Dear Broadway Family,
Being without adequate housing is an incredibly difficult challenge to live with. Some of the difficulties are easy to imagine - such as being cold in Winter weather, wet in the rain, too hot in the Summer. Other facets of the homeless experience may not be as obvious until you think them through. Toilet use. Hygiene. Cooking. Care for clothing and other belongings. Transportation.
When people yell at homeless folks to "(just) get a job" they aren't showing either real compassion, or any thought given as to how to get a job. It's pretty hard to convince someone to hire you when your suit is musty from getting in the rain a week ago. Where do you put your bags of clothes when you go inside a building for that office interview? Where do you shower to look your best, or get a haircut or shave? How can you create and print your resume to get an interview in the first place? If you did lose a job previously, and there's been a bit of a gap, how can you get hired again?
Any one of these challenges could be difficult to address on its own, but add them up, and it's a mountain to move.
I have a special place in my heart for folks without homes, because I've been there. I've told y'all this before, more than once, but I was homeless for a bit in 2012. I ended up being rescued by a friend, and even then, it took awhile to truly get on my feet.
Housing insecurity plagues thousands of Chicagoans every day. And, as much as we are loath to admit it, most of us are just a couple months away from being on the streets as well. With rent and other living costs being so high, it's hard to build enough savings to weather months of joblessness. Even if we are good workers and great at what we do, the whims or needs of our bosses or the fluctuations of the economy can leave us without work quite suddenly and unexpectedly. As a country, we are slow to address the lack of a real social safety net. As has been falsely attributed to Steinbeck, "Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires." Americans tend to be very resistant to admitting how financially vulnerable most of us are, and how easy it can be to fall into ruin.
Accessible housing is one of the key issues ONE Northside works to address in Chicago. On December 4th, we were blessed to have a conversation after worship with Dordie Hester from ONE Northside about housing issues in Chicago, and ways that ONE Northside is working to make affordable housing more accessible. One thing she talked about is how we can support the Waitlist Ordinance. I'll be sharing more information about that at a later date. But, in the meantime, click here to go to a link tree that ONE Northside has created, with housing resources. Share it with anyone you know who needs the help themselves, or knows people who do. Even as we figure out ways to create more affordable housing and make it easier to get into, we can help one another by sharing information such as this.
This week, I invite you to ponder how fortunate you are to have the warm and dry home you have. Safe and hospitable shelter is a minimum requirement for a decent quality of life. I believe that God wants everybody to have basic needs met, and I believe that God calls on us to create systems that allow for everyone to have what they need.
Till next week, Be well!
