Homelessness

When Sarah Darling dropped some change into a homeless man's cup, she didn't notice anything amiss. But she quickly realized that her diamond engagement ring was missing. Turns out, panhandler Billy Ray Harris noticed it in his cup right away, and held onto it. When Sarah came back the next day, he had it waiting for her.

As a reward for his honesty, Sarah gave him all the cash she had on her, and then set up a site for receiving donations from strangers wanting to help reward Harris' honesty. The site has received an overwhelming response. Along with the money, Harris is getting legal and financial counsel to help him use it well.

And that’s not all: After he made a TV appearance about the incident, his family members, who had not been able to find him for 16 years and had heard rumors that he was dead, were able to track him down. They were happily reunited, and Harris is now working on his relationship with them.

Harris said, “When I think of the past, I think, thank God it’s over. I mean, I feel human now.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Sometimes, honesty pays off, but sometimes our honesty may only be for our "Father who sees in secret." (Matt. 6:1-4)

Lack of transportation is an obstacle many homeless people face in rural areas without public buses as well as in big cities designed for cars. Without a bicycle or a friend with a vehicle, the homeless are stranded, sometimes unable to pick up prescriptions, go to food pantries, or hold down a job.

Enter Roberta Harmon, a street minister recognizable by her white heart-shaped glasses and fiery red hair who fixes up old bicycles for homeless people who need them to get to jobs. Harmon has given out roughly 1,000 bikes. She has also worked with volunteer mechanics for eight years—scavenging rummage sales and garbage bins on bulk pickup days and building bikes with salvaged parts. The police department also donates lost or unclaimed bicycles it recovers to her.

Harmon said, “We realized that people could get a ride to the interview but then once they got the job, the rides dried up. So how were they supposed to keep their jobs?”

She learned her mechanic skills on YouTube and from growing up poor; in a pinch, she will substitute lip balm for grease, and nest a small tire inside a larger one with screws in it for do-it-yourself snow tires. Her latest project: refurbishing trashed lawn mowers in hopes of starting a landscaping company that can employ people who are unhoused.

“I don’t want to help you stay in a pit,” said Harmon, who adds that many anti-poverty organizations aren’t effective.

In a 2019 PBS documentary America Lost, filmmaker Christopher Rufo explores the devastating plight of three of America's forgotten cities: Youngstown, Ohio; Memphis, Tennessee; and Stockton, California. In a YouTube video, he describes a successful men's ministry in Stockton.

Pastor Jereme of the Men's Recovery Home is shown speaking to a man on the street:

We gotta let go of some of those old ways and those old habits, you know what I mean? I know I was there bro. I ran away from home when I was 15 years old. I was living on the streets. I was gang banging. I was getting high, shooting dope. Doing my thing man, running while carrying a gun. You know I was messed up. I was a hurting man. I didn't know any other way until somebody just like this actually handed me a flyer from Victory Outreach.

I said, “God can change your life” and at that moment I was at a point where I was tired. I was tired of the way I was living. I said “Man what do I have to do?” I was ready to make a change. We got a Christian recovery home for men. It's an intense program to help you get your life together.

Pastor Jereme narrates:

Everybody has a story. Could be through drugs. It could be through abuse. It could be through violence. Our families are broken down, our communities are broken down, people's lives are broken down. They're devastated. That's why this ministry is here. We want to let people know that they're not in a hopeless situation. That as long as they're breathing there's hope.

‘The people that come into our church, they come in hurting. They come in empty. They come in broken. They come in in need of a miracle. In need of a healing. A need of somebody loving them. And that's the beginning of the process. If we can affect a person, we can affect the community. We can affect the city. We can affect the world.’

You can watch the clip here (56 min, 36 sec – 60 min, 31 sec).

When James Free looked inside the donation bin, he saw something that he normally sees: a pair of shoes. Free was volunteering with Portland Rescue Mission, the organization that helped him to stabilize and get back on his feet after a season of addiction and houseless living. In his role helping to sort donated goods, he’d seen many pairs of shoes come through the bin. But these shoes looked different. They looked special.

It turns out, they were. They were a pair of limited-edition gold-colored Air Jordan IIIs, which were specially designed at the request of film director Spike Lee to celebrate his first televised Oscar win at the Academy Awards in 2019. Somehow, someone at Nike’s global headquarters in nearby Beaverton, got a pair of these rare shoes, and instead of keeping them or selling them, donated them to Portland Rescue Mission.

After Free saw the shoes, he alerted director of staff ministries Erin Holcomwb, who reached out to some local sneakerhead experts who could help authenticate their value. Eventually Holcomb reached out to Nike designer Tinker Hatfield, who donated an original box and several other design artifacts to complete and legitimize the shoes as a collector’s item. In their final more glorified form, Holcomb personally escorted the shoes to New York, where they could be authenticated and auctioned off by the luxury auction firm Sotheby’s.

Holcomb said, “In my seventeen years of working at the mission, this is the first time we’ve ever decided to resell a donation.” She says those Air Jordans are a great metaphor for the work they do at the mission: helping people rediscover themselves as incalculable treasures of humanity, despite having been discarded or overlooked by others.

The shoes eventually sold for more than $50,000, which was donated to the mission to continue their work. Hatfield said, “I’m thrilled the shoes ended up here. It’s a happy ending to a really great project.”

In 1989 [in Los Angeles], Mother Teresa visited some homeless Latino men living in a church-sponsored shelter program. Mother Teresa expressed the hope that people in Los Angeles would find housing, food, and work for these men.

Someone asked if she realized that it was against the law for American citizens to employ illegal aliens or offer them shelter. Mother Teresa replied, "Is it not breaking the law of God to keep them on the streets?"

Tori Petersen grew up in the foster care system where she absorbed a message that she was worthless. Although the rules were strict, she was allowed to go to church which gave some relief from a sterile group-home environment. She writes:

The pastor’s messages about forgiveness gave me the first stirrings of hope I could remember. I even asked Jesus into my heart, though I didn’t understand what that entailed. I only went up to the altar because I thought that I’d find relief from the pain of foster care and the continual sense of feeling unwanted.

As she moved through a succession of foster homes, her heart grew increasingly callous toward God and other people. Her peers would poke fun at her, saying she had “daddy issues.” At the time, Tori “believed having a father would solve lots of my problems. Perhaps someone would have been there to love me. If God was so good, I couldn’t help wondering, then why hadn’t he granted me a father?”

During many lunch periods, she enjoyed secluding herself in the English teacher’s classroom. For one of her art classes, she received permission to paint a mural on his wall. While she painted, they talked. He never shied away from a good debate or hard questions.

Tori said, “One day he asked if I believed in God. I replied that I didn’t. From my perspective, it seemed like people claimed belief in God due to social consensus more than any genuine faith.” I asked, “If most people in society didn’t believe in God, would people still believe in God?”

He paused for a long time, and then responded, “I don’t know.” She appreciated his candor, which was rare among the Christians she had known. Instead of telling her what (and how) to believe, he admitted he didn’t have all the answers.

My teacher’s honest admission of uncertainty encouraged me to start asking more questions, because deep in my heart I was searching for the Father I’d always yearned for. My heart was so drawn to the character of Jesus that I posted a YouTube video asking people to forgive me for being a mean and angry person.

Around the same time, a youth leader she’d barely seen since junior high reentered her life. She began asking her and her foster mom questions about God, which they answered patiently and kindly. Tori said, “The one question I couldn’t shake revolved around innocent children: If God is so good, then why do they suffer? All they could answer was, ‘I don’t know.’”

I didn’t know either. But I did know that when I looked at Scripture, I saw a God who didn’t shy away from pain but embraced it so that others would know love. And when I looked at the lives of those who most reminded me of Jesus, I could see how they had sacrificed on my behalf. I didn’t want to waste their suffering, or my own, but I wanted to receive it all as a gift—as a call to love others as they had loved me.

My salvation did not happen in a single grand moment, but through small miracles that gradually chipped away at the scales of skepticism. I saw God more clearly the more time I spent around people who pursued godliness, who told me who I was in Christ despite what I’d done and what had been done to me.

In the end, the father I’d always wanted turned out to be the Father who was always there, the Father who revealed himself to me in his own perfect timing.

When Gustavo Alvarez lost his home in Los Angeles, there was a bitter irony that added insult to his travail. The fire that consumed his home started in a homeless encampment behind his home. Initially, insurance payments made it possible for Alvarez to move his family into an apartment while the home could be rebuilt. But the temporary housing benefits only lasted six months, which left Alvarez with nowhere near enough time or money to complete his home renovation.

Alvarez told The Los Angeles Times, “We are saving up to fix the house. But the $1,400 of rent for our temporary home has been an added expense. My wife is working at a clothing store to make up for some of it … You work day and night for years to build something and it is gone in a matter of hours.”

When Jessica Lawson read Alvarez’ newspaper story, she was moved to act. Lawson is a disaster recovery program manager for Habitat for Humanity in the greater LA area, so she reached out. Lawson said, “I knew we had the power to help. Wouldn’t it be cool if we could actually help the family?”

And help they did. Because of Lawson’s intervention, Habitat was able to offer Alvarez a loan with highly favorable terms that would help him finish his home. After reviewing damage estimates from a general contractor, the work was done quickly, enabling Alvarez to move back in a few months’ time.

Some come with track marks from years of drug abuse. Others come with children in tow. Some are struggling through a bad week. Others, a bad decade. All bring their dirty laundry. They wash it and dry it for free at church-run laundry services throughout the United States. “Christ said we should feed the hungry and clothe the naked, and I think those clothes should be clean,” said Catherine Ambos, a volunteer at one such ministry in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

Churches have been washing clothes across the US since at least 1997, when a minister at First United Methodist Church of Arlington, Texas, started doing a circuit around the city’s coin-operated laundries, passing out change. There may well have been others before this. Today, these ministries exist across the country, run by churches of all traditions and sizes.

Belmont Baptist Church in Charlottesville, Virginia, has one of the older laundromat ministries still running. The church started helping people clean their clothes in 2010, when pastor Greg Anderson heard through another ministry that poor people in homeless shelters and long-term-stay motels would regularly throw away their clothes.

Anderson said, “It was just easier to go and get new clothes at a clothing-center type of ministry as opposed to being able to launder them.” The church decided to install five washers and dryers in a building on its property and open a laundromat. Today, volunteers estimate that they save people upwards of $25,000 per year. This is money they didn’t have, or if they did, they could now spend on food, gas, or medicine.

19.25 million US households are without a washing machine.

38% of US households earn less than $50,000 per year.

While Colin Farrell was in Toronto promoting a film, he befriended a homeless man called Stress. Stress told the Irish actor that he was struggling with depression and alcohol and he didn’t know how to straighten out his life. Farrell said he would check on him soon to make sure he was getting better.

Several days later, a local radio station offered listeners $2,000 if they could get Colin Farrell to come in for a chat. When Farrell heard this, he located Stress and headed to the radio station, pretending that Stress had found him. As a result, the station gave Stress the $2,000 reward.

Four years later, Farrell found himself in Toronto again and decided to meet up with Stress again. This time, Farrell took him on a shopping spree and gave him rent money. Farrell made him join an addiction recovery group. Years later, Stress (who now goes by his real name, David Woods) made a full recovery and got a roof over his head. Woods said he would’ve been completely lost if it wasn’t for Farrell’s intervention.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Jesus said, “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor …” (Luke 4:18). He calls us to follow in his footsteps—bringing good news to the poor, setting the captives free.

Through its constellation of tiny homes, The Chandler Boulevard Bridge Home Village has brought opportunity and vitality to 41 residents of North Hollywood.

Jolinn Bracey is one such resident, and she’s grateful for the changes she’s already experienced. She said, "This has given me a place to reconfigure myself. It put me back into the practice of being consistent in the normal things that you do. It grounds you."

Though Bracey’s home is only 64 square feet, it has a bed, racks for clothing, air conditioning (a must-have in southern California), and a feature that most of us take for granted: a front door with a lock. Bracey said, "It's the first time in a long time that I don't feel like someone is going to come up on me.”

Residents are fed three meals a day and have access to showers, both of which are tremendously rejuvenating after going without. Rowan Vansleve, president of the nonprofit that operates Chandler, said, "It's really humbling to say, 'I can't feed myself. I can't house myself. I can't get a hot shower.’ We do everything we can to make this site welcoming. We call it the 'Love Club.’”

Bracey has plans to move into an apartment, just a few blocks away from the parking garage where she used to sleep in her car. She is also two classes away from completing an associate’s degree program at a local community college. She hopes to use her education to eventually help other Chandler residents. "I just want to help everybody not go through what I went through."

Possible Preaching Angle:

When we serve the poor and help those without homes get into stable housing, we're helping to live out the compassion of Jesus, who publicly identified with the downtrodden and the destitute as part of his ministry.

Kenneth and Adi Martinez immigrated to the United States from Mexico in 2011. When given the opportunity to help a family of four who recently fled Afghanistan, they jumped at the chance. Kenneth said, “We know exactly what it feels like to come to a brand-new county with no family or anything,"

The government expects tens of thousands of Afghan refugees will come to the United States over the next year, and resettlement agencies are working with organizations and individuals like Kenneth and Adi to help the refugees find housing.

Kenneth, Adi, and their two small children live in the Seattle area, and offered their spare bedroom to the family from Afghanistan. Over the last month, they have been getting to know one another, with the adults cooking and the kids playing together. Kenneth said, “We are happy that we can help.”

Before her death in January 2020, Cathy Boone had been living on the streets for years, struggling with drug abuse and mental illness. But for her father, Jack Spithill, said the tragedy was multiplied tenfold by the revelation that she died without collecting any of the inheritance she was due after her mother’s death, an amount that totaled over $900,000.

Her father said, “It just didn’t make any sense to me. That money was just sitting there, and she needed help in the worst way. I think my failure to recognize her mental health issues. I kind of gave up on her because of the drugs and I shouldn’t have done that.”

Spithill said that after he lost touch with Boone, he was unsure if she even knew she was entitled to an inheritance, or if so, how to go about collecting. Court records say that after her mother died, estate representatives tried to contact Boone via phone and email, spoke to other family members, sent her messages via Facebook, and even ran ads in the newspaper … to no effect. They even hired a private investigator, but came up empty.

That Boone was entitled to any sort of money was news to those who knew her best. “She was a special person as far as I’m concerned,” said Donny Holder, a friend who shared cigarettes and coffee with Boone at the local McDonald’s. “She was a sweetheart … I fell in love with her.”

Local public guardian Chris Rosin says Boone might’ve gotten help if the court could’ve established her inability to care for herself, but added it’s a steep benchmark to clear without criminal charges or urgent medical needs. Johnathan Kvale, another friend with similar struggles said, “We’re not just statistics. These are good folks. It’s just circumstances.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

1) Inheritance - Regardless of anyone's earthly circumstances, if they put their faith in Christ and receive the gift of salvation, they have an eternal inheritance. 2) Body of Christ; Caring – As members of the church, we should all be willing to pay special attention to the helpless whom God brings into our lives.

Dr. Emily McGowin, assistant professor of theology, at Wheaton College writes:

When I taught high school, one of my favorite assignments was having my ninth-graders write their own Beatitudes. I asked them to speak to people the world might consider "unblessable." Here are a few:

-Blessed are drug addicts and felons, people who try everything but still buckle under the pressure of their past lives and can never get back on their feet, for even they belong in the Kingdom of God.

-Blessed are the orphans and foster children of the world because they are exactly who God wants in his Kingdom.

-Blessed are the homeless because the Kingdom of God belongs to them too.

-Blessed are the abusers who take out their anger on the weak, for even they can repent and receive the Kingdom of God." (This particular student was abused by a parent and removed from the home because of it.)

While young Cheyenne was trying to transition out of homelessness at 16, the child welfare agency told her that finding a foster home would be unlikely. In the province of Ontario, around a thousand teenagers age out of the foster care system every year without being placed in a foster family.

Four years later, Cheyenne beat the odds when she was adopted by Shannon Culkeen, the woman who’d been serving as her mentor. For years Shannon and Cheyenne had kept in touch and celebrated several milestones together, including Cheyenne’s high school graduation and her first pow-wow honoring her Ojibwe heritage. But it wasn’t until Shannon applied to become a first-time foster parent that she began to wonder about formalizing their relationship. When asked if she had any other children, and she realized, “I think maybe I do.”

Cheyenne has since legally added the Culkeen surname to hers, and has court documents to prove that they are now legally related. That was the culmination of two years of process, which started when Shannon took Cheyenne on a long drive to make the ask. Shannon said, “I didn't want to put any pressure on her. But in the end, I sort of freaked her out because we were driving, and I just kept on driving further and further because I couldn't spit it out. It's like proposing, but for parenthood.”

But for Cheyenne, “It was 'yes' right off the bat." She’s taken comfort from Shannon’s consistent presence. She said, “Someone has faith in me to do the right thing and will also still be there even if I don't. It's not like I'm doing anything out of fear of losing her."

Shannon’s motivation was simple. "I don't think it's ever too late to make a family.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

The gospel of Jesus Christ is the good news of the lost being found and being brought into God’s family of faith and hope. When we practice adoption, we are mirroring the spirit of adoption that God has for all of us, no matter our earthly lineage.

Bus driver Natalie Barnes started talking with a passenger named Richard, who told her he had been homeless for a week, since the place where he had been living was condemned. When he asked if he could ride along for the night to stay out of the cold, she agreed. Barnes said in a blog post, “At some point in our lives, everybody needs help. I wanted to do what I could to help Richard in some way.”

At one point during her shift, she took a break and offered to get her passenger a bite to eat. Richard was touched by the gesture. He said, “Now I don’t know what to say but to say thank you,” and promised to pay her back somehow. She refused, saying, “I want to help you.” But one act of kindness wasn’t enough for Barnes. During another break, she reached out to a friend, who helped get Richard into a temporary shelter.

Barnes and Richard became friends during that six-hour bus ride. Now he has her cellphone number, and they keep in touch. She said, “We talk every couple of days and he thanks me every time he talks to me for helping him. He calls me his little guardian angel. I’m happy to say that he’s progressing well.”

Barnes has received three commendations for outstanding service since being hired by the MCTS two years ago. She regularly takes peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on the bus to share with people in need, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele praised Barnes in a ceremony: “Natalie’s kindness, compassion and respect for this man in need are what MCTS excellence is all about. Natalie demonstrated what we all need to do to fight homelessness: to look out for each other, to care for each other and to work together. I’m deeply grateful for Natalie’s actions.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Opportunities to serve others in the name of Christ are all around us. God will reward us even for the simplest of acts, such as offering a sandwich to a hungry person.

For over a decade, Greyhound Lines has partnered with the National Runaway Safeline--an organization that seeks to keep runaway and homeless youth safe--to reunite young people with their families and guardians. Since 1995, the Home Free program has helped over 16,000 families by providing free bus tickets, according to the National Runaway Safeline.

To get a free ticket home, a person between the ages of 12 and 21 must call the NRS helpline (1-800-RUNAWAY). They also must be named on a runaway report and be willing to return to their family. The family or guardian also needs to agree to receive them at home. If the individual hoping to return home is under the age of 15, Home Free also provides a free ticket for the child's parent or guardian.

Before a young person begins their journey home, National Runaway Safeline works with them and their guardians to create a plan for their return. It also locates resources in the community that will be able to provide support once they are settled. After the family is reunited, the group says it follows up to make sure the family member arrived home safely and provides additional resources.

James Charles decided that he wanted to help alleviate the problem of people without homes. Lacking access to any kind of large-scale shelter, Charles did the next best thing and used what he owned--a car dealership. In a Facebook post for his Kiplin Auto Group, Charles announced that he was offering up a safe space in his lot for people who need to sleep in their cars, promising an environment “free from disturbance, trespassing, harassment or worse.”

Charles said, “We know that some families are struggling and in a tough situation. Whole families sleeping in the car. You would say … (how about) the shelters? They are full guys. ... We can’t put everyone in a hotel, but we can get you a safe place for the night.”

Since the initial announcement and the media coverage it generated, Charles has received donations from others wanting to help. He started a GoFundMe campaign for the families staying on his lot, pledging to add $200 for every car sale.

Possible Preaching Angle:

To be the hands and feet of Jesus, we must see Him in others, particularly those in need, whom we are in a position to help.

Since 2013, Christian Canadian sculptor Timothy Schmalz has been placing a particular sculpture depicting a homeless man sleeping on a bench in cities across the globe. The life-size bronze statue appears to be anonymous with his face and hands hidden under a blanket, but the gaping wounds on his feet reveal that the person is actually Jesus.

Schmalz named the statue “Matthew 25”, in reference to a quote from that gospel—“Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”

Surprisingly, the statue has appeared in front of many churches that have shown extraordinary tolerance for the controversial sculpture. When it was installed at St. Alban's Episcopal Church in the middle of an upscale neighborhood in Davidson, North Carolina, one woman called the police. Another wrote a letter of complaint to the editor of a local newspaper. Many felt that it was an insult to the Son of God. Some churches have even refused to have the sculpture installed in front of their institution.

Rev. David Buck of St. Alban's Episcopal Church feels that the sculpture gives authenticity to their church. He says, “This is a relatively affluent church, and we need to be reminded ourselves that our faith expresses itself in active concern for the marginalized of society. We believe that that's the kind of life Jesus had. He was, in essence, a homeless person.”

Possible Preaching Angles: Homelessness; Poverty; Rejection – While on earth, there was no room for Jesus in the inn (Luke 2:7), he had no place to lay his head (Matthew 8:20), he was despised and rejected by men (Isaiah 53:3), and when was crucified his only possession was his clothing (Matthew 27:35). He now calls us to minister to the displaced and poor in his name (Matthew 25:40).

Bright, affable Jay’Veontae Hudson isn’t the typical student that one would associate with chronic homelessness. But his senior year will be his first at Portland’s Parkrose High School with a stable home situation.

As a middle schooler, his family situation prompted a sudden leave. After bouncing around with friends and family members alike, Hudson was constantly moving from place to place. Upon arriving at Parkrose, he got connected to the Gateway System. This is a district-mandated set of programs that help provide kids like him with the necessary resources they need. But still, he needed more help. “There was a place to go,” Hudson said, “but there was no place to live.”

One year, as spring break approached, he reached out to a friend. The friend put him in touch with an English teacher named Jacquelyn Meza, whose parents had some extra space. While Hudson stayed with her parents, Meza put more time and effort to find Hudson a more permanent situation.

Eventually, Hudson ended up staying with math teacher Tammy Stamp, who agreed to be a foster care provider. Now, instead of relying solely upon his own wits and resources, he has Stamp as another loving presence to help. Hudson said, “It’s weird because I’m used to being the only one responsible for myself. She buys all my toothpaste and floss now.”

Potential Preaching Angles: Being the hands and feet of Jesus means helping not only to meet spiritual and emotional needs, but also physical needs.

A San Diego father (who wants to be known as “Frank”) believed his son, a homeless, heroin addict living on the streets in Denver, was on the verge of dying. Frank contacted Chris Conner, one of Denver's leading homeless advocates. Conner has helped parents find their lost children, but this was different. Conner said, “I've never had a parent who necessarily went this far to descend into homelessness themselves.” Conner connected Frank with Pastor Jerry Herships, whose church serves lunch to homeless people in a Denver park across from the state capitol.

Frank described the moment he met his son on the street in Denver:

He has no idea that I'm walking towards him. I can see that he can't stand up without the support of a building. He would appear drunk to most people. To his dad, though, I know from past experience, sadly he's on heroin—heavy. I go up to him, and he starts to turn his back on me. I don't even care. I just grab him and squeeze him as hard as I can.

For a week, Frank became his son’s shadow, wandering the streets during the day and sleeping on the banks of a river at night. He grew a beard, ate hand-out sandwiches during the day, and swatted away the rats at night. Meanwhile, his son got sick, in and out of the hospital, stealing to buy more drugs. At one point, Frank told his son, “If you die, your mom and dad die with you. We might still be here breathing. But make no mistake, we'll be dead inside.”

When asked why he did it, Frank said, “The only thing I could think of was just go there, be with him and love him. Show him how much his family loves him.”