Homeless
R. Eric Sawyer , Episcopalian, I try to pay attention. Answered 3h ago Many churches have done exactly that. Sometimes with extremely unhappy results. Others have done that on a once a week basis, so that they can staff the church with volunteers on that night, run laundry, provide showers and a hot meal. Some churches still do these things. Others provide funding and volunteer labor to organizations that are experienced in helping with the needs of homeless people, and who are better equipped to deal with those issues. My own church mainly does that third option. But we did have one man who use to sleep on our porch. We welcomed him, took him a plate when we had a meal, offered him coffee and such. Several of us made a point of interacting with him, just treating him as human, and a member of our community. At the end, he thought our invitations intruded on his freedom, and that he didnt like our offers of meals or other help. He left. That has been a common experience of other churches. And it has been a near universal experience that allowing folks to sleep inside must be carefully overseen, lest massive property damage result. How best to help is a continuing discussion point for many churches. Oh, and while that injunction from Jesus to “sell everything, give it to the poor and come and follow me" is important, he did not say that to everyone. He did say that to one particular person (who opted out) and not to others.

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I have been homeless. I know what it is like to have no place to go for warmth or comfort. There was a time where many people gathered in certain areas for whatever enlightment, utopian dream, or just plain hedonistic pursuit caused them to migrate almost like lemmings over a cliff into the sea. During this time, some churches really did open their doors to accommodate people. I was a recipient of some of that. One church allowed people like us to sleep on the floor in their activity centers. Mind you, this was an age when people picked up hitchhikers with far less worry than now, and huge numbers of mentally ill and low-level criminals were not among the throngs of young “seekers”. Even then the churches that tried to help these people brought unsavory, unkempt and disrespectful people into their towns and neighborhoods, and put their own communities at risk. Even though I appreciated that it was there at the time, I could not help but think “they won’t be able to keep this up for long”. And, they did not. Those places all stopped doing what they were doing. It was not working. All that it did was encourage a form of itinerant tourism taking advantage of the generosity of others but never really availing themselves of the offer of help to change their life circumstances in a meaningful way. Now I have been on the other side of this situation for decades. Here is what I have learned. Churches, charities and missions exist that offer aid and comfort. It is quite demanding, in terms of fixed assets, utilities, food, clothing and manpower. We can’t just leave the light on and the door unlocked for people to “crash” there at will. In these homeless communities people prey upon each other. We don’t want to set up a place where people are wandering in off the streets, urinating anywhere they want, defecating in the corners, puking up their White Port, and having sex with each other, sometimes with unwilling partners. The homeless don’t really want to leave when the sun comes up either. They don’t clean the place, and they often don’t appreciate that decent people have really put out for them. Most of all, they don’t improve. What they do is tell all the people they meet where all the “free stuff” is, so your kindness is soon taxed out of existence by the loads of people who want something for nothing. However, dedicated places do exist with rules and people there to enforce them. If a person thinks “someone” should do “something”, how about you roll up your sleeves and volunteer, if you care so much. Or, give us some money. I guarantee you the Salvation Army does it right. They offer emergency assistance, have at least some shelters, places to eat, places to get counselling, even some live-in facilities for a bit longer term therapy and help. They do a lot with a little, and they will make your charity dollar stretch a long, long way, so get out that checkbook and give like you gave a damn, since you were so kind as to bring up the need. Maintaining a house of worship as a house of worship is no cheap affair in and of itself. Even a well behaved congregation with jobs puts a lot of wear and tear on a place. Add in an undisciplined group of mentally ill people, alcoholics and drug addicts to an empty church building and you are forced to spend money, and a lot of it, for upkeep, forcing a congregation, many of whom do not feel like they signed up for this, to foot the bill. provide a place for people who are up to no good to congregate, sell drugs, recruit prostitutes, or prey on others, putting your own volunteers in danger as you do it. incur problems with city and county officials because of health, safety and zoning restrictions. Damage to neighboring properties could generate lawsuits for operating a public nuisance. create a problem with insurance. Premiums would indeed go up, and go up a lot. Really, the pastor who thought this would be a great idea would probably be voted out at after the next Treasurer’s report. At the end of the day, the mandate to be generous and helpful is given to individuals, not organizations. Even then the Bible tells us that we must first take care of our own households. “He that fails to provide for his own household is worse than an infidel…” the Apostle Paul declares. In another place, he tells people (while exhorting them to give generously to famine relief) that the giving is gauged by what you can afford. He said “I do not mean for you to be burdened so that others may be eased”. Churches give to a great many things, including helping people like this. Just because you do not see a sign on the auditorium saying “Open 24/7 - byo sleeping bag” does not mean we do not do meaningful things for people who are hurting. When is the last time you donated to help the Muslims in Myanmar? We are Christians here, and we have sent money to people of a faith not even our own. Our people here sent money to New Zealand after a madman shot up a mosque. We support both the Salvation Army and St. Vincents (it is Catholic, and don’t get me started about how much Catholics do to relieve suffering around the world. They get a bad rap, but they do incredible things, thanklessly and tirelessly). Go ahead. Get involved. Homelessness is not the fault of the church. Jesus said “The poor you have with you always, and when you will, you may do good unto them”. We do not have a gun to our heads to give. It is always voluntary. If Jesus says even He is not going to force us to live up to some impossible standard, we sure as heaven are not going to let some critics out in the world push us into it. We just say “Put your money where your mouth is”. We do.

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A youth church in my hometown used to do that. The door was always open, and the underfloor heating ran all night in winter. In thanks, the homeless used to shit in the corners, despite there being a public toilet just outside the door. A free one, I might add. A newly bought set of hymn books, worth a few hundred euros, had been pissed on and needed to be replaced, and their insurance wouldn’t cover it because the door had been unlocked. They got angry phone calls from parents because they’d made teenage volunteers scrub the shit stains out of the floor and only told them afterwards what it was, and hadn’t provided anything even resembling proper equipment for handling human waste. There were regular attempts to break into the sacristy to get at the valuables stored there, or to cause more damage to church property. Probably both. The people who came there had no respect for the building or its occupants. They were actively, maliciously, destructive. At one point, somebody had not only shat on the altar, but also apparently spent some time stamping their still wet shit into the stone. The whole thing had to be replaced, which wasn’t cheap. That was the point where their pastor decided that maybe locked doors served a good purpose after all. Lots of churches do support homeless shelters or soup kitchens / food pantries. And did you know that there are other issues in the world than homeless people? Shocking, I know. Some churches even do ridiculous things like send money to schools in India or Africa so kids there can get an education and have a better future! How dare they! Or support hospitals and clinics in developing countries! Or orphanages! What a disgusting waste of money!

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Because a worrisome fraction of homeless people have no respect for property (since they don’t have any). They will deface the building, crap in the corners even when there is a toilet, do drugs and fornicate, and basically make a mess. It takes considerable manpower to supervise even a few homeless people sleeping in a church, and it’s a 24/7/365 drain on resources. Even knowing that, many churches in big cities serve as homeless shelters. They tend to specialize, like youth shelters, for instance.