We, as a society, as neighbors, as service providers, as a church and as kin, must ascribe to the people we are attempting to “serve” the same kinds of complexities, nuances, kindnesses and curiosity that we ascribe and acknowledge within ourselves.

For what I’ve learned is, in this world world of charity mostly orchestrated by systematic responses, is that people experiencing homelessness are constantly given a negative answer to really the most important personal questions upon which their mental health depends: Who am I? What am I?       

These questions can’t be answered by professionalized care, for they have to do with a sense of belonging, of counting, and of meaning-making.

Without this acknowledgement, our attempts to provide care for our unhoused neighbors perpetuate the negative narrative(s) of which they must survive in their daily existence, thus creating more of a cavern than a bridge to wholeness.

The particularity of each person, their individual attempts to make meaning and find relief, will be my guide (our guide) as Sacred Streets tends to the “soul” of the individual and addresses the “soul” of our society.

This, my friends, is the good hard work of which we are called if we desire to love and witness our unhoused neighbors and our greater communities flourish.