations for the provision of services that might help the people there improve their situation.

In a few weeks, the renovated Central Library will again be an option. And no doubt the Library entrance will become what it was before the renovations, a place where homeless people hang out. On weekends, there’s nowhere to go and if the weather’s bad, and someone comes looking for shelter, I’m likely to invite them into Grace, at least for as long as we’re open. And I direct them to the various feeding programs where they might at least get something to eat before the shelter reopens in the evening.

The point is, in the absence of a central location like a day resource center, where people can find shelter and also get connected with services, most homeless people have little choice but to hang out on the streets in boredom with the only escape being alcohol or drugs. Until that happens, homeless people will hang out on State St. and Capitol Square. And if they’re forced out from these places, they’ll find somewhere else to gather.

Madison, a town without pity, updated

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Joe Tarr (Isthmus) reports on last night’s demo and Homeless Issues Committee meeting, where, you guessed it, a day resource center was on the agenda. Pat Schneider has also written about it.

Because I’m feeling rather nostalgic this evening, I thought I would link to blogposts in 2011 and 2012 that addressed the same issue.

From August, 2012: “A day shelter for Madison” (in which I talk about a patient discharged from the VA hospital and sent to Grace)

From October, 2012

From November, 2012 (my testimony before the County Board of Supervisors)

From November, 2011 (with links to earlier developments in the story)

Couldn’t we all just save energy by referring back to these earlier debates and conversations?  It’s political football season again, with our vulnerable homeless population serving as the football, getting kicked around by bureaucrats and elected officials.