What is being homeless, and what is being “home?” Led by Rev. Jim Parrish.
Transcript available.
Updated Text for “Homeless” (pdf)
This sermon was given January 26th, 2020 on the topic of Homelessness, and what does “Home” mean. It’s simple, it’s complicated, and the homelessness conversation is only a beginning.
The “Story for All Ages” shared in the service illustrates how being homeless might look and feel in a different way, with the telling of the book “Fly Away Home” by Eve Bunting
The responsive reading shared is #651 “The Body is Humankind” in the Grey Hymnal “Singing the Living Tradition”
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The Sermon:
How do we UUs approach the subject of being homeless?
It’s not an easy subject…
As soon as I mentioned working on the topic, it got technical… I was asked:
“Isn’t it really about being Houseless, About a PLACE rather than the idea of home?”
So I tried “houseless” for a while, and got objections since it didn’t seem to include apartments or other places that could be considered…
Even RV’s, even tents…
Talking about homelessness gets folks riled up…
Is it about a roof over your head? Or is it about being safe no matter where you are? Is it physical or emotional, or both?
What about those folks at the side of the road asking for help?
So I looked it up…
The official definition per is this:
Homelessness is defined as “being in a (night time) residence that is not meant for human habitation, emergency shelter, or transitional housing”
I confess… I put in the “night time,” because it helps lock in some of the emotions around it… the danger of being in the dark.
But really, it could be in the day time as well… “a residence not meant for human habitation, it’s not an emergency shelter, and it is not transitional housing…
So what about our story?
I’m not certain what to think about an airport and human habitation
I’d have to go with a maybe…
Human habitation was certainly accomplished in the story,
But airports are not really meant as such,
What do you think? Are there many buildings where one might get away with this habitation?
And I’m pretty certain no major airport in the United States today would allow such behaviour for very long. (talk about story)
I wanted to find out what the word homeless meant for Fayetteville and NWA…
So I checked in with Evelyn Rios Stafford about her work as a commissioner with Fayetteville Housing Authority… our city governments arm working on solutions to homelessness in Fayetteville.
We talked about the rising prices for housing, about gentrification and flipping…
About South Fayetteville and other small neighborhoods where older affordable houses being bought cheap, torn down and new built, or renovated and sold or rented for a lot more – raising the prices of housing in what used to be an affordable neighborhood.
Evelyn described How the Housing Authority has become much more aggressive about pursuing fair housing rules from the city for developments, and doing innovative projects like purchasing their own real estate to flip – to renovate for the benefit of low income folks. (this is cool, and scary to the developers)
An example of this is the purchase of the Hi Way Inn (and old motel) on College, across from the Veterans Administration building. It is now called NorthGate, and is being renovated as low income housing…
Right now it is a temporary home for some folks from the Hillcrest Hi Rise while the Hi Rise is being renovated…
But eventually it will be a place for homeless Veterans to have a place of their own, and there are more such purchases in the works…
The housing authority is becoming a developer for those in need of affordable housing, and this is a good thing…
Evelyn gave me another lead – to important work by a newer organization called Continuum of Care…
I’d heard of this organization a year or so ago, when it was forming, and thought it was a great idea…
It would be an organization that gathered together all the resources needed- non-profits for housing, food, transportation, and low cost medical and mental health programs, into a coalition that would prioritize the homeless…
And make it personal… get To Know each homeless person by name, and work to get them into a safe place, a house or apartment, whatever was needed.
They did a census in 2019, went out to meet the people they were going to serve, and right now they are doing a census again for 2020…
Here are the numbers from 2019…
I’m impressed with the work being done by this program, and hope for its success…
Because their approach reminds me of an effort we, volunteers from UUFF, OMNI, the Temple, Compassion, and UoA students undertook to help bring a refugee family to NWA through CANOPY (explain Canopy), get them settled and set up in our society… set up so they would succeed.
We found and furnished an apartment, filled it with furniture and kitchen utensils – set them up with food and companioned them in how to navigate our sad transportation system to get groceries, to get jobs, to be enrolled in schools – to have health care and social contacts to get help when they need it.
Our team helped Canopy companion our refugee family for over two years now, becoming friends, and helping them through rough times…
So now they have good jobs, an apartment of their own choosing, their own car, and their son is doing well in school…
And I thought many times about the homeless in our city, in our county, in NWA…women and children and men who are refugees in our own society…
Would They deserve nothing less than this kind of companionship?
I hope this is what Continuum is becoming, and I would ask our Social Justice Circle to look into Continuum of Care as one of the non-profits we might support with volunteers and money, to help with its broad based help for the homeless here in NWA…
Our own Refugees…
Remember the definition of homeless – anyplace not meant to be for human habitation…
I hear Habitation as technical… it involves safety from weather and environmental dangers, and safety from human and animal harm…
But that is houseless…
What is homeless?
What is a home?
Think about this… Maybe The idea of home is an internal one…
I have, in my memories, in my heart, a sense of the Place I grew up in,
The farmhouse, farm, roads, town…
My home was a rickety farm house that vibrated and hummed when the south wind blew through it… and I’d have to assure my friends it was a friendly ghost… part of my home.
But the best part of Home contained My family and pets, friends, church choir, townspeople, schoolmates… people… relationships
Familiar faces that I might even see on facebook now and again,
Think about the word home… what it means to you? Can it travel? it doesn’t have to be a place… or many places?
Home… could be something or someone that anchors us in the world…holds us like no other thing… a sense of self holding our sense of self together
And It can be kind of ethereal – part of spirituality in a way…
And I can see where Homelessness can happen when that sense of self is harmed, shattered by broken relationships, by actions that break hearth bonds…
So Home is real, and a part of us that needs attention…
I don’t know how home happens…
but it could be as simple as this…
Let me tell a story about home…
It happened last Saturday,
Our UUFF crew was finishing serving for Lunch Angels at the Genesis church on Martin Luther King Boulevard.
Lunch Angels – is a program where we take our monthly turn providing a hot meal for folks who need help in that way…
[They may or may not be homeless, or houseless,
Just in a difficult place on the edge of society built on money…
they may be in transition in life, or Working at jobs that don’t pay what they need to get by…
And maybe it’s not the edge so much these days, but the reality of how harsh of a world we’re supposed to think is normal and great… ]
In any case I try to attend and serve at Lunch Angels when I can… I’ll get a plate at the end of the line and go sit with folks, I’m in my pastoral collar so it mostly goes well, and I explain uu now and again. Sometimes they get it…
So I’m having lunch with some of the folks, listening to their concerns, and joys as well…
As usual, We all agree the bus system in Fayetteville and Northwest Arkansas is wholly inadequate in serving folks who work on the edge… late hours, weekends, jobs and housing in parts of town we’re not supposed to hang out in… transportation is a hot topic.
Transportation turns out to be the problem for a woman we’ll call Marge…
I’m hearing that someone needs a ride, and who might be trusted to give a ride but a minister, so I’m introduced…
not to Marge, but to a gentleman who is speaking for her…
You see, Marge is deaf, and she communicates by writing in a spiral notebook…
Her friend with her notebook has determined that Marge needs a ride to the Salvation Army temporary residence center, but first needs to pick up her dog at a certain address…
Salvation Army, check… Dog at an address?
And I will confess, I’m worried about this… I do not know this part of town very well, and what am I getting into with picking up a dog? At what I think might be a private residence… ? (and my imagination is thinking huge, drooling, damp, dog)…
And a conversation with Marge about what it means, where we are going,
About the circumstances… is very limited.
My handwriting is terrible,
And It is easier just to say yes, to take a breath and trust a bit…
I write on her page simply that I understand…
We’ll go to the address given to pick up her dog,
Then go to the Salvation Army center…
keeping it simple seems best…
She looks relieved, but still apprehensive,
I helped gather her things, and we head out to my car.
Marge was a smaller woman, possibly middle aged, with dark hair, dressed in a long coat a size larger than she was… layered against our recent cold spell. She carried two bags and a rolled up blanket.
I helped her into the passenger seat, and settled under the steering wheel to take us… somewhere. The GPS was set to the address, not too far away, just off 15th street. We exited the church parking lot and headed east on MLK.
I wondered what her circumstances were… and realized I was nervous about the unknown,
glancing at Marge… I think she was nervous as well,
I’m thinking… Transportation should not include judgement, it should just get someone where they need to go… so I took a deep breath, and drove…
We took a street south, then turned east on 15th, then turned south onto Armstrong… and just passed Fayetteville Animal Services, which suddenly struck me as our destination. Both the GPS lady and and Marge agreeing… the GPS lady yelling at me, and Marge pointing, she confirmed that was where we were going…
I’m failing at bus driving…
So we turned around and parked at the Animal Services Building,
We went inside to find a couple of women staffing the front desk. It is a bright and cheerful place… and they greeted us nicely.
At this point, I wanted to let Marge navigate her world the way she wished…
I was the bus driver, she was the passenger who knew her destination.
She and the administrator at the desk exchanged notes, and a call went to the holding pens for Lucky in a certain number pen…
Now… Having a hearing bus driver helped at this time, Instructions on what to do next were easier just told…
We were directed to go outside, to the building behind the one we were in, and we’d be met by an associate..
I let Marge know to follow me and We went outside, walked back through a fence gate to a door in the holding building… and were met by a young woman… and Lucky.
Lucky was possibly a chihuahua/dachshund mix -, small but long, big eyes, wiggly, and a bundle of energy! odd and cute, and damned glad to see Marge…
The associate put Lucky down, Marge took the leash, and the dog began Running in circles and jumping in joy, tugging at the leash as she danced around Marge!
We walked/danced back to the car, I got them into the passenger seat, and climbed in to take us to their next destination.
I look over to make sure they have their seat belt on and were settled…
And there is Lucky… He’s on the blanket in Marges Lap, Lucky’s blanket, they are smiling at each other, Marge holding Lucky, and Lucky snuggled in her arms…
they are holding each other in space, in peace, and they are Home..
I grin and give Marge a thumbs up, and she grins at me, our first real connection..
and we take her traveling home to her next destination… A Temporary Emergency Shelter… to keep their journey going.
Houseless maybe, but not homeless…
I gave Marge what I could, transportation, attention, and a bit of help,
And she gave me a glimpse of hope and love.
And that is all I could ask for when offering pastoral care…
What I hope I can do is get lucky and let someone find their home…
The one we carry inside all of us…
Our sense of self that can be brought out by simple love and attention,
Like a small animal that shares their warmth, their sense of being the center of the world with their person…
Home…
The home that we certainly lose sometimes…
Eroded or Lost to fear, to anger, to greed, to expectations of others,
Hopefully rebuilt or recovered by healthy relationships
Or reminders of our worth and dignity…
We talk about it all the time here,
Worth and Dignity…
But maybe what we need to offer is Home…
When I stepped into my first Unitarian Universalist fellowship,
Oddly enough, in a Kansas university town… ,
I knew I was among my people, but I was not home,
I was surrounded by folks who were certain they knew the truth,
Professors and intellectuals at a University Fellowship…
All good people, all UU, but this not my place, my center…
what I wanted was home.
I did find home in another UU church, one where my beliefs, my being, were validated, as in the first one…
But the people there let me in, let me know they weren’t perfect, let me be who I was, opened up space for me to claim It as home,
Where I was safe to be and become, I volunteered to be a religious education teacher, and grew into Unitarian Universalism as I taught children our history, our principles,
I was challenged to give to this home as much as I could, because it was mine as much as anyone’s, it was a place for my religious habitation,
And it could be an emergency shelter if I needed one…
Home…
I cannot give everyone a puppy or kitty today…
But I have some great people to offer…
I’m home here when I’m greeted by Shermon at the front door…
And many others who smile and make sure I’m doing ok…
But who am I missing? Who are you missing?
If we have an emergency where UUFF needs to come together – do you know who your people are? Even a few?
When the wind blows through the building or heat fails, can you tell a friend that its ok, that we’ll take care of each other?
Home is the relationships you trust and love, and carry in your heart…
Take a moment to reflect on how this place fits into your sense of home…
Let’s take the time to end this service with something that made me uncomfortable at a Methodist service recently…
It’s called Passing Peace… where you greet everyone around you… passing them the Peace of God.
We’ll do it our way…
Take a breath, find your center, your home, and let’s pass that peace onto someone else… greet the folks around you… be gentle if you encounter introversion, use Namaste instead of a handshake if worried about the flu… And Welcome them Home.
(the service becomes a welcome home fest… 🙂 So we say the Extinguishing the Chalice as best we can, and go welcome folks home.)
