It was early Saturday morning and the streets were dark and deserted, lined with trash from Friday night partying. We emerged from our hotel in downtown Austin. While waiting for the sleepy valet to bring our vehicle, I looked around. There was a guy on a bench in front of my hotel, sleeping. He was wearing dingy clothing, had kicked off one ill-fitting shoe and was hunched over. As I looked at him it hit me that he was someone’s son. He could have been my son. That is when I felt it. Tears welled up in my eyes. This was someone who was alone, who felt unloved and unworthy and in reality could have been chemically dependent.
I have seen homeless people before and have been with my church when we were hosting a meal for them. I have no personal experience in their shoes. I have no idea of their life. But this one touched my heart. I said a prayer for him as I got in the pickup. Tears were still falling and I didn’t know why. You see, I am not usually a bleeding heart. On a scale of ‘bleeding heart to cold heart’, cold heart would come closer to describing me. I believe in the saying, “Give a man a fish, he will eat for a day. Teach him to fish, he will eat for a lifetime”. I believe giving people money only makes them dependent when the goal is to make them independent. So how do we fix this huge problem of homelessness?
When a problem is massive and shows no sign of slowing, it takes large groups of people to fix it. Not one-on-one, but groups of people to pull up one person. I can remember in Hurricane Harvey how people across our state and the entire United States came to help those who were flooded out. The effort was massive. It brought people together across the U.S.A. to solve this problem. It even cut into political network news time! But homelessness is so much more complex. It is not as simple as putting people on higher ground.
So if we were to get groups of people together to overcome homelessness, how do we get them to higher ground? Their higher ground would be a place out of the chains of dependence. And when it comes to breaking chains, I know of no other way but through Jesus Christ. Only the power of God can break chains. So when homelessness is exponentially rising, how do we address it? Do we ignore it? Do we continue to give clothing, food and money to them to soothe our conscience? Do we preach at them? How do we even begin to make a dent in this issue?
Here are a few ideas that I have.
1. When organizations like World Vision and Compassion International address poverty in foreign countries, they address individuals. We adopt them. One. At. A. Time. Maybe we need to address homelessness not inmass but one individual at a time.
2. It takes a large organized group to pull just one person out of poverty. I think it will take large efficient organizations to do this for our homeless. These organizations will need prayer teams, money donations, professionals to teach them survival skills to climb to higher ground and field workers to bring them in. It will take people to follow up and make sure the formerly homeless are maintaining a home independently. They will need office personal to organize and overseers to keep it non-profit. One amazing organization I know is Zoe Ministry. They empower children in areas with abject poverty to move beyond charity by teaching them survival skills. Then they use those children to teach survival skills to others to perpetuate this ministry. It is kind of an exponential chain reaction. This same management plan could be applied to our homeless.
3. Whenever I feel called to address an issue, it is best not to invent the wheel but to join someone who is already doing this and needs my help.
4. It will need to be faith based. The only power to break the chains of homelessness is through the power of Christ.
This to me sounds like the work of a church, a large church, a mega-church, a bunch of mega-churches. If only…
