It was a little over a year
ago that I joined Outflow Ministry and began managing our men’s homeless
shelter. Less than three weeks later our
men’s shelter opened its doors for the very first time. Since then we have been open every night to
provide a safe place for homeless men to stay in Saint John. April 30, 2015 was our first
anniversary. The last year at the
shelter – and the three previous years I was part of another shelter – by no
means make me an expert on homelessness or homeless services. However, there is certainly a story to be
told (more likely several) that comes from this experience. The story gives me ideas and a point of view,
which I hope will be valuable to other people, whether you work with people
living homeless as a vocation or you simply want to know a bit more about
people and poverty.
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One thing that I learned almost
immediately is that homelessness and poverty are not concepts to be dealt with
or figured out. If they were, it would
be a lot simpler to address the problem that people living homeless face. People regularly ask me why the guys that use
the shelter are homeless. It is a
diverse group that uses the shelter.
Within the broad strokes – the guy who lost his job or marriage and has
nowhere to go, the guy who has been diagnosed with multiple mental illnesses
and as a result of his illness is not able to manage his medications without a strong
support system that he does not have, the man who has been battling alcohol
addiction for decades – are several individuals who each have individual
stories. This makes an easy solution
impossible. Of course, the fact that homelessness
is a reality in people’s lives rather than a concept to be debated doesn’t mean
that ideas don’t play a big part in how we try to help people break out of
homelessness. It simply means that we
should put our focus on helping homeless people
(or even better people living
homeless) rather than ending “homelessness”.
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I am also acutely aware that no
one is immune from homelessness. It was
a bit unsettling when I realized that some of the men I regularly cross paths
with are highly educated. It became even
more unsettling when I met an articulate guy about ten years older than me who
has the same degree I do. He was more
than holding up his end of the conversation as we discussed Steinbeck, out of
the blue. Simply put, having an
education does not mean you will not be homeless.
Someone reading this is thinking,
“Fine, some homeless guys went to school.
But these guys still made a bad decision somewhere and that is why they
are homeless.” I will grant you that bad decisions happen. It would be profoundly foolish for me to
write that many of the homeless guys I meet don’t have a bad decision (or many
bad decisions) somewhere in their past. However,
if I were to gloss over the multitude of bad decisions in my personal story
when I am thinking about why I am not homeless, my arrogance would be as
profound as my foolishness.
Let’s remove “bad decision”
from the discussion. Immunity from
homelessness is still not possible. I
met a fellow last summer who is a little bit older than I am. He arrived at our door in need of a bed. He stood out a bit. There are many risk-factors that make a
person more likely to be homeless. (This
next little bit will sound clinical and sort of cold). Common risk-factors include some mental
illnesses, addictions, not having employable skills, and not being healthy
enough to work. This man had none of
these factors. He doesn’t even
smoke. He did have another risk-factor,
however. He was unemployed. Except for a couple brief periods of
unemployment a few years ago, this man worked his entire adult life at jobs
that paid minimum wage or a bit above.
Almost his entire wage to this point in his life went into maintaining
his housing. When he lost his job
shortly before coming to us he had used the entirety of his savings to
survive for three weeks. He had just
been evicted. We can’t even try to make
ourselves feel safe by falling back on the idea that this man did something to
get himself fired and brought unemployment on himself. The company he worked for closed.
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Lots of different guys that
use shelters have crossed my path in the last four years. I am not particularly different from many of
the guys that use shelters. This is not to ignore
significant differences that I have with some of our shelter guests. I don’t have major physical or mental health
concerns; substance abuse has never been a part of my life; I’ve never been
arrested; I’ve never been the victim of an unthinkable crime; I am financially
stable; people don’t cross the street when they see me on a corner; I have
never attempted suicide. I have had a
very good 35 years of life that I am grateful for. Much of this goodness has little to do with
me. I am very lucky.
In spite of all of these
differences, there are quite a few similarities. Let’s start with the seemingly
insignificant. At least a couple of the
guys are big readers and so am I. One of
the guys is a huge WWE fan and we were able to talk about wrestling for a few
hours over a several day period. Like
me, one of shelter guests I met still mourns the loss of the Montreal
Expos. Almost all of the guys like
coffee. I hope you noticed the language
in the second sentence of this paragraph.
I wrote that these similarities were “seemingly” insignificant. In fact, I think this sort of stuff is
actually a big deal. Novels, Hulk Hogan,
Gary Carter, and a hot cup of coffee are points of contact I have with these
men. If I hope one of these guys will
ever come to me for help, I need to be sure to put in the time getting to know
what they like to do while also letting them know what I like to do. Advocacy and the gospel are both
relationship-based.
Of course there are other
similarities that are less specific. I
am a Canadian citizen and so are all of the guys I meet at the shelter. This means we both have a long list of rights
and freedoms afforded to us. I can get
too cold in the winter and too hot in the summer and so do the guys I meet at
the shelter. This means that taking cover
from the elements is often an issue of health and safety for us. I am created in God’s image and so are the
guys I meet at the shelter. Taken a step
further, it matters to me that Jesus Christ died and then wasn’t dead anymore
and it matters for these guys too. This
means that in both an ultimate sense and an immediate sense we are equal so I
shouldn’t hesitate to use the unifying word “us” rather than the divisive words
“me” and “them”.
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Spending a year with my entire
professional focus on homelessness provides perspective that I did not have
before. In 12 months I have run the
gauntlet of emotions from joy to frustration to exhaustion to confusion to
irritation to guilt to compassion to self-righteousness to faithful repentance
to knowing without a doubt I have been an absolute success to knowing without I
doubt that I have been an absolute failure to happiness and then through the
cycle again. The shelter is both
draining and exhilarating, sometimes both in the same day.
The primary lesson I’ve
learned – which is what I want to close with – is that the men who use our
shelter deserve better. The do not
deserve better because of anything that they have done or haven’t done. Even if you were able to say that one of my
guys brought homelessness completely on himself (which, by the way, is a point
that I will never concede because it wrong in the most absolute sense possible),
he deserves better by simple virtue of being human, a child of God. I hope that the Outflow Men’s Shelter is a
good shelter. In fact, I want it to be a
standard bearer in quality. However,
even if Outflow were to offer the best shelter service imaginable, it would be
just that – a really good shelter. A
really good shelter is able to help resolve many problems but it does not
resolve the foundational problem each of our guests face. The shelter gives my guys a place to sleep
and some food to eat but it does not mean that they are not homeless. A man at the homeless shelter is still
homeless and will always be homeless as long as he is using a shelter. Simply put, the only way to resolve homelessness
is with safe and affordable housing.
Everyone deserves that.
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