“Check it out!” the man beamed as he held keys in front of my face. “It’s the keys to my very first apartment!”
I couldn’t believe it! A week or two beforehand, a married couple in our church decided to take this man experiencing homelessness into their house to live with them. They felt the need to do this after hearing that he was requesting to sleep in another congregant’s car.
The couple seemed to get along with him quite well. The man turned out to be quite the cook and spent a lot of time preparing meals for his new host family. And now, after a short time, he was moving into his own place! It was the kind of radical story every pastor dreams of.
But I don’t know how his story ended. Once he got his new apartment, we didn’t see him at the church anymore. While I wish I weren’t such a pessimist about it, I’ve worked with people in poverty enough to know there are a lot of variables at play around homelessness, and no two stories are exactly the same. Life skills, trauma, substance abuse, mental health issues, disability, governmental changes, difficulties at home, systemic issues, abusive partners, childcare, religious views, inflation, transportation, and so much more can all play a part in creating housing crises. It’s never as simple as the classic, “Just get a job,” critique. Homelessness is multi-layered.
When someone experiences the difficulty of homelessness long enough, they can become accustomed to it. For example, one of my congregants lived in a tent in their mother’s backyard for a long time, though sometimes they would move into their car when the weather was overbearing. I remember knocking on their car window one day to check in on them, and I found them lying in the backseat, reading their Bible like it was the most normal thing in the world.
I tried to convince them to move into the local apartment complex, but in the end, they decided not to go through with it. They didn’t feel safe there, which was a fair assessment. Indeed, one of my other congregants once lived there, and a shooting happened in the room right next to them.
Those dealing with homelessness will not always step into all of the solutions we have for them. For example, I can’t think of anyone dealing with homelessness who has ever accepted my invitation to drive them to the local shelter. They already know it’s an option and have their own reasons as to why they won’t go, or they may not be allowed to because of prior issues.
If we want to do a good job of addressing social justice issues like homelessness, it’s helpful for our ministries to work alongside professionals and organizations in our area. As strange as it sounds, without the wisdom of people who already work in this field, our good hearts can occasionally make these matters worse instead of better. I’ve sat through a lot of Continuum of Care meetings in my city, and I’ve seen the ever-evolving social/political landscape that professionals are working through. They need our partnership, so it’s good to ask them for the best ways we can help! Churches don’t always need to reinvent the wheel or address things on their own terms. We can share the credit and the burden with others who know it better than we do.
Jamin Bradley 
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