Day Seven: leaving the streets

Sometimes I retreat to the street with the intent of experiencing one thing and find that more important lessons will do everything they can to steal my attention. These things that ascend are the things I spend the upcoming year focusing my work on.

As Alisa and Graham boarded an early flight home yesterday, the issues of the streets ascended and called me to suspend the thoughts about family homelessness that I thought I would be exploring and called me to refocus on issues of severe mental health issues.

Ultimately, I'm glad my family is safe and that Alisa will be able to focus on feeling better in a less stressful environment.

I'm also glad to be able to model something I would normally only do behind the scenes: changing focus and reassessing what is the true calling from the streets (as opposed to what might provide the most dramatic impact or most beautifully written sermons).

I can tell you from the brief time that Graham was here, that babies are placebos for life. Regardless of housing status, babies can light up a room, make us focus more on joy then the pain that all too often swallows our thoughts and makes just about everyone smile.

The homeless folk I know talk about how in their vulnerability they are rarely given opportunities to serve others. Children, seniors and pigeons are beings the homeless often go out of their way to help (because their seen as more fragile and accessible to care for), though all but the pigeons tend to be told by caregivers to cross on the opposite side of the street.

The few homeless friends who were able to meet Graham talked about feeling privilege to be allowed to meet him. Stereotypes that judge homeless people as dirtier, riskier and more diseased, follow them well after they are housed and even when they have to go to much greater lengths to protect their sometimes fragile immune systems (due to HIV/AIDS or Hep C status).

I wish I could have shared the gift of allowing my son to show all of my homeless friends that they are not monsters, but rather beautiful children of God. I'm sure on another trip to this fair city I will get that opportunity.

The enduring lesson of this trip is that if burnt community, family and societal bridges cause homelessness, then our job is to haul water and use fire extinguishers whenever we see someone starting to light a fire near a bridge. I am on my way to the airport now to go home to my family in hopes of restoring our bridge.

The longer, harder more difficult work will be to rebuild our communities and families in such away that we are able to respond to the fires of addiction, mental health, racism, trauma and everything else that creates homelessness.

I pray today for all who feel lonely and lost. For those who can only feel alive and able to be cared for when they make their problems and wound bigger and deeper. For families with burned bridges that seem beyond repair. And if it is true, as Jesus says in the Gospel of Mark, that the same measure we used to measure others, God will use on us, then let us become more forgiving, tolerant and responsibly (as opposed to letting folk abuse us without seeking safety) able to mend all the fences we create or stumble upon.

And, as I will do everyday of this street retreat I'll beg you, if you are able, make a secure online donation to Welcome, or participate in our reverse auction.


Blessings and a warm thanks for following me on this journey,
Megan

Behind the scenes attitudes of the SFPD

"In San Francisco you get in trouble if you make a crazy guy shit his pants in fear, but across the bay you can shoot a guy in a wheelchair."


Hanging at my favorite coffee shop to charge my phones and get out of the sun, I find myself sitting here while some "undercover" police officers* talk candidly. A senior officer (who brags often that he teaches at the academy) is talking to a person (from the Castro patrol) about how to become a supervisor and to:
1) let him know what to expect, how to get around the "rules just set up for liability",
2) how people work to get out of doing patrol duties,
3) how to get free public transit riding with a law enforcement card,
4) how "arresting black people is better than watching cable",
5) how they confiscate the bikes of people they don't life so they'll have to pay fines
6) how the police were on suicide watch with Mirkarimi before he made a plea deal, and
7) what I care the most about here- how they respond to "the crazies" (by which they mean homeless folk) that "sometimes just need to be shot, but be careful what community you do it in."

Their conversations about responding to individuals with severe mental health issues in the single room occupancy (SRO) hotel rooms is literally making me cringe.

First, for those unfamiliar with San Francisco politics, a SRO is a housing situation, typically leased by the city to prevent the resident from obtaining tenants rights. They are hotels with a twin bed and enough of a walkway to fulfill the fire code. They are technically a sheltered place to live, but they enable the city to still count the individuals in their homeless count (because federal homeless guidelines require a private bathroom and kitchen facilities in order to be officially called housing). SRO's at best have shared bathrooms and kitchens and typically do not have mailboxes for residents (which mean the residents cannot access state run domestic violence programs).

Imagine if you lived in such a tiny room. Now, imagine that you have paper thin walls and about 100 neighbors with severe addiction and mental health issues that you share your kitchen and bathroom with.

While it is true that all models say you must provide housing before you can address addiction, mental health issues and the trauma that causes and comes from living on the streets, there are some individuals whose mental health issues are exacerbated by life in SRO's.

When to medicate, jail or hospitalize people with mental health issues is also a sticky subject, that I'm not attempting to address in this blog post. I do however advocate that in the moments that people are intervening, whether it is family, faith leaders, social workers, medical professionals, police or judges, that people do so with care, compassion and the desire to enable individuals to self determine when it is safe and possible to do so.

So, when I hear police officers talking about how easy it is to get rid of the "most annoying" or to create fear in mentally fragile individuals to get respect, I'm very upset about it.

While they are talking about how little the amount of paperwork is, "just one simple little half-page," to 51-50 (police code for committing someone to the hospital for a 72 hour emergency psychology hold) a person and get rid of a "crazy nuisance", I think about the shrinking number of mental health beds in San Francisco and pray the nurses and doctors are better at triaging need than these police officers are.

While the number of mental health beds in hospitals is shrinking, it means we need to become better stewardship of these beds. These two police officers are not helping to ensure that those who are the most vulnerable get the support they need.

I pray these two officers are bad seeds. But, I fear that they are a symptom of San Francisco's broken mental health system.

Bravado or not, their loud public conversation is happening next to an homeless advocate. Moments like this are why I go on street retreat. I hear this conversation as a call to step up my work advocating for vulnerable individuals with chronic mental health issues this year.

While these two officers continue to speak inappropriately about politicians they work with and have projects with, I could certainly share more salacious bits of their conversation. But, I would rather focus on the call for all of us all to work on issues of mental health in San Francisco and across the country.

I pray for all individuals who struggle to stay their highest functioning self, for the families and friends that support individuals with mental health issues and for all who advocate and protect the most vulnerable in our society.

And, as I will do everyday of this street retreat I'll beg you, if you are able, make a secure online donation to Welcome, or participate in our reverse auction.

Blessings,

Pastor Megan

*Note: While I'm on street retreat I am not trying get anyone in trouble or create the impression that my time is a sting operation to expose organizations or individuals. If organizations felt this way, I would no longer be allowed to eat with and listen to those in need.

I often avoid naming organizations that I am critiquing, because my goal is for the entire support network to improve our response to homelessness. In order to do this, I need to maintain good relationships with organizations and city agencies. In this case, I believe it is a crime to disclose the photos or identities of undercover officers because it can put them in danger.

Day Six: the support of friends and family

One in three families in the US struggles to afford diapers and one in two mothers has cleaned out a wet or soiled diaper and reused it because they can't afford diapers.

These are not the statistics for homeless families, they are for all families in the US.

During this street retreat, I have been thinking and praying a lot about these families. My family is privileged, and still conversation about costs of baby items is a major stress.


Yet, the erratic weather this week has also been a challenge. The first few days of my retreat it was eighty degrees. The past few days it has been a windy, rainy fifty five degrees.

Families living on the streets, in shelters or cars are constantly needing to adjust and change plans due to weather changes. This leaves little structure or assuredness of safety to their lives. It requires the kind of flexibility of plans few families are able to master with without conflict.


But, as I have said street retreats are not only about being with and near the homeless, for me as someone who is often giving more than I receive, this week is about being open to receiving and being present to what happens when you say yes to the opportunities for listening that might not have found me in my typical routine.

I find that the act of receiving, while following shelter hours or on a street retreat can be exhausting. It requires a willingness to receive not only what you need or want, but all that people have to give.

And while people have been generous in taking me to lunch and other meals, it typically requires walking miles or trying to navigate San Francisco's child unfriendly public transit system with a child.


With the exhaustion of the streets, I wonder how long it takes for people to stop offering or to become unwilling to always foot the bill. I wonder how long tired feet are able to walk the distance needed to receive. Or, how long relationships of hospitality last when the people coming to dinner are crabby from lack of sleep, the constant exposure to mental health issues in food lines and the grittiness of urban settings.

I'm grateful Graham has clean diapers, loving parents and safe, dry spaces to be.

I pray as children lay down to sleep, that they will have clean dry, unused diapers. I pray that they will wake to hopeful parents and full breasts. And that we will work our damnedest to create a future for them without homelessness, so that when they raise their children they will be able to do so without the need to chose between paying their medical, housing or diaper bills.

And, as I will do everyday of this street retreat I'll beg you, if you are able, make a secure online donation to Welcome, or participate in our reverse auction.
Blessings,
Megan

Day Five: Family Fractions

Blame it on my crabby exhaustedness, airplane woes that caused Alisa and Graham to arrive at 12am or the scrambling that resulted in our only transport options being a rental car with a rented infant car seat, but within 12 hours of arrival, Alisa and I have already needed a mediated therapy session with our couples counselor.

I'm not telling you to make you worry about the state of our relationship or to complain publicly about relationship woes. Rather, I tell you because I think it's important to model that even this brave street retreat warrior needs a support network to get through tough times like this.


Typically, I'd skip discussing my behind the scenes process and just tell you about the bits that seem like a good homily for the day. But, I must confess as someone who has slept on the streets in multiple cities, I only lasted 12 hours with a baby before I needed professional help to handle the realities of trying this with a baby.


Because Alisa's flight was arriving after shelter hours, I followed the rules of a typical shelter and asked for an overnight pass and received permission. I got permission from Pastor Stacy to park the rental care overnight in the lot at herchurch (which is in a quite safe neighborhood).

Because we were parked on private property, I thought I wouldn't have to worry about the law against sleeping in your car, that violating might cause Child Protective Services (CPS) to investigate our family. Because the car was warm, the doors were locked and it was a lot like camping I thought I'd be able to sleep in the car and write a poetic blog about the thousands of families that live in vehicles because they're afraid of CPS.

But I only lasted about two hours.

I have slept in the streets, alone, exposed and vulnerable countless times but I could not sleep with the baby in a car.

Poor Alisa, had to wake up again (now it was 2:30 am) as I drove to the Fools where we could sleep indoors, sleepily schlep all of our luggage and grumble at each other in our exhaustion.

At most we got about three hours of disoriented sleep.

When we got up I was delighted to be greeted by hugs and smiles of homeless family members whom I journeyed with for a decade and I loved getting to share my new family with them.


The ability to have Graham meet my colleagues and friends in the Bay Area is worth more than I can say.

But I also know, now more than ever that my heart cannot stomach a child for real or as part of a retreat living in a shelter, a car or any situation that does not provide safe shelter.

We'll see if Alisa and Graham continue on this journey with me or head home early.

Regardless, today I pray for all the parents and children doing everything they can to keep their families safe and sheltered.

Perhaps it's the exhaustion. Perhaps I've caught that spirited fire that I'm always looking for on the streets that will fuel my passion for another year of grueling, underpaid and often thankless work.

But today I beg you to fund the work that I must do for and with the homeless over the next year.

I'm the professional they call when there day is too hard.

And it's time to get back to work.

And, as I will do everyday of this street retreat I'll beg you, if you are able, make a secure online donation to Welcome, or participate in our reverse auction.

Blessings,
Megan

Day Four: the beginning of the birth pangs

For the first four days of my street retreat, I've been thinking a lot about the homeless families I've know over the years.

I have often heard stories of couples who are living on the streets because they are unable to get housing and in a heterosexual couple sometimes only the female is able to get housing.

Some chose to continue to wait, and live on the streets for four or five years until they can get housing together.


Many are unmarried, because they can't afford a marriage license or have been together so long living by street rules, that they don't always understand the need for the formality of civil marriage recognition. Others have a child whose biological patent is not the person they're in a relationship with and they're afraid they'll lose the benefits that barely keep them fed.

Regardless of the reason, if they are unmarried they cannot live together in low-income housing. You can imagine how this also affects same-sex couple who are unable to be married in California.


I had always told people that it was better if just one could be housed while we worked on getting the other indoors. But I had never met a couple that agreed to it, except one.

A few years ago when I was sleeping out in front of a church, I met a man who had housing in an SRO, who was only allowed to have overnight guests 10 days a month.

So, the couple would stay indoors for 10 days and then (so the female didn't have to sleep on the streets alone) for 20 days, the male slept outside with her.


Tonight my partner Alisa and two month old son will be joining me on my street retreat, and I now understand the ache of being separated by the streets.

Last night marriage equality historically passed in a few states. But what most people don't know is that these laws do not give same-sex couples the same family protections as marriage between a man and a woman. And while Graham is my son, the courts do not yet recognize our relationship and won't until I can adopt him as a second parent.

These precarious legal relationships have ramifications about who can be together in shelters and low income housing.

Regardless of my legal parental status I know, many of you may wonder why I'd bring a baby into this experience.

I say: the Tenderloin is the neighborhood in San Francisco with the highest concentration of families. Why is it ok for most of San Francisco's families to live here, but too scary for my own child?

Some might wonder about the reduced immune system of little babies. I'd remind you that the epidemic of HIV/AIDS an Hepatitis C in the homeless population might mean their immune systems are even more fragile than a babies. If it is ok for all thousands of children of God to live here, why is it not ok for my baby?

Over the past decade the homeless in San Francisco have called me "ma" and I have cared for them as if they are all my own children. I believe it is time for Graham to meet his brothers.

And for those who are still afraid, I remind you that your fear is an important part of this project. How much more should we be afraid and working to prevent all children from experiencing true homelessness?

There are hundreds of homeless families in San Francisco and over 2,000 homeless students going to school in San Francisco today.

I pray today, that all families who are separated finds ways to love across the boundaries of war, poverty, prison walls, bread lines and generational misunderstandings. May all children know they are loved, have their daily supply of breast milk and be safe and warm.

And, as I will do everyday of this street retreat I'll beg you, if you are able, make a secure online donation to Welcome, or participate in our reverse auction.

Blessings,
Megan

Day Three: the Politics of Homelessness

Today is Election Day. I know, because a homeless man yelled at everyone lined up for breakfast in the food lines.


On social media people are clamoring about the lines at their polling place. The photo above is of a food line that stretches more than three blocks. The participants waited more than forty minutes for these trays.


How long would you wait for three teaspoons of eggs, watery malt-o-meal and a moldy piece of bread? How long do you think hundreds of others who are primarily surviving off disability benefits ought to wait?

The reductions to disability benefits are something you vote for when you approve elected officials and their plans for creating a budget.


Voting, may let you choose between a candidate who will hose down the homeless at night while they sleep, or let them sleep in peace. At least that's one difference I see between Newsom's administration and Ed Lee's. There is a lot less of the needless shuffling around of homeless folks. But, there is also a lot more public drinking and drugging. By which I mean, that in past street retreats people at least attempted to hide it.


The man in front of me had the Ten Commandments written on his jacket. Well, he kind of did. Commandments 7-9 were etc, etc, etc. And the tenth was: only marry 1 nut, not two.

I wonder if our desire to resolve domestic poverty issues is a lot like his jacket. We start off strong and really want to help, but we get a little tired and hope our etc, etc, etc while help. We need creative approaches that will make a real difference and most importantly our tenth commandment for helping the homeless (well perhaps it should be the first) should be compassionate mental health care.


Last night I found this art installation at UN plaza: four mirrors with a bible at the center. If we, our congregations, our cities and our elected officials took a deep look into those mirrors could we say we're doing everything our faith requires to respond to homelessness and hunger? If you answered yes, I'd ask you why there are two homeless children under the age of two behind the art, if we are doing everything we can?

So this Election Day, I hope you will vote.

Then continue voting everyday, by working to end poverty, holding those elected officials to account for addressing poverty issues and vote with your donations to organizations who can make a real difference.

And, as I will do everyday of this street retreat I'll beg you, if you are able, make a secure online donation to Welcome, or participate in our reverse auction.

Today I pray that all individuals elected today will understand their responsibility and obligation to support those who are most vulnerable.


Blessings,
Pastor Megan

Meeting Jesus in the Food Line

Jesus told us that however we respond to those who are naked, hungry, homeless or in prison, we are actually responding to him. This week, I am spending a week in San Francisco eating with the homeless to commune more closely with God.

I've seen Jesus in the dinning halls throughout San Francisco. In the scorching heat, Jesus waits about an hour and a half in the food line, not because of a natural disaster that unexpectedly plagued the area, but because we've grown too used to the many unnatural disasters that keep people living on the edge.

Even if he's managed to avoid or recover from addiction, Jesus's wilderness walking and slipping mental health will likely keep him wrestling demons (present and in haunting flash backs of the past) no one else can see or hear.

Once inside, Jesus devours the food put in front of him, rejects the items that are too hard to chew with a toothless mouth and rarely washes his hands before or after eating. Distant screams of scripture might be a sign of things to come or they might be the product of having thousands of Jesuses in this food line.

In Mark's Gospel, Jesus leads the disciples through a cornfield to show them how to feed themselves and the other followers who are hungry. Jesus embodied the command that we feed people and ensure they have the basic necessities to allow them full participation in the life of congregations and temples.

The story of the widow putting in her last two pennies in the temple offing boxes, is not only an illusion to the fact that those who are the most vulnerable don't get to chose if they'd like take up a cross and follow. Rather, it's tied to their wrists for them daily by our inability to respond.

Regardless of the choices that create poverty, hunger and homelessness, we are called to be a community that sells all our things and gives it to the beggars.

We couldn't imagine actually doing this, because we don't trust our pastor, our neighbor or our family members to do the same once we become the ones in need of care and support.

And like Mark's Gospel, I end this blog without comforting you in hopes that it will inspire you to do something - whatever it is that is yours to do.

Perhaps you help with my goal of raising $3,000 while on street retreat. You can make a secure online donation to Welcome, or participate in our reverse auction.

Or perhaps you will learn more about these and other lessons in the Gospel of Mark. join me Tuesday night at 6pm (PST) for Bible Study that Doesn't Suck or pre-order the book which will be out in early December.

Our first book in our trademarked series Bible Study that Doesn't Suck, will be released in early December.  You can help us get this book printed by pre-ordering your copy now at a reduced rate. 


All the proceeds from the book will benefit Welcome's work feeding the hungry, advocating for the homeless and educating faith leaders across the country about poverty issues.

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Day Two: An intensely sad, lonely crowd

I've been very tired at the beginning of this street retreat. Perhaps it's because in the days before I was keynoting at a nearby conference and I always feel worn out at the end of a conference. Perhaps it is the switching of the brain from academic thoughts to those of basic survival that have me all worn out. Or, perhaps it was the memories if how exhausting on all levels my street retreats are and a bit of my exhaustion was pre-emptive.


Regardless, I spent much of the afternoon yesterday resting on the lawn in front of San Francisco's City Hall. I have some delight in the ability to be so anonymous in that space, because lying on the sidewalk makes me unrecognizable as someone who used to have meetings and official business in there just a few months before.


I also rested there because there are no meal programs that are open for dinner on Sunday and often times, churchy do-gooders will bring snacks and toiletries to those gathered.

It was my lucky day.

While many shelters offer dinner to guests with week or longer reservations, often those who are only able to get an emergency slot or only have a one day reservation are not entranced until after dinner. Sometimes they don't get in until well after midnight.


I panhandled some funds to buy something at a local coffee space so I could use the wireless Internet and talk to my family.

The ability to charge phones, have access to bathrooms and stay in contact with family members is one of the reasons coffee shops have replaced the drop-in centers that the Newsom administration worked so hard to close.


After saying goodnight to my family I went to the Fools. Since most shelters have either a 6 or 7pm curfew or lose your shelter bed, I made sure to make it back around 6:30.

The curfew leaves very little time for socializing with friends who work or participating in church or community events.

This morning, despite going to bed around 9:30 pm, the morning came too quick. I had a horrible time trying to get up at the 6 am wake up call most shelters have and the requirement to be out the door by 7am felt like a punishment.

Even without the difficulties of being woke up every hour or staff that had changing rules, I found the curfew and shelter hours to be oppressive on my body even without actual shelter conditions.

So today, I again felt incredibly lethargic and in need of more rest. So I went to St Bonifice Catholic Church.



This church allows folk to sleep in the pews in the morning and keeps them safe and sheltered. It was here, amongst my hundreds of sleeping companions, that I realized that I'm a bit depressed.

I miss my family and my baby. I know they're coming soon, but dreams of getting in trouble by Child Protective Services for simply being in the same spaces as homeless folk have been haunting my dreams.

I imagine this is just a small fraction of the fear homeless families experience. How much more will I feel this when my son is actually here?



As I wandered into a side chapel area, I saw this icon of St Bonifice and remembered that he was the patron saint of children, who helps women get pregnant and helped keep children safe.

I began to trust that I am in the right place to feel these feelings and remembered that I have lots of support and that millions of families experience homelessness in the U.S. and by peering into the margins of their world I will become much better equipped to support them.

Today I pray for all the parents who are busy finding food and shelters for their families. Give them more than their daily bread. Give them safety and the ability to know their children are safe.

And, as I will do everyday of this street retreat I'll beg you, if you are able, make a secure online donation to Welcome, or participate in our reverse auction.

Blessings,
Pastor Megan
P.S. email me at megan@welcomeministry.org if you'd like to provide me with food, beverages or a meal companion at any point on my journey.

Location:Golden Gate Ave,San Francisco,United States

Street Retreat Begins: The Philosophy of My Street Retreat

Over the past ten years, I've been on many types of street retreats. Some have been chronicled in my blogs here.

In previous years on retreat I spent a whole week in the shelter line, to highlight the lack of space, I've stayed in the youth shelter twice and at an adult women's shelter and experienced the disorientation, fear and trauma of that experience and I've always eat at the meal programs around town with the homeless and hungry.

As I journey through my street retreats, I never lie about who I am about my economic or professional status. I fill out all surveys and shelter access information with my real information and I leave the decision of whether or not to admit me or if I have more or less need than others to the agencies I'm visiting.

I do not go on the streets to pretend I'm homeless.

I go on the streets to experience in my bones some of the feelings and experiences of life on the streets and in the services for homeless individuals. But, I fully acknowledge that I have access to resources and privilege that others do not.

I retreat to the streets by a choice others don't always get to make.

I retreat to the street before my bridges have all been burned down and people are often more generous to me than they might be to others who are even more vulnerable than I am. As someone who is always giving so much, my work on these streets is to learn to be better at receiving.

So I beg for all I need. And if people give me the funds or offer it to me, nothing is off limits. But, I continue to follow the ethics that guide me as a pastor and minister to anyone who asks.

I retreat to the streets to educate you and other readers about homelessness and hunger, particularly during this time that our nation is focusing on the election, poverty in other countries or responding to natural disasters.

People care more about issues when it affects someone they love. Often I'm told that people worry about all the homeless more while I'm on the streets.

I'm making good choices, am highly trained and have a large support network. but, i will not try to lull your fears and I hope you will worry about me and all of my actually homeless brothers and sisters who need your support.

I retreat to the streets because I want to beg so others don't have to. I have a goal of raising $3,000 for Welcome by sleeping on the streets. Your support the homeless and hungry every day of the year and to expand our work around the country. Because our donations are down this year, your support or lack for this street retreat, will help determine if I get my real pay check in December.

I am one of the countless Americans who is one paycheck away from homelessness. This retreat, I'm particularly interested in sharing the stories of this I meet who have fallen to the other side of that crack.

I retreat to the streets because Jesus told us he would be found there and each time I eat a meal with the homeless, I'll be sharing a meal with him.

This year, my partner Alisa and my two month old son Graham will also be joining me on the streets. We will be staying at the Faithful Fools Street Ministry and following the rules of the local family shelters. You can bet that my desire to be safe will increase when my family joins me. I'm particularly interested in learning more about the struggles of families who are homeless this week.

I hope that you'll follow my blog each ay to see what I've learned. And please, if you are able, make a secure online donation to Welcome, or participate in our reverse auction.

Tonight, I pray for all who are living on the streets, that they find shelter, food and support for their journey. On this scorching San Francisco day, I pray that it doesn't aggravate violence or health problems. May all children have enough to eat and ready hands to attend to soiled diapers and calls for cuddles.

May you have all you need and the courage to be your fullest self everyday.

And to everyone who wonders where they will get their daily bread, how they will pay their bills or get out from under piles of debt, I pray we'll all find jubilee.

Thanks for paying attention....

I'll talk to you again tomorrow!

Blessings,

Pastor Megan

P.S. email me at megan@welcomeministry.org if you'd like to provide me with food, beverages or a meal companion at any point on my journey.

Join Pastor Megan on Street Retreat, November 4-12

Pastor Megan will be spending a week on the streets in San Francisco again to raise awareness about homelessness. This year Megan will be focusing on homeless families. In the past, Megan has slept on the streets or in local shelters to feel in her bones a part of what it is like for the homeless in San Francisco, this year Megan will be following family shelter hours at the Faithful Fools Street Ministry (so as not to displace any homeless families who are in need of shelter. Joined by her partner Alisa and baby Graham, Megan will be blogging throughout the week in hopes of educating readers about the needs of homeless families. From November 4th through the 12th, you can follow Megan's street retreat at: http://mystreetretreat.blogspot.com/

In the News: Bay Area Reporter

'Encampment' brings attention to homeless LGBT youth

NEWS

---

Published 05/19/2011

by Matt Baume

	Homeless youth and their allies staged a "street sweep" in the Castro last Saturday to bring attention to budget cuts for social service programs. Photo: Matt Baume

The May 14 encampment was part of a nationwide demonstration to raise awareness of homelessness among a demographic known as transition-age youth. Homeless and foster youth between 16 and 24 years old can face unique housing challenges, particularly as they age out of the foster care system and learn to navigate services for adults.

"We're here to engage the community on homelessness, and specifically queer homeless youth issues," said organizer Beck, who uses only one name. "We're in kind of a state of emergency, saying, 'hey community, wake up.'"

Saturday's action started at Civic Center with games, an unveiling of protest banners, and hot meals served by Food Not Bombs. A march proceeded to Harvey Milk Plaza, where speakers read poetry and called for improved access to services to get off the street.

Their requests included housing with kitchens, rather than single room occupancy hotels with no facilities for food preparation; employment opportunities for youth who are unable to complete school; and an end to the sit-lie ordinance.

According to local organizers Trans Youth Rise Above, there are 5,700 homeless youth in San Francisco, of which at least 1,000 are queer.

Operation Shine America, which coordinated similar rallies in other cities, estimates that there are 2 million homeless youth in the country. Queers for Economic Equality Now also organized the San Francisco event.

Beck explained that organizations like the Lavender Youth Recreation and Information Center and Larkin Street Youth Services' Castro Youth Housing Initiative have faced repeated budget cuts, reducing services that can prevent youth from living on the street.

Jodi Schwartz, executive director of LYRIC, agreed that times are tight. "There has been a sizable decrease in investments in LGBTQ youth services," she told the Bay Area Reporter. "Just for LYRIC, if we were to lose the last piece of dollars for transition-age youth workforce, our decrease in funding would be 72 percent over the last four years."

Larkin Street Executive Director Sherilyn Adams told the B.A.R. that the extent of cuts won't be known until Mayor Ed Lee releases a budget later this month.

"There's no proposed cuts to the Castro Youth program," she said, but added, "it does not begin to meet the need."

To address the potential consequences of such cuts, Lee recently convened a stakeholder group consisting of representatives from organizations that advocate for homeless youth. Based on feedback from that group, the mayor asked that the Department of Children, Youth, and Their Families prioritize funding for LGBT and undocumented youth.

While organizations hope to turn around the recent budget cuts, local organizers are seeking ways to demonstrate how the city's rate of youth homelessness could worsen.

After Saturday's protest concluded, about three dozen homeless youth spent parts of the night camped out around the Muni station, according to organizer the Reverend Megan Rohrer, director of the Welcome Ministry, a coalition of 12 churches that seek to provide a faithful response to poverty.

Rohrer is currently working with the GLBT Historical Society to raise visibility by drawing inspiration from past struggles. She incorporated a "street sweep" into Saturday's protest, in which participants swept Castro Street sidewalks with brooms to evoke a similar 1960s-era protest.

In that action, LGBTs protested the city's negligent sanitation and police roundups by pushing brooms through the Tenderloin.

Chosing Not to Sleep on the Streets

I made a decision last night to not sleep on the street as planned. At first I was ashamed of my decision. The Rev. Megan Rohrer told those who gathered there that sleeping on the streets that night would not make you a better person but if you went home, just remember you could not do it even one night, when all these youth don't have that choice (paraphrasing there to get the gist!) She was right, it would not have made me a better person, but knowing myself well enough, it would have made more smug. I would have been more critical of colleagues who didn't even show up at all. She was right, I could not, of my own free will, choose to sleep out after all.

But I do know a little something of what it is like to no longer have the choice. I did spend one week of my life homeless, but unlike these youth, it was thru my own stubbornness, my own stupidity. Every day I saw where people had found my clothes and possessions that I tried to hide, since I couldn't carry them all, having been ransacked and little by little I lost them all but for the one small bag I carried with me. I did not have to sleep on hard streets, like most of the youth and other homeless folks do here in the city, I had park, I would crawl into the underbrush and cover myself with leaves so no one would see me. However, I did only have to do this for a week. And I did move on from there. But that experience stuck with me and is why I work with SF Night Ministry and it was why I joined the rally and march last night.

But I still chose not to sleep on the street.

One of the things I have learned in ministry is that it is tough to find out you have limits. There are just certain lines you come to and cannot cross at that moment. Sometimes all you can do is bear silent witness to others suffering, pain, anger etc. and even there, you still reach your limit. I heard things last night that I did not agree with, things I did not want to hear, things I needed to hear. And sometimes I could not hear a thing as I began to wrestle with what it all really meant, what was I supposed to do, how was I supposed to witness?

I chose to stay as long as the speeches, then I chose to go home. My limit, that line last night was that I could not sleep on the street.

Will I go to another rally like this? You bet I will! And another, and another and another, for as long as I am able. And who knows, maybe next time, or the next time or the time after that, I may cross that line and choose to sleep on the street! or Maybe that will never happen. We will see.

-Bishop Rusty Clyma

Final Thoughts Before Showering

They say that to err is to be human, but I think that more than that it is vulnerability from learning to live in our fragility (what we have done and left undone) that makes us human. We have and create so much pain trying to hide, fix or fall into the shame that often follows vulnerability.

Living in the Tenderloin, either on the streets for this week or in the condo where I spend most of my days, I see the homeless, hungry and addicted as the walking vulnerable in the streets. When I hear about the fear people express about my week living in the streets, I wonder if they are mistaking the vulnerability I see with danger.

Our world and our lives often directly contribute to the poverty and vulnerability of others. For example, in owning a condo, I am invested in the housing market rebounding and becoming even more unaffordable for others.

I don't know if there is a political solution for what seems to be a social problem. Sure, we need to urge politicians to create humane budgets that honor the vulnerable individuals we've promised to protect, we need to put our pocketbooks where our hearts are (donate now), we need to have individual interactions and not punish those with less for being grumpy and rightfully angry about their situations and we need to continue to pray for those things that seem beyond redemption.

There are simple solutions to some of these problems (not that they are easy to come by, but that we at least know how to solve them):
Homelessness is solved by housing;
Hunger is solved by eating;
Hopelessness is solved by hope;
Loneliness is solved by community and companionship;
Mistrust is solved by honesty.

Other issues require a step today followed by a step tomorrow but over time lead to something better than yesterday:
Sobriety;
Mental health;
Independence/interdependence
Faith
Love

I pray that we become people who urge today to fix the things that are fixable if only we had the will and investment (read: money) to do so, who strive each day to become better at the things that we must work each day on, that we have compassion for/with those who may be marching circles around or away from their goal and to forgive ourselves when we expect ourselves to be anything other than vulnerable growing humans.


Location:Fools Court, Tenderloin, San Francisco

Day Seven: Just One More Night

This week I've been noticing the ways in which the homeless working poor venture around San Francisco. One of the things that I've been seeing all week that I haven't mentioned yet in any of my blog posts are the homeless folk that have been paid by local campaigns to care political signs for $10 an hour, or the folk in the GLIDE line that got paid $1 for each signature that they got from individuals in the line. The pitch to sign was: "sign this, I'll get a dollar." The information on the signature sheet left it to the imagination what it was that we were actually signing. It was something to do with reduced telephone fees for the poor, but without additional info it was hard to tell if we were signing in support or opposition.

I'm a big fan of getting people without resources access to resources, particularly through jobs that are well suited for their particular abilities. However, during this campaign season, I find it a misuse of power to have the very people these propositions or politicians will be cutting services for promote the very campaigns that will end their programs.

Paying homeless people to carry signs as if they are supporting the idea or person on the sign sends a false message to others who may want to vote for the person who is most likely to help the poor.

In the same way that people are urging for transparency in commercial sponsorship, it should be required at "grassroots" rallies and public signature gatherers and sign carriers to where t-shirts signifying that they are actually on the payroll of the group, idea or candidate they are supporting.



Tonight will be my last night on the streets and I'll get to go home to my own bed in the morning. I'm deeply looking forward to an end of this particular type of exhaustion in my life. I'm also excited to have more than just fried starchy foods in my diet again. I think my complexion and tummy will also enjoy this.

I feel confident as my street retreat ends, that what I have learned will benefit my work with the homeless for the rest of the year. If you have not yet taken the time to respond to my begging and send a gift large or small to Welcome (where I work with the chronically homeless all year long) I hope you'll click on the donation link on the top right of this blog.

I beg so others don't have to.

Thanks again for readying my adventures on the streets. I'll post another entry tomorrow and be adding some stuff that I didn't have computer access to add earlier.

My prayer tonight is that bosses everywhere will be aware of the power they have and think about the ethics of requiring their workers to preform their daily work duties. And of course for those who are without work to get some - and when they can, to get better jobs (in whatever way that means to them).

Have a blessed night, here's hoping that there is no more rain today! May you and yours be warm and dry tonight and every night.

Location:Starbucks, Polk and Van Ness, San Francisco

Day Six: Raw Emotion

Last night we had so much more cardboard than we needed to gather for our beds. In case you didn't know, the cardboard serves a two-fold purpose. First, it cuts the chill of the concrete, which sucks the heat out of your body. This thin layer of discarded trash can mean the literal difference between waking up alive or dead. Second, the cardboard makes the bed a little bit softer.

In fact, when I was on street retreat for two weeks living with the poor in Nicaragua card board on a bed frame was my mattress. Last night, because we had such an abundance, I got to sleep with two-ply. Like toilet paper, the extra layer makes a difference. Last night I only had to turn over twice because half my body had gone numb.




A better nights sleep lead to a much better morning. However, I have now arrived at one of the most sacred reasons that I embark on these street retreats. I am now emotionally raw. And sitting here in the Starbucks enjoying my favorite comfort food, a soy hot chocolate, I feel myself at the verge of tears. The exhaustion in my body and mind from being in survival mode for six days in a row has caught up with me.

Yet, unlike my normal need to function with very little wavering of feeling in order to balance the manic and erratic feelings of the chronically homeless I work with each day, today I get to have feelings. I get to feel the vulnerability of being a small hungry fish in a large pond full of hungry fish.

So, today I don't take things for granted. I get angry easily over injustice. I embrace the powerful moments and the roll in my belly with a sense of the sacred living around and in me.



One of the most moving moments of my day was when I was sitting with the Larkin youth (predominately homeless queer kids kicked out of their homes for being queer) as they spoke with a screaming queen from the Compton Riots and learned about the history of poor queers demanding their rights and to be treated with dignity I was hit with an overwhelming sense of call. An overwhelming sense that these moments were exactly what I was put on earth to do.

These are all thoughts I've had before in my head. But today, I'm enjoying the rawness of the streets, that brought me to a safe raw space to feel a bit mystical.

My prayers tonight are for all that live in the world feeling raw in an unsafe way, for compassion on safety for anyone considering ending their life (it gets better I promise), for those who live with domestic abuse with no way out, for those who feel covered in the fog of unending depression and for all that have forgotten what hope feels like.

I pray even more deeply that all may have the sense that they are mystical, that God is with them, for them and working through them. And if the idea of God creeps you out a bit, I hope for you a sense of purpose and peace.

Blessings upon blessings,
Megan.

Location:Starbucks, Market and Polk, San Francisco

Day Five: Four doughnuts and a scone

Today, I lived off of yesterday's meetings. For breakfast I had two doughnuts from yesterday's staff meeting. For lunch I had two more doughnuts. Later in the afternoon I had a scone. I learned the hard way the consequences of working during the times when the food lines are open. After work I have never enjoyed beans and rice more, as I quickly consumed my super from Food Not Bombs, a local group that feeds people in protest of the priorities of the governments spending policies.


Later in the evening the generosity of the streets provided as I was able to take the other street retreaters out for dessert at Mel's Diner for Carmen's birthday. This added berry pie to the nutritional value of my day.

Despite the rising number of working poor in today's economy, there is a surprising lack of options for meals during the day. I suppose if I was on the streets longer I could make use of the food pantries that give away food on the weekends, but without a kitchen or a stove I'm not sure what good it would do. I suppose I could apply for food stamps and get a debit card that can be used at Subway, though I doubt the funds last very long when used on precooked food.

This lack of proper nutrition and emphasis on starchy filling foods is a large part of the reason the America's hungry are overweight rather than skinny. Farms can grow some of the food that can be eaten raw by the working poor, but I still long to put into practice a food pantry that gives out precooked food for those who live in buildings without kitchens or who work during regular food line hours.

Also, on a completely different subject, all those that are worried about my safety as I sleep on the street: know that nearly each night I me others who are afraid sleeping on the streets, others are so vulnerable or frail they could not hurt anyone. It seems tha the real danger is non-homeless people. Particularly on a night like tonight, it is those out drinking while watching the World Series that are out of control and unsafe.

Well, sleep beckons. Hope you and yours are warm and safe tonight. Prayers for all the people who pick produce in the fields, who stock shelves and who drive trucks.

Day Four: Junk Food Lines

This morning the line for breakfast at Glide extended two full city blocks. Above is a photo of the second block of the line. When we finally arrived inside for food there was a notice on the wall that proclaimed that the coffee company who donated the coffee was no longer able to donate because of the economy, so there was no coffee this morning.

At a meeting earlier this month I learned that Glide was trying to figure out a way to cut its meals by 20%. For the first time Glide may have to limit people to just one meal or limit the number of people that they feed each meal. As I spend my day working at Welcome and operating our Tuesday drop in meal called the Welcome Center that provides a light lunch from 2-4pm, I wonder about the impact of Glide's cuts at small programs like Welcome. Our Saturday night dinners have already swelled from 100 to 300 this year.

It is believed that the breakfast line is so long because it is full of the working poor, who come for breakfast before heading off to work. It's hard to tell how the folk in line will spend the rest of the day just by looking at them, but the line is certainly younger and whiter then I've ever seen it before.

As, I enter my fourth day on the streets I notice that my ability to focus at work is equal to the amount of caffeine I've consumed to get my brain in order. I wonder how many of the hundreds who ate at Glide this morning were unable to concentrate at work the rest of the day, due to the loss of the coffee donation.

I've also noticed that because when I'm working I miss out on the free meal sites, that I have to consume more fast food than I typically would. I'll have to see how this affects my complexion and waist line. But it is certainly hard to tell the difference between waiting in the line at Glide for breakfast or waiting at McDonald's for the value menu. The clothing, smell and look of exhaustion seems to be the same.

In addition to food trouble, getting ready to go to work and trying to get rid of the look and smell of sleeping on the streets is certainly an ordeal. Bathrooms become shower stalls - with adult sized wet wipes for showers.

So, today I pray that everyone waiting in lines - whether it be for stamps, groceries, food, to pay tolls, etc - experience the compassion of a God who knows the frustration of feeling like all of life is waiting. This God reverses the orders of lines and social structures.

Peace be with you all.

Day Three: All Work and No Play

Today I learned that one of the biggest difficulties working and sleeping on the street is that you miss all the services that start after you work and end before work is finished. While the daily grind gave me something to do and passed the hour more quickly, they also made me more dependent upon the generosity of collegues and friends. I didn't have the option to choose an anonymous meal. It also made me wonder how long it would take to transform a unique opportunity to help someone who spends so much time giving to others, before I was seen as an obnoxious person who is only know for begging for what I need.

Professionally I beg all the time: for supplies for the homeless, for grants and donations (you can send yours online through the link on the right), as offering and for volunteers. Yet these forms of begging are written into the service or are acceptable because I'm asking at the behest of others.


Tonight I was grateful for Sacred Cocktails and the opportunity for a free meal and drink surrounded with a great talk ad great people. Afterwards as I prepared my sleeping bag I ran into a reoccuring friend from several street retreats. Now sober and housed, he was working to create safe places for other GLBT homeless folk. It was inspiring to see how far one person could come and the way one chance encounter on a street retreat could lead to such total life transformation.

He other thing I'm noticing from working and sleeping on the streets is how exhausted I am at night. While it makes it easier to fall asleep with the roaring traffic going by, it makes it harder to blog in my phone here in the dim light of the doorway. So, I'll call it a night and blog more in the morning. Good night all. Sweet dreams.

Location:The steps of First Unitarian Universalist Church, San Francisco

Day Two: Longing for Safe, Dry Sanctuary

In many ways, rain is a great equalizer. People who are outside in the rain tend to all look the same, like over bundled drippy people slogging to wherever they are headed. Yet, for those who have nowhere to head (like me today) the ability to find a small warm space to give the water a chance to roll of your back is more important than ever.

Interestingly, this is a great motivator for many to head to church. Though rainy days is a time when many housed parishioners may decide to skip church because they don't want to leave warm beds to head out in the rain. It is such a blessing to those with no dry sanctuary can find that in churches.

Right now, my sanctuary is the public library. I remember when I was little that my mother would drop me off at the library while she worked. I loved the books and that I could play Oregon Trail on the computers for one hour a day. It was only years later that I realized that the other kids I had spent time with and most of the others in the Sioux Falls, SD library were homeless folk.

Since I was just in Washington DC this past week, I've been thinking about the way that Abraham Lincoln was used as the symbol of the American dream. His portrait stands out in the middle of the Library of Congress dome as a reminder that he was a self made man who gained his education through public libraries rather than through a college or university.

While I'm grateful that public libraries offer that same opportunity for people to have equal access to education, I also know that libraries across the country have become the mainstays for homeless folk - particularly in areas where other valuable services are being cut. I've read several articles this year about how librarians have had to take on roles of being like a social worker because of this issue.

Access to education is certainly one way to help those living in poverty to improve their quality of life. But, when they don't have access to prescription glasses or enough sleep to focus on reading, it's not true access.




Here at the San Francisco Public library they have a rule that if you fall asleep you have to leave. The rule makes me think back to my night sleeping on the cold concrete tucked in the doorway of a church with a garbage bag wrapped around the bottom of my sleeping bag to prevent it from getting too wet. While I was warm enough, my sleep was interrupted by the fact that I had to constantly wake up throughout the night as half my body would go numb and I needed to flip over. As it got closer to dawn, the time between numbness grew shorter and shorter and so did sleep.

Since this is only the second day of my street retreat I'm not so exhausted yet that I'm tempted to fall asleep in the library. But I wonder on a cold, rainy day like today where I could go if I needed to rest.

Most congregations are not cool with a cold stranger coming to sleep in the pews. And since I'm directing my thoughts towards what it feels like to be a part of the working poor, I can really see how having spaces to rest and refresh before work would be vital to survival. If I was truly homeless I would do whatever it took to keep my job, since that would be my quickest way to eventually be able to acquire shelter.

Since, yesterday morning I was in New York I also wonder about that promise on the Statue of Liberty telling the tired huddled masses that they could come and be free. I also wish that promise would have included keeping them safe, warm and feed.

Somehow all these jumbled thoughts bring me back to the image of the dry bones. The promise that God can breathe life into weary bones and revive them is something I ardently pray for today. May the God who promises justice provide hope and strength to the wet ones in San Francisco.

I hope you and your family are dry and safe this beautiful Saturday.

I leave you with this image of Kay (a retired Unitarian Universalist pastor) that I'm on retreat with. Today at Glide, we ate breakfast together. And her sense of humor made me smile. I was glad that she could bring that Franciscan sense of the fool to our meal.

Location:Grove St,San Francisco,United States

Day One: 95 theses on poverty

Today, was day one of my working street retreat. If you haven't read my previous blog, I'm working during my retreat this year to bring attention to the growing number of working poor in the United States. And since it is the week before Reformation Sunday, I'm also incorporating a reformation theme into my writing and meditations throughout the week.

My writings below are certainly not all theses, complete sentences or even statements. Some are questions, some are bits of thoughts and some may not even be that important. But there are 95, which is a lot harder that I thought it would be.

I hope it captures your attention enough to want to read my Reformation week blogging about my life living on the streets for 7 days and 7 nights in San Francisco's Tenderloin. I'll post at least one blog each day from October 23-30. Be sure to hit "refresh" or "reload" on your browser each day to see the new blogs.

1) in addition to daily bread, all people ought to have access to healthy food
2) communion meals that offer crumbs to a hungry world, lack the nourishment of the original Eucharist meal
3) communion wafers are not food
4) food allergies were knit into us by God in our mother's womb. Failing to provide safe alternatives for those with wheat or grape allergies does harm to the body and soul.
4) communion that only has alcoholic wine, ignores the sin of addiction - a disease that the church has not found ways to adequately live with, create boundaries around and speak openly and honestly about
5) Matthew 25 tells us that when we see someone naked, we should clothe them. when we see someone hungry, we feed them, etc. This does not require a committee.
6) the same crisis that plagues our countries housing and mortgages, also plagues our churches - the number of churches whose life or death relies on their ability to afford their building or who are living solely of the income of their building is astounding.
7) all people deserve pastors, even people who cannot afford a church building, a home or to attend Synod or Churchwide Assemblies
8) if we live long enough we will all become disabled
9) as long as the poor cannot afford dental care (or the only dental care available only pulls teeth) and we shop at stores where only people with a full set of teeth work - we will always have an unemployable class of citizens in the US
10) Luther's last words were: "we are all beggars." Yet, begging is not allowed at ELCA gatherings (unless coming from videos or approved messages at a microphone)
11) if we were able to create 4 community gardens on unused church space, for free and grow more than 2,400 pounds of food in less than 8 months with all the unused lawn space around churches across the country, we could end hunger.
12) those who say it's better to show up and volunteer, than to write a check have never tried to raise money to fight poverty (p.s. you can send checks to Welcome, 1751 Sacramento St, San Francisco 94109 or donate online at www.sfwelcome.org).
13) socks (white ones with gray athletic toes and heals) are probably the only thing a person wouldn't sell to get something else
14) it is unjust that prison and war are often seen as better than living in poverty - and yet both lead to homelessness and unemployment
15) When Jesus' mom asks: "what's wrong with you? were you born in a barn?" Jesus answers: "yes." Perhaps that's why some of his most ardent followers are smelly, don't follow social convention and thus the church ought to have an open door policy.
16) if someone you loved knit you a scarf, you'd take care of it right? then how much more ought we take care of all the ones God knit in their mother's womb?
17) consider the lilies...
18) the greek word for dove is the same word as pigeon. If we imagined the Holy Spirit to be a pigeon (and overwhelmingly everywhere), would we still think justice had to wait for heaven?
19) education should be free for all - and teachers given a higher status in society.
20) the only solution to homelessness is housing.
21) are those with more money and power able to sin the most boldly and proclaim their beliefs more bolder still?
22) how much money and power do you have to have before you can be seen as enlightened for experiencing the same things that get others put in a mental hospital?
23) I wish Jesus would not have said: "the poor you will have with you always." What was that about? If only had had talking-points!
24) the practice of gleaning is now called stealing
25) more grain rots than is needed to feed all the hungry people in the world - in part because the US cannot figure out how to export it without it rotting at sea or get other countries to accept genetically altered crops.
26) The meek may inherit the earth, but those living in poverty need someone with a voice to not only call for justice, but to make it reign.
27) When we convince ourselves and others that the little that we can do to help end hunger or poverty is enough because it is the best we can do, we are lying to ourselves... at least I am.
28) No matter how much money you make, there is still no way you can pay enough to experience how much better food tastes when you grow it yourself - unless you actually grow it yourself.
29) only when we stop believing that those living in poverty or in homelessness must "earn" food, shelter or compassion, will we (as a society) fulfill our ability to feed, shelter and have compassion for all.
30) Just because we have no fair formula of making reparations (I'm not even talking monetarily) to the native Americans, former slaves, abused individuals, interned Japanese, and countless, endless list of others - doesn't mean we shouldn't try, or that we can justify racist economic systems.
31) God moves without seconds and I don't recall God ever giving prophets the opportunity to vote before prophesying.
32) I am so privileged to know when my time of living on the streets will begin and end (Oct. 23-30)
33) 95 theses is a lot, good for you for continuing to read these. I hope you'll add to the comments below to add the theses that I forgot.
34) this week I heard someone wonder why food pantries gave out canned foods but no can openers. how many other ways is the food we try to share unconsumable?
35) Bonhoeffer believed that if we all ate at the same table, there would be no hunger because we would share and wouldn't be able to eat if the others around us were going with out. He's right. But, this generation would have to reverse a lot of its individualistic trends in order to pull of large banquets.
36) are people more likely to eat unhealthy food when it is expensive (and prestigious) or when it is cheap and the only thing many can afford.
37) if you are watering anyway - would you rather the water feed grass or people (through a produce garden). Though we should remember gardens require much less water than lawns.
38) How much effort would you go to for a meal with someone beloved to you who is departed? Then why not go through that much effort when you eat with Jesus (ie when you eat with one of the "least).
39) if you give less money to organizations that feed the homeless during lean times, they will have less money when they have more work to do than normal. What if you're boss paid you that way?
40) why do we assume something is wrong with people who don't want to follow our rules. Are we more interested in protecting people or rules?
41) How much food do you throw away each week because it spoils in the fridge, it's inconvenient to carry/save or simply because you can.
42) If you are someone seeking to hear the voice of God. Know that if you succeed, you could be diagnosed as mentally ill.
43) What if people were paid based for the wear and tear on their bodies as a part of their salaries. Not simply the stress of working on the job, but when we know a job causes cancer, breaks backs, kills, or scars shouldn't we compensate people in the same way that people are charged for damage on a rental car?
44) salt is salty, except for when it's not salty. salt. (a joke for those who read biblical greek and wonder what Jesus is talking about in the strange section about salt in the Gospel of Mark).
45) three things are true: death; taxes and it's really hard to find a public restroom if you look poor in San Francisco.
46) poverty is a state of mind.
47) I'm thinking about Sojourn Truth. She was so moving a preacher that no one believed she was female. Reports are that she flashed her breasts to disprove the charge. The surprise that women can be powerful justice advocates, is silly. After all an overwhelming number of the participants in all the Great Awakenings were always women.
48) There is also of course the famous Timothy text encouraging young folk to speak out. We often say that the youth are ahead of their time. Why don't we instead say that older folk are behind the times. I say the answer is somewhere in the middle. Young folk need the wisdom of those who have lived through the latest trends and older folk need younger folk to uncomfortable and unretire them.
49) voting can never resolve -ism's (racism, sexism, heterosexism, ageism, classism, etc), yet not voting entrenches -ism's.
50) If law is on the side of business, and helping the poor is not profitable, how can we ever expect the law to be on the side of helping the poor if we do not seek to change the laws?
51) we ought to pray for what we have done and left undone around issues of poverty.
52) why are we so much better at responding to global poverty as a country than homelessness and hungry within the US?
53) why do the excuses about not being able to help the homeless and hungry always start with sentences about the safety of children? Particularly, since 1 in 4 children go hungry in the US each day. In your childhood think of the number of times you were hurt by a random stranger. Now, how many times were you hurt by family and friends? The overwhelming majority of crimes come from the 2nd group.
54) If you had infinite amounts of money what would you buy? Would you buy for yourself first or those with the "least"? How much would you give away?
55) rain, rain go away. Don't come back until after my street retreat is over!
56) If we demanded universal access to mental health care - care that was holistic and not only based on psychology, one of the biggest barriers between the homeless and finding a true home would be lifted.
57) If it was true that people would not work if everyone was given equal pay, why is it so hard for retired people to stop working?



58) A man knocked on the door of Old First Presbyterian Church, after being turned away from 7 other churches. The secretary listened and learned he wanted to do work at the church in exchange for a place to live. Some of the wealthiest members of the congregation let him live with them while he died of AIDS. Turns out he invented the style of painting with stencils above and painted on church ceilings all over Italy. The painting is now the symbol of the church. How many churches have lost what could possibly redefine them, by not listening to the stranger at the front door?
59) Read Bernie Glassman's Bearing Witness. It guides the street retreats that I go on with the Faithful Fools.
60) Last time I was on a rainy street retreat, I heard a man in the Glide food line say: "forty days and forty nights of rain, I can barely stand three."
61) When we pray for daily bread, who do we think will actually provide the bread. Not just on a spiritual level, but on a physical level?
62) In California bottles and cans are guaranteed to be worth actual cents. Despite paying a fee when buying drinks, most people throw the cans away or recycle them from their home rather than redeeming the money back that they paid for the can or bottle. This means people are literally throwing away money. When others without money try to take the money out of the recycling bins, they can be charged with stealing. So, we literally live in a society where people have a legally protected right to throw away their money and those without money are asked to watch others throw away money and do nothing to improve their lives. Makes no cents to me.
63) How much does it cost to attend your church? Think about: the type of clothes you must wear; how much you have to put in the offering to not have people look at you; the cost of remembering someone through the flowers; the kind of job required for a position on the council; the cost of going on the yearly retreat or on a youth trip; etc.
64) How often do you pray for the homeless away from church?
65) Would you be able to ask for help before it's too late? Many of the homeless (particularly the seniors) I work with cannot avoid time living on the streets. Often times there are options that they can access to avoid life on the streets (I'm talking about preventing homelessness), but by the time the individual comes to me it's too late to do anything because they waited too long to ask for help.
66) Would you rather sleep on the streets or in a shelter? On the streets you're vulnerable to the elements and to hooligans. In the shelter you live with people with mental illness and trauma and always feel confused by staff who frequently change the rules and yell at you.
67) How much would you spend to prevent a family member from becoming homeless? Do they know that? Would they ever ask you for help?
68) At most churches I go to I hear the stories of people who have children with severe mental illness or drug addiction who have or are currently experiencing homeless. There are also a good number of people who have been homeless for a time when they lived in a car, on the streets or on someone else's couch. If you don't know anyone at your church with these experience, I wonder why your church is not the kind of place people feel comfortable sharing these parts of their lives.
69) There is no "right" thing to do when someone begs you for money. Do what you think is best, then hope for a day when you can do more.
70) The disciples had to take nothing with them and stay in the homes of the first house they saw. Would you have let them stay with you if they knocked on your door?
70) The amount of money it costs for one night in a medium priced hotel could be used to feed 300 people. Consider a staycation - where you vacation in your own home or at friends/relatives house and donate the money you would have spent on the hotel to a homeless/hungry program.
71) If you do stay in hotels, collect the toiletries that come each day and donate them to homeless programs. They are the perfect size for the for the homeless and organizations are always running out.
72) One of the most exhausting parts of my street retreats is the back pain.
73) The Canticle of the Turning (a fantastic hymn) has a line that makes me cry every time: the hungry power will weep no more for the food they can never earn. There are tables spread, every mouth is fed, for the world is about to turn."
74) Mark 6:23 - "You Feed Them" This commandment from Jesus comes before questions about resources. And even then, the commandment remains along with the expectation that people will be fed.
75) In the greek, the word "minister to" and "feed" is the same, at least for modern translators who translate the word "koinonia." Typically this is part of sexist translating as the same used talking about men is translated "minsters" and when talking about women is translated "feeds." If we get rid of the sexism we have a great example of how evangelism and ministry require us and always have something to do with physically feeding people.
76) There are 3 times in the Gospel of Mark that Jesus miraculously feeds people. The number of people fed gets lower each time (from 5,000 to 4,000 to just the disciples in the boat), yet even with less to do the disciples think feeding people is impossible. Perhaps this problem still exists in some churches today.
77) Money doesn't grow on trees, but food does.
78) In San Francisco it is against the law to sleep in your car, but not to sleep on the sidewalk in front of your car.
79) It is my experience that when I finally have the courage to ask for the help that I need that people typically thank me fore asking for help and then do the best they can to help me. Yet, my perception is that if I ask for help it is a burden on others. I wonder where I learned that?
80) Poverty is as poverty does.
81) FDR said that we should seek not for an end to wars, but to an end of the beginning of wars. I wish we could do the same for homelessness.
82) In the Jewish tradition, individuals get mitzvah's or blessings for doing good deeds (among other things). However, the idea is not that you do a mitzvah for the sake of others. Rather, that it is a gift to the one doing the deed to do it.
83) Current political ads talk about "entitlements" and budget slashing like it is a way to balance books and has no effects on real lives. It's hard to believe people would put on tv the fact that they thing elders and the disabled should receive less than minimal funds they get that barely provide for safe housing.
84) If you only had $25 every 2 weeks, as those on General Assistance in San Francisco do, what would you eat? Consider that you may need to buy things other than food (like tampons, ladies?).
85) What would Jesus buy?
86) Many homeless people have foot problems because they leave their shoes and socks on 24/hrs a day - to prevent them from getting stolen.
87) The best book of the Bible to ready when you are angry at God for all the injustice in the world, is Isaiah.
88) Then, you should read Job to be reminded that God is God, and we are not.
89) More than any other group, Jesus says that the prostitutes will go to heaven before us.
90) I like the parable of the lost coin as a metaphor for God's care and salvation. I also like it because it is God who did the losing, not anything we did. A coin cannot lose itself. The message is that even if it was true that God outcast someone, that God is one who changes and grows (like us I hope) and will search and search for God's precious lost ones.
91) If you still are uninterested in helping the homeless or those in poverty, I wonder what it would take. What if I said: pretty please?
92) Neither death nor life, nor things present, nor things to come, can ever separate us from the love of God ... and yet we let so many tiny things separate us from our neighbor.
93) Yes, I know that sleeping on the streets, particularly in the rain is bad for my health. But more than 4300 other folk will also be sleeping on the streets in San Francisco tonight. And I bet you care more than you ever did before, because you know me (in real life or virtually). I spend most of my time as a pastor affirming people and helping them heal. This week I hope to provoke you into feeling deeply for those you may rarely think about the rest of the year.
94) Food is a human right.
95) It is not possible to leave poverty if you are not allowed your dignity.

Location:Out on the rainy streets of San Francisco