Not dressed up, and no place to go.

October 1, 2009 by Pastor Dan.

I was glad to see my street friend, Eric [ok, not his real name], who showed up at my office door tonight just before Choir practice. He has gained a few pounds, which has taken away that total emaciated look he had a few months ago. Since leaving the streets six months ago, his appearance, demeanor, and interaction have all improved immeasurably. He is now living with a family member (who is gay; he is straight), which is a gigantic victory for those of us who struggled against numerous obstacles to get him off the streets.

As we talked, I found myself thinking how sane he was. And that is not how I viewed this 30–something man just a few month ago. I am beginning to realize how much his previously weird mental state must have been influenced by his “street spouse” of 17 years, a woman who did have some mental issues.

After her death last winter, I brought Eric into the church building and let him camp there for months, until the leadership put its foot down about the bad smell of his clothing—the stuff he had already worn but had not laundered (he kept himself clean enough).

But we had mistaken for mental illness what was only a neighborhood legend— that Eric was afraid to be inside of buildings and that was supposedly why he chose to be homeless all those years.

[And as this came to light, the metaphoric parallel with being homosexual also came to light: if its not a mental illness, then it is a choice. And if people choose to be gay or homeless, then others can easily rationalize their lack of care and compassion. The more I thought about this parallel, the angrier I felt.]

No, it turns out, he was just loyal to and inseparable from his street spouse, and no one would offer them shelter as a couple.

As a pastor in Hollywood, California, I’ve run into this repeatedly. There are all kinds of programs—some run by government agencies, some by churches that get government funding, some by independent evangelical organizations that God alone knows how they are funded.

Many programs, including the warehouse-sized “missions” downtown, all have strict rules. Many of them try to force Christian faith down the throats of the homeless, for example expecting them to get up at 4:30 a.m. for Bible Study before breakfast. Most of these programs have very targeted audiences: they are there for young people, or for drug addicts in recovery, or for kids at risk of slipping into prostitution, etc. Almost all of them are only for individuals, not couples or families.

But Eric and his common-law spouse didn’t fit those criteria. They didn’t have a drug or drinking problem; they were not youths between 18–24; they might not have been classifiable as mentally ill in the clinical sense. They didn’t have HIV or AIDS. Because they didn’t fit any of the categories laid out in each agency’s “needs assessment,” they simply didn’t qualify for anybody’s help.

For five year I kept trying to lift their self-esteem (knowing very well that every night spent on a filthy blanket against a block wall that reeks of urine is lowering their self-esteem). “You deserve more out of life than this,” I said. “You really have to want more out of your lives before you will be able to have more in your lives.”

How do you give the gift of motivation to someone who just wants a hot meal and a real bed? I frequently thought of the man who begged in Acts 3:1–10 and the gift which Peter and John gave to him.

Sadly, motivation came from something else entirely: the death of another homeless man half a block from the church. That fellow, whose name I never learned, was sleeping just behind the end building of a shopping center, in a makeshift shelter of cardboard appliances boxes. Early one morning in complete darkness one of those huge trash trucks simply backed right over the boxes, crushing his skull and killing him instantly.

That was the second death in his street world in two months. Eric, whose street spouse had just died of breast cancer, felt very alone. He became profoundly depressed, but with patient listening on my part he began to open up about his real fears. No, he isn’t afraid of being inside buildings. He is just used to being outside. But, with the tragic death of that nameless, homeless man, Eric was legitimately terrified to remain outside.

The story is not over. I’m not sure this family thing is going to work out, in the long run. The family member he moved in with has his own mental and emotional issues. And there’s the gay thing, about which Eric is not judgmental but not thrilled either. I’m just worried that this three-month reconciliation might unravel, and Eric would again have no place to go.

— Pastor Dan Hooper

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