I’d like to begin with a story about a family who was part of a cultural exchange program. They were playing host to a rabbi from Russia at Christmastime. The family decided they wanted the rabbi to experience their favorite “distinctly American” restaurant: so they took him out for Chinese food!
All during the meal, the rabbi spoke excitedly about the wonders of our country in comparison to the bleak conditions in his homeland. When they finished eating, the waiter brought the check and presented each person with a small brass Christmas-tree ornament as a seasonal gift.
Everyone laughed when someone pointed out that the ornaments were stamped “Made in India.” But the laughter dropped off when they noticed that the rabbi was quietly crying. Concerned, they asked him if he was offended because he’d been given a gift for a Christian holiday.
He smiled, shook his head and said, “No. I was shedding tears of joy to be in such a place, in which a Buddhist gives a Jew a Christmas gift made by a Hindu!”
I tell that story because it captures the spirit fellowship between different religions we’ve come to know at Peter & Paul. We have volunteers and supporters from nearly every faith tradition. They come from Christian churches and Jewish synagogues; there are believers from Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism. When we come together, it’s not to argue theology and doctrine, but to serve our neighbor.
The faith tradition I was brought up in has two great commandments, and I’ve seen these principles lived out in every person of faith that I’ve met here…those commands are love of God and love of neighbor.
Love of God and love of neighbor. That’s what the past 25 years have been about. And it will continue to be the foundation for our next 25 years.
Critics of the current shelter system often label it as a band-aid approach to homelessness, and say that it should be done away with. But band-aids can be very helpful for certain wounds.
One of my favorite authors is Malcolm Gladwell. In 2000, he wrote a best seller called “The Tipping Point” in which he wrote:
“The phrase “Band-Aid solution” should not be considered a term of disparagement. The Band-Aid is an inexpensive, convenient, and remarkably versatile solution to an astonishing array of problems. In their history, Band-Aids have probably allowed millions of people to keep working or playing tennis or cooking or walking when they would otherwise have had to stop. The Band-Aid solution is actually the best kind of solution because it involves solving a problem with the minimum amount of effort and time and cost.”
I believe that the “Bank-Aid solution” of emergency shelter helps many people. About 75% of our shelter residents leave within one month. About 35% move out within a week. Many people need just a little help to get back on their feet.
Chronic wounds, on the other hand, require different care – which has led us to newer concepts, like the Safe Haven that we’ll talk about his evening.
Last year, Malcolm Gladwell wrote a piece in The New Yorker called “Million-Dollar Murray” in which he notes
research that shows that 10% of people who are homeless are chronically homeless…those who live on the streets or in shelter, sometimes for years at a time. They are mentally ill or physically disabled, often abusers of alcohol or drugs. The research shows that this 10% of the homeless population consumes 50% of the resources used by homeless people.
They personify what most people think about when we talk about homelessness as a social problem… sleeping on the sidewalk, aggressively panhandling, huddled on heating grates or under bridges.
Many people who are mentally ill began dealing with their illness when they were teenagers. Can you imagine what it must be like to be 18 or 19 or 20 years old and begin hearing voices in your head that you cannot control? I don’t know if I’ll ever understand fully understand it. One shelter resident explained it to me as a kind of storm that comes over him sometimes. He never knows when it will come…and he feels totally out of control.
About 15 years ago I had just a sliver of insight of what it must feel like. I was watching the Grammy Awards on TV, and Billy Ray Cyrus…you may remember him as a country singer, but he’s better known today as Hanna Montana’s dad… He was performing his classic, Achy Breaky Heart. Now I’m not a huge fan of country music… but that song stuck with me and repeated itself again and again in my head for days. I couldn’t get away from it! It finally went away, but it was no fun while it lasted.
With that tiny glimpse of what schizophrenia must be like, I began to understand why a teenager would turn to alcohol or even drugs to try to quiet those voices… no disrespect to Mr. Cyrus.
Malcolm Gladwell’s article told the story of Murray Barr. Murray was a Marine Corps veteran who lived on the street for at least 15 years. If you could look up “chronic homelessness” in the dictionary, you would find Murray’s picture there.
The police officers who got to know Murray remember his wonderful smile, even though he was missing most of his teeth. They did what they could to help him. They remember a time a few years ago when Murray got into a treatment program, and he thrived. He got a job as a cook and he worked hard. He stopped drinking. He showed up for work religiously. He was in the program long enough to save over $6,000.
He did so well, they told him “Congratulations!” and graduated him from the program. And he ended up back on the street. He spent that $6,000 in a week or so. Without a stable home base, without guidance, without a structured environment, without someone to report to, he relapsed.
When Gladwell interviewed the police officers, they told him that they spend half their time dealing with people like Murray. They were as much caseworkers as police officers. And they knew they weren’t the only ones involved.
Out of curiosity, the officers tracked Murray’s usage of services. They looked at the cost of police time, time spent in jail and in the court system for petty offenses, the cost of ambulance trips and emergency room visits and hospital stays. What they discovered was that, over the 15 years he was homeless, it cost the community over one million dollars to not do something about Murray.
Picture for yourself what it would be like to be Murray. Imagine for a moment that you have been homeless for years. What have you learned in that time? You discover quickly that life on the street can be dangerous. You’ve been beaten and robbed several times over the years. In order to survive, you have learned it’s better not to trust other people. You start to walk around trying to look angry and hostile, just so other people will leave you alone. Pretty soon you’re really feeling that way. Then, when you do get into a shelter, you’re labeled as having an attitude problem, and so you quickly find yourself back out on the street. You’ve lost any faith that the system can help you. Now you’re in a downward spiral that you don’t know how to stop.
What you need is time and the patience of caring people, both professionals and ordinary everyday people. People who can help you learn to deal with your mental illness and your addiction. People who won’t dismiss you when you act out; people who understand that recovery from addiction is a process and that you may fall off the wagon more than once; people who help you feel like you belong.
So what have we learned? We’ve learned to pay more attention and devote more resources to those who are most in need, not just because it’s the right thing to do, but because in the long run it saves us money! We’ve learned that providing permanent housing for a person who is chronically homeless, and offering them supportive services like substance abuse counseling, occupational therapy and nursing care… costs less in the long run than if they continue to live on the street, interacting with the criminal justice system and getting their health care through the emergency room.
And it has the added benefit of providing them with a better quality of life.
In 2005, St. Louis City and County jointly developed a Ten Year Plan to End Chronic Homelessness. One of the key pieces of the plan is to open 6 Safe Havens.
This is why you’ve been reading in our newsletter about our plans for a future Safe Haven. A Safe Haven is permanent, supportive housing for this chronically homeless population…a population Peter & Paul has been serving since 1981 through our emergency shelter and transitional programs.
By their nature, shelters often house large numbers of people. Many people who are mentally ill have difficulty dealing with lots of people and activity. A Safe Haven is limited to 25 people, and each person has a private bedroom. There is a balance of community activity and personal space…something we all need for our own mental health.
Some shelters require that you stay sober. Some will not accept a mentally ill client if they are not on medication. A Safe Haven is a low-demand environment. The first goal is to get the most challenging people off the street. It’s not required that they take medication, or completely stop drinking. Those are certainly goals, but they’re long-term goals that will take time…and patience.
How do we know this will work? Because it’s been tried in a number of places around the country with great success. It has been shown that once a person has a steady roof over his or her head, they begin to believe that the system can work for them. They begin to trust that the staff really wants to help them, and is not putting up barriers to their success. Once they see that their homelessness is resolved, they begin to make more positive choices in their life.
Why would their choices change? I got the answer to that question once from a mentally ill resident of our Labre Center when he told me “I may be crazy, but I’m not stupid!” His point was, that like all of us, homeless people, even mentally ill, chronically homeless people, want good things for their lives. When they see that they have a support system in place, when they attain a measure of stability in their lives, when they see that downward spiral bottom out and start to move back upward, they begin to have hope, and they want to do what they can to see that continue.
In the end, it helps to realize that we are all broken …every single one of us…and yet we walk around pretending that we’re not.
We’ve always felt that part of the mission of Peter & Paul Community Services is to break down the lines of separation between US and THEM…between those who are homeless and those who have houses…to bring people together and help them get to know one another.
Jim Wallis is a Christian minister who travels the country speaking to groups about a faith-based response to poverty. He says when he asks people what they remember of Jesus sayings about those who are poor, he always, always hears the same response…They shout out “The poor you shall always have with you.”
And when he asks them what that means, people tend to use it as an excuse. “The poor you shall always have with you” gets translated as “There is nothing we can do about poverty, and people who are poor will always be there, so why bother?”
The quote is from Mark’s Gospel: “For you always have the poor with you, and you can show kindness to them whenever you wish; but you will not always have me.”
But it’s only the first part that people remember, not the part about being kind to the poor.
The other thing they miss is where Jesus is when he says this. Jesus was at Bethany, in the house of Simon the leper. Jesus and his disciples were at the table with a leper – the worst outcast of his society.
Jesus is saying, in effect, Look, “you will always have the poor with you” because you are my disciples. You know who we spend our time with, who we share meals with, who listens to our message, who we focus our attention on. You’ve been watching me and you know what my priorities are. So if you follow me, you will always be near those who are poor, you’ll always be with them, and you’ll always have opportunities to share with them.
I’d like to close with a story from about 100 years ago. A mother wanted to encourage her young son to learn an instrument, so she took her boy to a concert by the famous pianist, Paderewski. As they got to their seats, the mother spotted an old friend in the audience and walked down the aisle to greet her.
The little boy took the opportunity to go exploring, and eventually explored his way right through a door marked "NO ADMITTANCE."
When the house lights dimmed and the concert was about to begin, the mother returned to her seat and saw that the child was missing. Suddenly, the curtains parted and spotlights focused on the Steinway grand piano on stage. The mother panicked when she saw her little boy sitting at the keyboard, innocently plinking out "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star."
At that moment, the great piano master made his entrance, quickly moved to the piano, and whispered in the boy's ear, "Don't quit. Keep playing."
Then, leaning over, Paderewski reached down with his left hand and began filling in a bass part. Soon his right arm reached around to the other side of the boy, and he added a running obligato. Together, the old master and the young novice transformed what could have been a frightening situation into a beautiful creative experience.
That’s how I think it is sometimes with God and the work we do.
At times, what we can accomplish on our own is not worth mentioning. We try our best, but the results aren't always graceful flowing music. However, with a little Grace, with a little help, our work can be truly beautiful. We just need to continue to listen for that voice that says, “Don't quit." "Keep playing."
