Does feces on property justify relocating homeless center?
Tom Boland (wgcp@earthlink.net)
Tue, 20 Oct 1998 07:26:30 -0400
How would you respond to the situation in Cleveland, Ohio described below?
I post the article because something similar happened to Bread & Jams
project.
The Self-Advocacy Center for Homeless People in Cambridge, MA had to move
to a new church, after about five years at our original site. The final
reason the vestry voted us out was _feces on church property_.
Yet we who've been homeless know that the charitable solution is free
toilets, always open -- if not homes for all. Agreed?
Nonetheless, to their credit, the church where we first located risked a
homeless-run Center in the first place. I remain grateful for what they've
done and still do for needy people. Since Autumn,1990, and to this day,
the church is our site for our free Sunday dinner (when we come in from
outdoors, roughly from November through April each year).
Bread & Jams, a homeless-managed nonprofit, operates the Center and Sunday
meal program. We also run a daily van service, a cable TV show, plus
occasional coffeehouses and benefits.
Until very recently, our group for two years also had street outreach
workers and a linked project aiming to place our homeless peers in housing.
Yet many Bread & Jams members are homeless still. In terms of what
homeless people need most -- a home -- we have failed to help provide it in
almost all cases.
So our practice falls short of our principles sometimes, at churches and in
homeless-led groups as well.
When we discover a gap in principles and practice in our _own_ groups, what
can we do to more closely walk our talk? I welcome your comments.
Seeking peaceful means to homeless peoples' aims. -- Tom Boland
http://www.ohio.com:80/bj/news/ohio/docs/001557.htm
FWD Akron [Ohio] Beacon Journal - October 19, 1998
CONFLICT BETWEEN FAITH AND FILTH FOR DOWNTOWN CHURCH
CLEVELAND (AP) -- The pastor of a downtown church sympathizes with the
plight of the homeless but is fed up with urine and feces on church
property.
The Rev. Robert Marrone of St. Peter Roman Catholic Church responded to
homeless sleeping on church steps and soiling the property by having steel
fences installed and sidewalk areas landscaped.
``I live here,'' he said. ``What I see and what I know and experience, I
don't think other people do.''
Rocks were piled around manhole covers where the homeless once slept.
Robert Caver, a homeless man, said the steamy manhole covers and the safe
church environment created ``a comfort zone, physically and mentally.''
Parishioner Mike Griffin of Elyria said there was a difference of opinion
about the matter among the congregation, which is made up mostly of
suburban people. He said they don't want to discuss the matter publicly.
St. Peter is within one block of two county-financed overnight shelters for
men and a daytime center for the homeless run by the Cleveland Catholic
Diocese. It has counselors, a soup kitchen and showers.
Brian Davis, director of the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless,
called the homeless situation horrible. ``But none of the community leaders
in that area, the father included, have come forward to assist with a
solution. It's been 10 years of temporary situations.''
In a 1996 letter to county officials, Marrone wrote: ``These shelters must
be closed and a more complete and humane program set up to help those with
true need.''
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