A friend told me a story that I’ve been mulling in my head over and over. Before I write the story, I need to write that this particular friend is a very compassionate and caring person. He has gone out of his way to help others for much of his life. He has served as a teacher and mentor for many. He has chosen to live a modest lifestyle so that he is able to share and help others. I don’t think that there is a mean bone in his body. He also has a wonderful sense of humor and a way of connecting with folk quickly. He has many other qualities that are admirable. I look to him as a model for how to live.

Not long ago this friend was walking down the street. He saw someone approaching him. The person looked a bit like a panhandler - someone who might ask for a handout. My friend has a lot of street smarts and good instincts about others. The man caught my friend’s gaze and came over to him. He said, “Can I ask you something?” My friend, who has a great sense of humor said, “I was just going to ask you if you had a couple of bucks.” The man replied, “I was going to ask you if you had a light for my cigarette.” There was a pause and they looked at each other. My friend thought about saying something about how cigarettes were dangerous and would kill a person. The other man looked at him again and said, “Man, are you homeless, too?”

That’s where the conversation stopped. My friend, who is brilliant and educated and quick-thinking, had no words to respond. He felt the blood rushing to his cheeks in embarrassment as he turned to walk away. He hadn’t meant to make fun of a homeless man. He knew he was returning to a warm home and comfortable evening. He knew that it was bitter cold outside and that the man to whom he had just spoken would have to spend the night in a shelter in order to avoid freezing to death. He knew that the man would be given something to eat at the shelter. He knew that what little he had to offer would not solve the man’s problems. He knew so much.

Our town is having a problem with its homeless population. We have a shelter. We have a new care campus with additional shelter beds. We have trained police officers who know how to get people to shelter in the cold weather. They get through the night and then, because homelessness isn’t a crime and they aren’t locked up, they go out of the shelters the next day and try to figure out how to make it through another day. Some cluster around the day labor office hoping that there might be some short term work with a day’s pay at the end. Others wait for the library to open, knowing that it is safe, clean and there are bathrooms that they can use. Others stop by Trinity Lutheran Church to get a bit of food from the pantry there. Others head over to Hope House to spend part of the day in the day shelter. A few try their hand at soliciting donations from strangers. Some make signs. Others try to learn how to read the faces of the people walking on the street to determine who might part with a few coins or a couple of dollars. $2 will get you a cup of coffee or a bottle of water at Hardees and if you buy something they have to let you sit inside at their tables for a while, until they ask you to leave.

Some of the owners of downtown businesses say that the homeless people on the street drive away business. It’s hard to make it in retail trade in a town full of retired people who have access to computers where Amazon Prime will deliver in two days. The stores rely on tourists which are in short supply when the temperature dips below zero. Anything that might deter a tourist from wandering around downtown and keep them from looking in store windows seems like a threat. So even though homeless people aren’t dangerous and the store owners know they are not, there is a fear that some one else’s fear might drive away business.

But we don’t want to live in a town where people are told they can’t walk freely down the street. We don’t want to live in a place where those who don’t have money to buy aren’t allowed to look. The city council has tried several different “solutions” to the problem of solicitation of money. They have tried to make a distinction between aggressive panhandling and regular begging. They’ve been advised that many of their proposed ordinances wouldn’t stand up to a serious court challenge. There are limits on what you can do with rules and laws and police officers.

So we think of ways to get food to hungry people. And we work on providing housing for the few who qualify for certain programs. And we support the shelters and occasionally volunteer to serve meals. But we know the system is broken. People get caught in the gap between minimum wages and high housing costs. People suffer from addiction and a host of other diseases that prevent them from following the routines that others use to support themselves. Treatment is hard to come by and often incomplete. Disease and addiction are mysteries that we haven’t yet solved. And some of our neighbors don’t have homes. A few are transient and will move on to other places where they won’t have a home. Some remain. Once in a while we have a conversation. Sometimes we even get to know their names.

My friend may well run into the same person again one day. My friend often talks to strangers on the street. He volunteers at the mission. He is an intelligent man and he will find the right words if he is given another opportunity. But the silence remains. Even the best of us is occasionally left speechless in the face of the tragedy of homelessness in our community.

May our silence be an invitation to reflect more deeply and seek connections that transform our community.

Copyright (c) 2019 by Ted E. Huffman. I wrote this. If you would like to share it, please direct your friends to my web site. If you'd like permission to copy, please send me an email. Thanks!