Letter to The Chilliwack Progress: Homeless - What Would Jesus Do?

A recent letter to the Chilliwack Progress posed the question, "Homeless: What would Jesus do?" The letter challenged the Chilliwack Ministerial, which I am a part of, to provide additional beds and housing for people who are homeless in Chilliwack.

The need for housing for the growing numbers of Chilliwack street people is frequently being highlighted  in the local press. The thought came to me that since each spring the Chilliwack area churches do a “Love Chilliwack” event – wash cars, provide hot dogs, coffee and a ready smile. I would like to suggest to the Chilliwack Ministerial to grow that smile into beds and housing for our growing number of homeless neighbors.

This is a good point - let's funnel our efforts towards finding solutions to homelessness. The letter cited a recent fund raiser for Ruth and Naomi, a service for people who are living on the streets, as an example of how to help.

Recently,  a Ruth and Naomi fund raising banquet raised $25,000 for start-up money. Much more will be needed. Could I suggest to the area ministers to remind their flock of their obligation to the homeless of their commitment to the teachings of Jesus  to make this a reality.

I'm not sure if $25k was a good amount or what the goal of the fund raiser was. But I think that Ruth and Naomi are doing fantastic work. We need to support them. We need to get involved.

So, flock (including me), let us figure out what our obligations to the homeless are as we learn from the teachings of Jesus.

What can we do Heartland?

Homeless Community

When I used to live in Bellflower, I'd walk to work. Along the way were usually some homeless friends just waking up or enjoying a liquid breakfast. Bellflower is about 1/2 drive from downtown LA. Since moving away, I try keep up with the homeless situation in LA through LA Homeless Blog. A recent post shows us some links:

Eric, from http://blogdowntown.com/, tells us that the “Downtown Los Angeles Homeless Map” has been updated. It looks like a heat map and shows the concentration of homelessness in the downtown area from November 1, 2006 to today.

This map “takes raw data about those sleeping on the streets and transforms it into a visual tool for understanding the situation.”

Two things come to mind after seeing the migration:

1. The concentration of homelessness in a geographic area is always in a state of movement. It is quite vivid in this graphic map. In downtown’s case, it could be “blamed” on police activity, or simply part of the natural mode of homelessness.

2. It appears that homelessness in downtown is getting smaller. The question is why? Is it because the police activity is pushing people out of downtown, or because more people are accessing services and housing?

I’ve been called a couple of times by the Los Angeles Times. They are trying to get empirical data that the downtown police activities are resulting into spreading homelessness throughout the county. Perhaps this map might at least show the fact that homelessness is decreasing in downtown.