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Loving our Unhoused Neighbor
55 Plays15 hours ago
John Hull is joined by Dr. Terence Lester to discuss their work with people experiencing homelessness. They share stories about the unhoused population, highlight the importance of proximity and listening to the community, and share practical ways we can love our neighbors who don’t have an address.
Learn more about Dr. Lester’s new book, From Dropout to Doctorate at ivpress.com/from-dropout-to-doctorate. And make plans to join us at the CCDA Conference this November at ccda.org/conference.
Terence Lester (PhD, Union Institute and University) is a storyteller, public scholar, speaker, community activist, and author. He is the founder and executive director of Love Beyond Walls, a nonprofit organization focused on raising awareness about poverty, homelessness, and on community mobilization. He also serves as the director of public policy and social change and as a professor at Simmons College of Kentucky (HBCU). He is the author of I See You, When We Stand, and All God's Children, and he coauthored with his daughter, Zion, the children's book, Zion Learns to See. He and his family live in Atlanta.
John Hull serves as CEO of Everett Gospel Mission, Snohomish County’s largest Christ-centered organization serving people experiencing homelessness and poverty. Since joining the Mission in 2006, John has held leadership roles across development, shelter operations, and strategic initiatives before becoming CEO in July 2024. Known for his innovative, relationship-based leadership, John has championed low-demand stabilizing shelter models, expanded holistic support services, and spearheaded initiatives like the Faith and Finances program and the Transformational Bed System “StepUp Beds”, now used by shelters nationwide. He co-leads EGM’s Poverty 101 workshop to challenge stereotypes and strengthen community understanding of how to help without hurting. At the heart of his leadership is an unwavering faith in Jesus Christ. John is committed to declaring and demonstrating God’s love through every aspect of the Mission’s work. His vision is clear: “Together, we can alleviate poverty, impact people’s lives, and share God’s love.”
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Transcript
Introduction of John Hull and Dr. Terrence Lester
00:00:09
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the CCDA podcast. My name is John Hull, the CEO of the Everett Gospel Mission. I've been with EGM for about 20 years now and a part of the CCDA for about eight years.
00:00:20
Speaker
I'm blessed to serve on the leadership team for both the CCDA Pacific Northwest Regional Network, as well as a network connector of the recently formed Snohomish County CCDA Local Network. And I'm your host for this episode.
00:00:32
Speaker
Today, I'm joined by a very special guest, Dr. Terence Lester, founder of Love Beyond Walls in Atlanta, Georgia. He's also the author of multiple books, including his recently released book, From Dropout to Doctorate.
00:00:45
Speaker
Dr. Lester, thanks for being here today.
Dr. Lester on Societal and Cultural Issues
00:00:48
Speaker
John, I am really grateful to be here with you, but huge shout out to CCDA for creating this type of space where we could dialogue about ah these critical issues.
00:01:01
Speaker
Yeah, it's pretty awesome to be joined together from across the country. I'm calling in from basically Seattle, Washington, and you're from Atlanta, Georgia. i Have that correct? Yeah, Atlanta, Georgia, all the way from Atlanta. And yeah, you know what?
00:01:17
Speaker
i have I've been thinking a lot about what's happening in society and culture, and I'm sure we have different experiences related to the work that we do, and I'm i'm really grateful and ah excited to dialogue about it.
00:01:30
Speaker
That sounds great. Well, hey, this is our first time meeting. So I'm curious to learn a little bit about you and the work you're called to there in Atlanta.
Personal Motivations and Community Service
00:01:38
Speaker
As you stated, my name is Terence Man, I was just talking to another colleague of mine about a very important question related to the work that we do.
00:01:52
Speaker
And there was this weird like moment of just like kind of like focusing on the work and like how we show up every day. and I just had this moment where I just ah told him, man i just want to be known as a servant.
00:02:07
Speaker
you know That's what I want my life's legacy to be, servant to my wife, servant to my children, servant to the community where we get a chance to walk with people.
Initiatives in Public Sanitation and Homelessness
00:02:20
Speaker
And that may, you know, that may show up in creating accessible public sanitation and hygiene for our members who don't have an address. They may look like retrofitting RV units to create space ah for people to have somewhere to rest because research shows that 70% of people who are unhoused don't know where it is safe to sleep.
00:02:45
Speaker
That may look like starting a museum that represent the subject of homelessness and, the you know, according to companies, ah Fast Company, the first museum in the U.S. that does that to humanize stories in a way that builds empathy towards this population. That may look like research. That may look like access to mental health.
00:03:06
Speaker
support. That may look like access to healthy foods. That may look like retrofitting classrooms for unhoused students who show up every single day and may not connect with the lesson because they don't have on the proper size clothing or they have stains in their clothes and their parents don't have washing machines.
00:03:24
Speaker
That may flesh out Like a lot of different things, but I think to boil it all down is that we just are called to serve, man, and and stand with people and be in solidarity with people and not look at people as lesser than because they have less resources, but have a shared humanity in what I would define as the beloved community.
00:03:47
Speaker
That's awesome.
Contrast of Approaches: Safety vs. Engagement
00:03:49
Speaker
Yeah, i i um I love the title of or the but but label of your company, Love Beyond Walls, and and the group that you're a part of. It's very ah different than my work as ah as a CEO of a homeless shelter where literally we're all about walls.
00:04:03
Speaker
um yeah Not putting them up to keep people out, but putting them up to keep people safe and drawing them in. Tell me, how did you get to this idea of of Love Beyond Walls and mention some of the work you're doing, but how
Pivotal Moments and Personal Growth
00:04:14
Speaker
did you land there?
00:04:14
Speaker
Man, I can... share so many different stories. I would share this one story. i was 16 and a half years old, maybe 17 years old, and I'm about to drop out of high school, right?
00:04:31
Speaker
I was at an alternative school and i was dealing with the trifecta of what I would call systemic injustice, personal trauma, right?
00:04:43
Speaker
And impoverishment, right? And all of those are intertwined and connected and I can unpack all of those. But I i got up from my desk, I walk out of the front of the building because I was ah at an alternative school and my friends join me.
00:04:57
Speaker
We're less than a hundred yards away from the school and a man experiencing homelessness called over to our group. I was the only one to respond. And I walk up to him, trash hanging from his beard.
00:05:08
Speaker
He said he hadn't showered in over two weeks. And he's looking at me. and he says, young man, is that your school back there? And I go, yeah. And he says, I don't want anything from you. But whatever you do, don't stop getting an education because one day you'll be a leader.
00:05:26
Speaker
I mean, you talk about disruption, right? he He had no... idea that I had experienced brief moments of homelessness as a child with my mom moving from place to place or that, you know, i had run away from home and experienced that as a teenager. he he had none of that. And then in that brief moment, I felt seen.
00:05:48
Speaker
And not in the ableistic sense, but in someone speaking to my very existence that cut through the noise of my social context.
Education as a Tool for Community Service
00:05:57
Speaker
Years later, obviously, you know, i went on to study the very thing that I was able to overcome, but It was instances like that where different people who became community, who were strangers, who saw me, who were proximate to me all throughout the years as I was navigating, overcoming a lot of these hardships,
00:06:20
Speaker
These people invested in me and I would even go to the extreme of saying like Miss West when I was a fifth year senior who allowed me to borrow courage and confidence that she had in me long before I had it in myself and said, use my classroom as a sanctuary.
00:06:36
Speaker
Mr. Moore, when I was living out of the trunk of my car as a teenager, when I had family conflict, said, one day you're going to be a leader. The first man I could look into his eyes.
00:06:48
Speaker
Or Mr. Eason, when I ah was working in the back of a warehouse, And I told him I had a dream of going to college, invested in my undergraduate degree and would champion me, the same guy that walked my wife down the aisle.
00:07:01
Speaker
You know, all of these different circumstances led me to become who I am. And I think it was God working in the proximity of people and helping me to see that I could continue to develop and lean into my natural skills and my God-given abilities and all of that, right?
00:07:21
Speaker
When i I got to the place where I felt like I was strong enough, I realized that I didn't have to use all of the education that amassed or like my experiences to just only serve me to be self-serving.
00:07:36
Speaker
All of those things were to build capacity so I can contribute back to community. And I think all of those different ah circumstances led me to who I am and and the work that I do with Lupe and Wallace.
00:07:49
Speaker
Wow. Wow. I am just so impressed by all the all the stories of all the different people they that are part of your story from, it sounds like at 16, a gentleman living on the streets was a significant impact and speaking into your life to many others along the way who invested and used their resources and their network ah to really help you be the man you are today. That is I'm thinking so much about just CCD principles and just the idea of of of leadership development and and a holistic approach and church-based and a beautiful picture of what community really is and what it can look like. So thank you so much for sharing that.
00:08:26
Speaker
I love being able to share my story, one, because it reminds me that God is able to restore and to rescue and and to show up in the community of people that surround you. But two, man, there are people who are working in the trenches.
00:08:46
Speaker
We both know what that feels like. It can be full of isolation, you know, funding shifts, funding cuts. It can be full of ah volunteer turnover, all of the things. I mean, you name it.
00:09:00
Speaker
And, you know, the power story, just not my own, but like to be able to be in community with people who are so beloved, but so overwhelmed with lack.
00:09:14
Speaker
You know, it's ah it's a great reminder that we are called to ah beautiful work. It may be messy, it may be filled with struggle, but it's some of the greatest joys that I get a chance to experience.
00:09:27
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. We teach a ah Poverty 101 class here, and it's all about doing relational poverty alleviation, you know helping without hurting. and And so much of that is actually geared towards the attendees,
00:09:39
Speaker
understanding and learning what their biases and prejudices are when they come to the table to walk with somebody experiencing material poverty. And one of the things I often love to tell them is you need that person experiencing material poverty more than they need you.
00:09:53
Speaker
You're going to learn and you're going to grow and you're going to experience something beautiful with them in a way that you can't even imagine. And and I just love listening to you because I'm just hearing so much of that that that you created the space for that kind of relationship to happen.
00:10:08
Speaker
Yeah. Thank you for that work.
Poverty as Trauma
00:10:11
Speaker
I think education is one of the things that should build the empathy and compassion needed and then mobilize action. action You know, I was i was doing research.
00:10:23
Speaker
There is a researcher who is a clinician, Dr. Knowles. She argues that poverty itself should not even be separated from the word trauma, right? And sometimes we put those two things in and different buckets.
00:10:38
Speaker
Poverty itself is a form of trauma, so much so so much so to the point that the wife, the of ah Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called poverty violence, right?
00:10:51
Speaker
It is violence to see a child show up in school and they hadn't eaten until the day before, right? It is violence ah to see a person experiencing homelessness, not have access to sanitation. Joe Blue in his book, The Visible Poor, even argues that we shouldn't even separate the term homelessness from the word poverty because it's at the root. Right.
00:11:16
Speaker
But poverty is more than just economics. Right. Poverty is social. Poverty is spiritual. Poverty is occupational and environmental. Poverty is psychological. Poverty is physiological. Poverty is so much expensive and so much more than what we try to boil it down to.
00:11:34
Speaker
And most clinicians would argue that you have to be have a well balanced, right? Intersection of all of these things to be a stable person.
00:11:45
Speaker
I was just talking to a ah guy earlier today and we were even talking about the ACES quiz that most people don't even know ah anything about adverse childhood experiences. I scored a 10 out of 10, right?
00:11:59
Speaker
We could talk about the history of that, but if you don't know, i would highly suggest really getting to and understand some of the emotional ah struggles that or or disadvantages that people have to overcome to even get to a level playing field.
00:12:16
Speaker
Yeah. What I'm hearing there is one of those things that we often miss in our communities is is not recognizing the the full story. In fact, I i heard ah yes one one person say, you know, when he was meeting new people, he would always like to sit down with them and say, hey, I'm meeting you in chapter six of your life.
00:12:32
Speaker
Tell me about chapters one through five. That's right. And I simply love that as a as a reality of um how we connect with people. Just because you're experiencing homelessness today, there's a whole story before that.
00:12:44
Speaker
and ah And a major part of overcoming that experience of material poverty is to enrich the relationships in what we do by knowing each other and hearing about your story.
00:12:56
Speaker
That's right. Relationships are key. Everyone has a story, right? And it's so important. Thank you so so much for bringing that up, John. So you you spent a little bit of time already talking about the breadth of what poverty really is, that it's more than just material poverty, that there's relationship and there's community, and social, societal, systemic.
00:13:18
Speaker
I'm going to come up with some more S's in a minute, but I think what I really am excited to hear about is just a little more, why is it important that we understand poverty as more than just material?
00:13:29
Speaker
What difference does that make, particularly as we're going Start talking about the president's executive order and its impact on what you and I are doing on a day-to-day basis.
00:13:39
Speaker
I'll start here. I talk about a story in my book. i was I showed up in elementary school. I can remember the day ah vividly i had experienced a form of ah violence the night before in my home context, right?
00:13:57
Speaker
I show up to school, right, traumatized. And if you do research, most clinicians would say that these signs can show up as post-traumatic stress disorder in the in children. And that can be in a number of of ways.
00:14:13
Speaker
I'm sitting at my desk. My teacher, ah remember her standing in front of classroom and she was walking around. She had this thing in her hand and she's kind of tapping her hand and she's calling on students, right?
00:14:25
Speaker
Or my peers. And she gets me for whatever reason, she calls me out and she wants me to a tell the answer.
00:14:37
Speaker
ah My voice is frozen. I experienced a very traumatic thing that had nothing to do with her But I was carrying not only trauma from my social context, but I was in the classroom and I was overwhelmed.
00:14:56
Speaker
Right. And you know what her response was? She told me to grab my desk, help me move the desk. She locked me in the closet, right?
00:15:07
Speaker
this class This closet with all of the resources. And I'll never forget all of the kids laughing. And, you know, I'm sitting in there doing my work or assignment by myself. She closed the door. Obviously, the light was on and everything, but I was isolated.
00:15:23
Speaker
And that story still sticks with me because that was a form of trauma and connected to not only the environment that I emerged from, but it was all intersectional. And now I have a social piece, right, where when I go to school as a younger version version of myself,
00:15:47
Speaker
umm I'm unable to connect with lessons because I'm afraid that teachers and now I have to carry this throughout my life. And now I've worked through that. But, you know, when you think of people who grow up in impoverished settings, like it's so much that impacts the every single second of life, you know, the proper term could be urban hassles, right?
00:16:10
Speaker
you go outside, i can remember riding around in the car, looking out and seeing dilapidated buildings, seeing potholes in the streets, ah seeing air pollution, which could be ah defined as environmental racism, seeing, you know, food deserts or not having the best parts. ah these These, like, just visual forms of impoverishment can impair you and impair your dreams or are ah the ways in which you think about what you can become.
00:16:41
Speaker
You're not even talking about the the occupational aspect. Like I grew up in the 1980s, 1990s. This is post-civil rights right out of Jim Crow. ah We see the height of social political rhetoric as a black man and young man matriculating through. We see the rise of Rodney King. We see the environment that the concentration of poverty from the residue of redlining. We see all of these things that contributes to not just the economic state of impoverishment, but a social state, an emotional state, a spiritual state, you know, and I navigated through all those things. And so it is very important for people not just to
00:17:24
Speaker
I think of poverty as economics, because what you see someone else may not have access to could have a laundry list of story or a set of ah circumstances behind it that you know nothing about.
00:17:38
Speaker
Wow. You have overcome a lot. And ah can't even imagine what it took to so overcome the ah trauma that you experienced in education to go on and get your PhD and become committed to really that academic pursuit. That's really impressive.
00:17:53
Speaker
I'm stricken by hearing all of that and something I used to hear early on as a director at the men's mission, was which is one of the things that I did here at the mission. People would just ask, why can't those guys just go get a job?
00:18:05
Speaker
And you know I'd often think about it like there's there's no simple answer to that question because each person's story is different. But often I'd say, you know, I want you to come hire them and talk to me in a couple of weeks.
Challenges of Public Perception and Addiction
00:18:17
Speaker
Because what you don't see on the outside is all the trauma on the inside. And there's lots of work to be done. And I'm just hearing all of that as you're as you're describing all the things you've had to overcome. And what it would have been like if somebody had just come up and said, well, the solution is you just need to go get a job, Terence are you doing? and Yeah, it takes a lot of work. And I've been fortunate to to find safe space. there are There are many, right, of people, i would i would argue millions of people who haven't found safe spaces, right?
00:18:48
Speaker
I was talking with a head of school here in the city of Atlanta. He leads the Ansley School. Shout out to Mr. James, Mr. Ray James. All of the students in that school are unhoused.
00:19:02
Speaker
It's over 100 students. the The entire school, it's a private school, right? And we were having a dialogue in a conversation that I had on on the podcast, on my podcast, and he was talking about sometimes people don't understand that we are asking people to overcome 20, 30 years of generational poverty and trauma with the questions that we pose.
00:19:29
Speaker
Teresa Gowan, Dr. Gowan, in her book, Hobos, Hustlers and Backsliders, she talks about the can constructed idea of poverty, right? She says there are three narratives that that normally we talk about when it comes to impoverishment. It's sin talk, sick talk, and system talk, right? In the sin talk category, we normally look at people who are matriculating through or navigating through poverty as being moral failures or being lazy or having some type of character flaw or not working hard enough when in in reality, i know
00:20:06
Speaker
By fact, right, that people who are poor in this country work harder than anyone else than we can actually pay attention to. Right. When they some people work 50, 60 hours a week, three jobs, four jobs.
00:20:21
Speaker
your job I saw my mother doing this, yeah mean like literally. Right. ah Sick talk. We try to excuse away poverty by saying there's something ah clinically wrong.
00:20:35
Speaker
But the but we don't take into account that the system, mental health system is overwhelmed. Right. There is no accessible supports for people who are matriculating through.
00:20:48
Speaker
And it frankly, it just costs a lot. Right. If you're listening to this and you go to therapy, whether you have a sliding scale or not, you have insurance and just the absorbative amount of just constantly paying to have somewhere to sit down and talk to somebody about your traumas.
00:21:07
Speaker
It's just not ah present for many people. And then the system, like we don't get a chance to really fully understand how, you know, a politician can say we're going to evict the unhoused from being unhoused. Like that doesn't make any type of sense. and we have to ask ourselves, what type of narratives are we believing about those that we've never met?
00:21:29
Speaker
But to reframe that and say, how do we actually get to get a chance to know people that we've been distanced from? Yeah, absolutely. So all those things, interestingly, are things that without getting to know somebody, you can't know what's going on, right? So we talk about sin talk and we think it's a character issue where we talk about sick talk and we think, okay, there's just something dysfunctional with the person or even systems.
00:21:52
Speaker
we don't know why that person's there. And the only way we can really get to it is by having a relationship, sitting down, having a conversation, you know listening to the community if we're going to talk CCD principles. yes like We can make decisions from a distance, right? We got to be right there on the curb with them, having those conversations.
00:22:09
Speaker
Which, by the way, i i I did peek at a couple of your podcasts and I I love that work you do of just getting out there and sitting with somebody on the streets and interviewing them. I forgot the title of it, but I watched a couple of years ago again.
00:22:21
Speaker
The Imagine Dignity podcast. Yes, Imagine Dignity. I love that approach and really appreciate the way you you do provide dignity in that conversation that way. I want to keep those three S's on the on the back burner.
00:22:35
Speaker
I'm going to ask a couple, ah well, one question, and then we'll get into talking about the executive order. You mentioned narratives. I'd love to hear a little bit about in what ways have you seen or experienced a narrative shift around our unhoused neighbors over the last decade or so?
00:22:50
Speaker
Yeah, I think the narrative has become more punitive. actually did my entire dissertation on the state of Tennessee, which became the first state in the U.S. to make sleeping outside a classy felony.
00:23:05
Speaker
I was wrestling with one of my professors who was a she's a political scientist. And you you just don't mix documentary storytelling with public policy. Right. And so I argued a methodology to use ethnocinema to insert the unhoused communities of voices in the political discourse, because when you look at rhetorical artifacts or you go out there and you look ah of what people are saying in regards to the unhoused community from people who are in power.
00:23:37
Speaker
Most times it's in ah with a criminal lens. It's with this idea of public sanitation. And it's talking about the humanity of of people that in many instances they haven't ever met. and so I lived on the streets in the state of Tennessee, four cities I interviewed. I got a chance to understand How public policy and political speech is actually causing a sense of self-harm, right, in real time to the unhoused community. I ask questions. How do you feel? How does this make you feel? And in my data, got a chance to transcribe people saying, I don't feel like I belong here.
00:24:18
Speaker
I don't feel like I have any community. ah Churches are working with ah law enforcement to make sure I can't stand on even church grounds. Right. Less than a mile away from the Lorraine Motel where Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. Right. When he was taking a stance against poverty in our country.
00:24:36
Speaker
I got a chance to hear firsthand how. the The social rhetoric around this population of people causes real harm.
00:24:47
Speaker
And I think that's where we are. umve We've seen the evolution of that, the Supreme Court ruling that happened last year. Right. We've seen, you know, more dialogue about homelessness, but it's almost in a punitive way.
00:25:02
Speaker
What can we do to get rid of? And in most cases, if you look at data, most cases, there aren't enough shelter beds. Thank you for the work that you do to actually provide support ah for this population.
00:25:17
Speaker
And we see more ordinances and laws popping up everywhere. And it's like my friend Matt said in Chattanooga when I was interviewing him in the in the woods, he hadn't even heard about the the passing of this ah bill that became state law.
00:25:33
Speaker
He says, if I'm outside, how do you tell me to to leave outside? Right. I'll pass it back to you. What what have you been hearing? I love your word punitive. Definitely hearing the the nature of seeing poverty, seeing homelessness as a character flaw is is a big part of it. And and a lot of the the narrative is so conflated, and which you mean even as we get into the executive order, they're conflating homelessness and crime.
00:26:00
Speaker
in in a way that is, I think, damaging. And because of that, it's creating a lot of fear. And so from ah not folks on the streets, but folks in our neighborhoods and in our communities, there's a lot of fear.
00:26:11
Speaker
I hear a lot of frustration. you for For me as a CEO, I get people calling all the time who are frustrated with what's happening in their neighborhoods. yeah And and you learning to balance that has been really challenging.
00:26:24
Speaker
yeah For our shelter, we had ah an interstate not far from our shelter, in fact, right outside the door that created a large 100-foot stretch of a covering that turned into a massive encampment.
00:26:36
Speaker
And what was difficult for us about that is we had individuals that wanted to come in and benefit from our services and even join our recovery programs. And they would say to themselves, I can't recover there when that's right outside.
00:26:49
Speaker
And so we had to really navigate this different kinds of people experiencing homelessness and at different states in their homelessness. yeah and And how do we serve those populations well? and And I live in the community where I serve and i I want my kids, I've got a lot of kids and I want my kids to be able to walk around the neighborhood and and feel safe.
00:27:11
Speaker
Because a lot of times what seems unsafe isn't actually unsafe. It just feels that way. And so learning to to separate those things that just because I feel unsafe doesn't mean I am unsafe is is really important. So for us over the last 10 years, it's it's been figuring out how to navigate different populations, you might say, and different individuals experiencing homelessness that are in different states of their homelessness and looking for different ways to either get out of it or find help.
00:27:40
Speaker
yeah And that's that's been a That's been a ah challenge and for us up in the Northwest. The fentanyl crisis has been devastating and really changed a lot of our approaches in in trying to even pursue relational methodologies when that crisis leads to individualization and and and and those partaking in that substance use disorder wanting to isolate so much.
00:28:05
Speaker
yeah And then on top of that methamphetamine changing and creating a lot more psychosis in the people experiencing homelessness who are using that. And now you get what looks like a really scary person isn't, but looks like it because they're acting so different than what we're used to.
00:28:22
Speaker
And ah part of our big work here is to say we've got to overcome that bias that just because you're not comfortable doesn't mean that person's dangerous and doesn't mean we need to take legal action to to solve the problem. There's got to be compassionate ways we can approach this as communities.
00:28:39
Speaker
And those are big conversations we have at churches who who want to help but are also nervous about somebody coming in and sitting in the pew next to them. Like how do they learn to do that well without creating a sense of not belonging for the individual experiencing homelessness?
00:28:54
Speaker
Yeah. Challenging, challenging things to do. It breaks my ah heart that we're talking about the physical space that dictates the way that we talk about human beings, right?
00:29:08
Speaker
When people come to the museum and they bring up like drug addiction. I'm like, well, there are people with houses that have the same type of ah addictions. There are people who right now who have housing that have challenges mentally, right?
00:29:29
Speaker
You know, and I normally think about homelessness in this way, that homelessness is one of the only justice issues where you can be labeled for what you don't have. Right. And then punished for trying to survive it.
00:29:43
Speaker
Like, right. Right. If I if you didn't have a truck, I wouldn't call you truckless. Right. You didn't have on shoes. i wouldn't call you shoeless. Right. And so like this whole notion ah around using housing or not housing or not having access to housing to dictate how we talk about ah people who should, as you said, experience compassion and love. These are still our neighbors. Right. Just because a person doesn't have an address does not mean that they are not our neighbor. Right.
00:30:13
Speaker
And for Christians in particular, it really breaks my heart when I am talking to or even around people who, you know, will quote Jesus, right?
00:30:28
Speaker
But still have vitriol or some type of, you know, towards our our neighbors who don't have an address. When Jesus himself says, you know, foxes have holes, birds of the air have nests, but the son of man.
00:30:43
Speaker
has nowhere to lay his head, right? And I just think we have got to reframe how we talk about people who don't have an address.
00:30:56
Speaker
I like to not use something as basic as an address to dictate how I show up and love my neighbor. And I think that's important. And, you know, as you say, stated, like people are from different places. Everybody's experience is not the same. And the way that public policy and the way that people talk about it from positions of power can create the type of generalization That places all people experiencing homelessness in one singular bucket, right?
00:31:32
Speaker
That maybe because they are without housing, they're criminal or maybe they're to be feared or maybe they need to be arrested or maybe they need to be publicly sanitized. And the thing that I always push back against, too, for people trying to understand this.
00:31:47
Speaker
is one of the largest groups of people who are experiencing homelessness are not adults. They're actually youth and children, right? Just take, for instance, the number of students in APS school system, which is Atlanta public school system where I am, is higher than The number of unhoused students is higher than a point in time count of adults in the city.
00:32:12
Speaker
Right. And that's according to Menckenny Vento right and Act that defines homelessness based on dwelling and all of that stuff. So, you know, I'm always asking when you think about homelessness itself, who do you what comes to your mind? It's just not.
00:32:27
Speaker
a few brothers or sisters on the street corner, right? It's much more vast. It's much more complex. And homelessness itself is a global issue. it's It's not just something that's happening in a few cities. Like there are over 150 million people in the entire globe, right?
00:32:45
Speaker
That does not have adequate access to housing. And that's why I love ML King's, you know, framing of, We live in a world house.
Global Homelessness and Policy Critique
00:32:55
Speaker
And if the world is our address, anybody that we come in contact with is our neighbor.
00:33:00
Speaker
Yeah, I think Jesus said something like that. Yeah. who are you Who is my neighbor? all Who is my neighbor? Who is my neighbor? that's And that's it is it is a fascinating thing that we've really separated that because somebody looks different, experiences life differently, and just is plain different.
00:33:20
Speaker
And the danger of using differences to separate ourselves is is not healthy for us as a community. I mean, you guys, we all know that in CCD work. So, hey, I think let's jump into the executive order because we've we've talked about ah grouping all homelessness into one category. And this is this is something where intentionally or not, it comes off that way.
00:33:42
Speaker
Recently, I think it was end of July. president came out with a new executive order that he called ending crime and disorder on America's streets. Yeah. On the 24th, actually. um it's Okay. Okay.
00:33:54
Speaker
There it was. And you and I both know this is this is not about crime and disorder necessarily, but about homelessness and people living on the streets in our communities, because that's what really comes through in the order.
00:34:06
Speaker
ah So tell me a little bit about what what is in the order and what does it mean for your community? I remember where I was when I first saw the pings and stuff popping up on my phone.
00:34:20
Speaker
And I was like, what what what what is happening? Right. started seeing the the news headlines about, you know, you know, public statements that are being made by the current administration about evicting the unhoused community from, from, from DC.
00:34:41
Speaker
And, yeah, I started to have this like almost, anxious moment, right? Because many of us who do this work know that we love our community, that the stories are much more broad and complex than, you know, sweeping statements can define or really understand that the different stories that we encounter.
00:35:04
Speaker
But also like There is this sense that is almost indirect about this order that also places a target on people who are doing this work, right? It's it's not just the you know people who are unhoused, but it's also...
00:35:25
Speaker
indirectly like a a target for people who are doing this type of work. For instance, like, you know, these types of statements that are made in the order and then an ordinance pops up and say you can't do food sharing, right? And so like but there's You know, if if we're friends and we're standing on the corner, like I can share my meal with you. But if you're visibly unhoused, right, or or appearing to be unhoused, then that's the ticket. And now I've become. So it it was that sort of thing. And then I started the reading of it.
00:36:00
Speaker
Right. Which uses the social framing language that is very dangerous because, you know, it started out with this criminal language. Right. And using terms like dangerous and all of these things, which this this kind of ah framing itself.
00:36:18
Speaker
ah shapes public perception that associates homelessness itself with fear, with crime, disorder. When you think of these terms, like you almost like are on guard, right?
00:36:30
Speaker
And then it starts to go into more like punitive measures, which is why I used that term earlier. And punitive responses is is like arrest. you know as san ah government sanctioned encampments, right? Or or fines or ah public sweeps or you know involuntary commitment, like placing people who are unhoused in in jail, right?
00:36:55
Speaker
And so there's this public perception from the order when you read it, like if you really read it slowly, that you know that the reason why we see so much crime, the reason why we see so much chaos is because of the unhoused community.
00:37:13
Speaker
And when you read it, if you don't know a lot about homelessness work, you're you're like, oh yeah, like you know what do we need to do? We need to send the troops literally or send you know law enforcement or whatever it may be to like, let's make sure everybody's safe.
00:37:30
Speaker
But, you know, what is isn't spoken is that when you are unhoused, you're already vulnerable. You're already susceptible to violence, exploitation, ah longstanding neglect.
00:37:44
Speaker
And framing this community as being ah a danger not only upholds this social stigma about it, but it erases person's humanity.
00:37:55
Speaker
It doesn't consider that this this may be somebody's grandma, somebody's sister, somebody's child, somebody's brother, somebody's uncle, somebody's cousin, somebody's nephew. you know The humanity part is kind of taken away If you read section one, it talks about disorderly behavior, sudden confrontations, all this stuff, unsafe.
00:38:16
Speaker
But I want to be clear in why I'm framing it all this way is because homelessness is an experience. It's not a person. Yeah, no absolutely. No one actually...
00:38:29
Speaker
you know, is born into the world and say, hey, sign me up. And no one heals from being punished by being attacked. And ah towards the end, and I'll pass it back to you, it it talks about removing funding from housing first initiatives.
00:38:47
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. you know To deprioritize them. you know what I mean? When research, verifiable empirical data states that when you house a person, you get somebody stable,
00:39:01
Speaker
you know, you wrap them with community support or wraparound services, that there is a higher probability of that person becoming stable and and finding a pathway towards overcoming the plight of homelessness, right? that I mean, there's there's data for that. And eliminating, you know, support for for things like that is like saying, you know, heal before you get a place to rest.
00:39:30
Speaker
you know, try to try to figure it out before we we actually support you and give you the type of you know, supports that you need. And so for me, when I read this, not only do I see the targeting that kind of erases the humanity of this beloved community, but it indirectly shifts funding for people showing up in this work.
00:39:54
Speaker
And it doesn't necessarily talk about solutions, which I, there's no solutions in the order. So like, I'm I don't know. what what Did you the you read it? read it and but Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. i've been I've been inundated with thinking a lot about it.
00:40:12
Speaker
You know, i I have to just to take a minute to reflect on something as you were talking. And I just was realizing, I don't know that there's ever been a time in human history, and I'm not a researcher, but I just can't imagine that there's ever been a time in human history where we have collectively come up with good solutions by dehumanizing those that we don't like.
00:40:31
Speaker
I just cannot imagine. and And you're right. There's a lot of dehumanization happening here. Intentionally or not, the impact is still the reality that we're collectivizing individuals experiencing something in our society as all criminal or as as as all disorderly and and creating chaos on our streets. And and then Creating solutions that may or, well, they're not likely to work because they're just based on improper assumptions about the individuals we're serving because we're not treating them like human beings.
00:41:05
Speaker
We're approaching them like problems. So when we approach human beings like problems, we create failed solutions. that's ah That's a broken person problem creating broken systems and it's just not good for us. So I thank you for and your phrase, erasing humanity is ah is such a beautifully aggressive and real term that I will use. I'm to steal from you and I'll try to make sure I recognize you in it, but um I appreciate you bringing that.
00:41:30
Speaker
Yeah, I definitely... so in my work, in rescue mission work, I'm associated with a lot of gospel rescue missions around the country. In fact, I i just spent last week with the CEO at the Atlanta Rescue Mission and many others at ah at a summit in Chicago where we gathered together and talked a little bit about the executive order. And ah one of the authors of the executive order, who wasn't present at that particular meeting, but is highly involved with the rescue missions, has shared a lot about how he...
00:42:00
Speaker
drafted this. So you know personally, I find myself in a really interesting space of knowing the people that are supporting this executive order and being somebody who is really concerned about the conflating people experiencing homelessness with crime and disorder.
00:42:17
Speaker
But I'm not, yeah just to to be honest, I'm not ah not a big fan of the term criminalizing homelessness because I think it gets to a polarization that doesn't help us have conversation. ah It's just one side says you're criminalizing, the other side says you don't, and now we're polarized again. And a lot of my work and efforts is to try to to move to the middle and move away from those polarizing elements so we can have real conversations of knowing and understanding each other.
00:42:44
Speaker
And so I don't like the executive order from that standpoint that I think it is actually creating and conflating crime and homelessness. And we just shouldn't do that. For the sake of those experiencing homelessness and for the sake of those who want to who want to help, I think it harms us both. And so when I'm living in my home and I'm not in this work, let's say, or I'm just a neighbor, my neighbor out there thinking that every homeless person is a criminal,
00:43:08
Speaker
That's not good for them, right? And if there's someone who claims Christ as their Lord, it's really not good for them because that's just not the way we ought to be approaching things. Certainly not relational. So, grave concerns.
00:43:21
Speaker
In our area, you know, that first, I think is what's section two talking about civil commitments. Mm-hmm. ah Lots of conversations, lots of conversations with the the the local PD and the chief of our our local police departments and our fire department and the impact, again, of methamphetamine and fentanyl on their work.
00:43:40
Speaker
And they're saying, we we don't have the resources and the tools we need to help these individuals. Now, I know I'm talking to... individuals that sincerely care. And I know that doesn't necessarily represent all the force.
00:43:53
Speaker
And so I always want to keep that in mind that something like ah a civil commitment, power, and authority is a very dangerous weapon for us as a community. And so that you I just want to advocate for all churches out there If your community is going to embrace this concept of civil commitment, you better make sure that where people are being committed and those mental health facilities are taking people taking care of people the way that Jesus would want them taken care of.
00:44:18
Speaker
So if somebody is deemed unable to really make a decision to be able to stop the use of that drug and that drug and that use of those drugs or their mental health is a danger to themselves and others.
00:44:29
Speaker
it's It's our obligation to make sure that we're providing dignified care and dignified solutions from the for them that Jesus would approve of. That hasn't always been the case. And it really is hard to do when we give the power with things like associating with ending crime and disorder on America's streets.
00:44:50
Speaker
I keep coming back to that title because I just i don't want us to I don't want us to forget that this was a violent act of trying to address what was understood as violence, but it's a title that kind of empowers anger and frustration.
00:45:05
Speaker
And as human beings, when we operate out of that, we don't make good decisions. And so I hope we'll all take a step back and recognize we are We are working with individual humans made in the image of God, and that it is incumbent upon us to make sure that we're providing ah dignified and humane solutions that if our mom or our dad or one of our kids had to be treated, it's a way that we would be okay with and not just, well, at least they're not on the streets and they're not bugging me anymore.
00:45:34
Speaker
that's That's the easy out and then the unhealthy out. So that civil commitment. Up here in Washington, I'm a little less concerned because there's a whole lot of really, really strong civil rights advocacy from privacy and information and mental health work.
00:45:51
Speaker
I don't see it working out well. I'm curious from your perspective in Atlanta, ah how you could see that being either worked out or even weaponized in your communities.
00:46:02
Speaker
Before I answer that, where are the the spaces, right, that people will be committed to? Yeah, that's a great question. This is a question because, like, you know, during deinstitutionalization period, ah lots people you know, support centers and and things like that were actually closed down.
00:46:22
Speaker
my My argument with that whole section is that the system, the mental health space, healthcare system right now cannot even handle all of the the growing needs in in communities. And so, you know, my my concern is that, you know, like yours, you know,
00:46:46
Speaker
a place of care. But my concern is where where are the places? yeah Have we ever seen any of those places on the news? Have we ever heard them named out loud?
00:46:57
Speaker
Can you point to one in your actual community? Because I can ride the streets in the communities where I am. I don't see them. I don't know where they are. And so we have to be sure that when we we're actually reading documents like this and ah hearing from people who may be authored or like whatever, we have to ask those questions because sometimes that information is left out and we are not clear as to where people are going.
00:47:25
Speaker
That could be similar to the 1996 Olympics that happened in Atlanta or any major events in other parts of the city where You know, the city gave a bunch of bus tickets to the unhoused community and bust them out.
00:47:40
Speaker
Nobody ever saw people ever again. And so, like, what where where are people going? Right. And, you know, as a ah policy scholar, I have to ask the question.
00:47:52
Speaker
You know, not just who holds the power, but who has the power to determine where people go, who has the power to to say where people are going to end up, who has the power to dictate the they experiences that people's lives may encounter and have.
00:48:08
Speaker
And as Christians, as followers of Jesus, we got to ask, like you're saying, like not only what where are those places, but who can we hold accountable about giving us the information, right?
00:48:21
Speaker
You know, i'm I'm often reminded of the ways in which Jesus saw people, but he was also proximate to people. He was so deeply moved with the concerns and the overwhelm of people that it says in Matthew 9, he saw people weary and helpless. He was moved with compassion, right?
00:48:40
Speaker
And I think a part of that compassion is also asking critical questions. yeah I need to be able to see and know. And have the vital information so I can give a ah critique.
00:48:54
Speaker
I know what has been an impact in my community historically, right? Generationally, I know what has been an impact where, you know, in certain neighborhoods that were redlined historically 50 and 60 years ago, the residue of that is still showing up generationally.
00:49:12
Speaker
In those communities, I visibly see that. And so you you add an additional layer of like executive orders that can also be used to further stigmatize, say, like black and brown or BIPOC people that are in communities that are concentrated with poverty. That concerns me. And so.
00:49:33
Speaker
When I hear rhetoric, when I read documents, I'm always asking, where? where where Show me. you know We got to be clear. That's all I'm saying. Yeah. Yeah. it's ah it's It's easy to identify problems.
00:49:47
Speaker
Yeah. and And that doesn't necessarily mean you've accurately identified it, but it's easy to call out a problem and make a lot of noise around it, but actually starting to talk about how we implement these things when you we're talking about, okay, let's help individuals experiencing mental health.
00:50:03
Speaker
Great. yeah Where's the funding to support that? Yes. And and and not just at ah at ah at a taxing or at a government level, but as a community level. Like, am I willing, are our neighbors willing to invest the dollars necessary? and And frankly, the time in relationship.
00:50:19
Speaker
Because part of our mental health crisis is not simply just that we don't have enough systems. We don't have enough relationships in general. And we're experiencing a massive amount of brokenness due to our isolations.
00:50:30
Speaker
as individuals that don't live in community and don't experience these differences together. And so we we go through this grief, we go through this brokenness, we keep asking ourselves, is there something wrong with me? Is there something wrong with me? yeah and And that's causing an even deeper level of trauma at a societal level, I think.
00:50:48
Speaker
Yeah. And clinicians too, right? Yeah. Because I mean, like my sister is a clinician, right? Dr. Lester up in D.C. area and she'll tell you like she so she's a social worker and she has, you know, so five, six schools. Right.
00:51:04
Speaker
As a social worker, as a clinician, how do you provide care? Right. This is what I mean by the system is overwhelmed. You know, you have a counselor or a social worker responsible for multiple schools. You have hundreds and hundreds of students and you don't even have the bandwidth within yourself to provide those types of supports. You think about larger society.
00:51:24
Speaker
clinic clinical shortages and all of those things. And so that's what I mean by the system and is overwhelming. and That's why I agree with you when we say we not only need to invest, but we need to invest in, you know, students who want to go to school, right? Yeah. Access higher education to become the helping professionals that's actually needed to stand in full support in communities that need this type of support.
00:51:48
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Well, you know, I'm looking at a question here of of advice to stand in solidarity with unhoused individuals.
Proximity and Trauma-Informed Care in Communities
00:51:57
Speaker
and i And I think, I mean, you just spoke about a number of things.
00:52:01
Speaker
One is, as I heard, the importance of proximate and being proximate to individuals that if you don't start there, which, you know, just obviously reminds me of the first principle in CCD actions of just relocation.
00:52:14
Speaker
you know Sometimes that doesn't mean you have to move into the neighborhood. Sometimes it means you got to move your feet next to somebody experiencing it and be proximate because I can make up all kinds of ideas of what I think the solution is.
00:52:27
Speaker
But if I'm not talking to the people experiencing it, I'm not going to be providing healthy solutions. ah So that, that i like I like to say, shut up and get next to somebody, right? So just stop thinking you got the solutions.
00:52:40
Speaker
Get next to next to somebody is a good way to begin standing in solidarity. What are some other things that you you'd like to share of of how individuals, as well as how you know collectively churches, because I'm thinking about, you know as you were mentioning clinicians, it strikes me the church doesn't talk about mental health in our area very well.
00:53:01
Speaker
And it certainly doesn't support families going through it very well. i you know yeah Personally, i had a mental health crisis with one of my kids. And ah frankly, the local public school was more helpful and more supportive than my church was. And I don't think it's because my church didn't want to be. It just didn't know how to be.
00:53:19
Speaker
And so the local public school was practicing and intentional and ready and supportive. Trauma-informed. Trauma-informed. And they cared for us. I mean, i to get a call from the local school principal and go, how are you?
00:53:32
Speaker
it It actually, it still gets me emotional to think that like, who You don't even know me and you called me. And I just didn't get that same kind of support from the local church necessarily. And so I'm going off here. But so I think, you know, as we think about that standing in solidarity, I'd love to hear, you know, individual recommendations as well as to the church. How does the church, because CCD work is about being church-based, how does the church step into some of this, particularly as we're talking about the executive order and maybe negative outcomes that are going to come from it, perceptions, like what what do we need to do?
00:54:05
Speaker
Man, I have so much to say. i am I'm deeply heartbroken at your experience. I had a similar experience. 2022, was in a near-fatal car accident.
00:54:19
Speaker
was almost paralyzed, severe nerve damage. And after surgery said that it would take a year to a year and a half to walk again, i had to learn how to walk again. like um My god wife became my primary caregiver if it wasn't for insurance.
00:54:35
Speaker
you know i don't know where ah would be, but the church, speaking of specifically you know a community of faith, but this is can be similar ways of showing up, but no phone calls, no trauma-informed care, no space to grieve, no lament.
00:54:58
Speaker
And what ended up happening in turn is the religious trauma or theological trauma that happens, right? Because, you know,
00:55:10
Speaker
people started to try to explain away what happened, right? Or try to rush you past your pain or not even have the ah empathetic knowledge or trauma-informed care or even learning about that in ways to show up with people. I think we need a theology of suffering. Like, how do we actually approximate ourselves to people in a healthy way without feeling like we have to fix it or explain why it happened in your life.
00:55:39
Speaker
ah Because every explanation could come off different. Right. I have people tell me that God wanted to do this because of this or you needed to you know and try to be a spokesperson When in actuality, you have to just be, have practice a ministry of presence.
00:55:55
Speaker
And that's what I'm getting at. and Like how do churches i think of even turning ah space that may often and only be used twice a week into a multi-purpose facilities, encouraging therapists in the local community that if they want to give pro bono, you know, support services to the community that to use their space to actually creating ways for the congregation and the the ministerial team to be trauma informed. I've done all types of trauma informed pedagogical trainings and care, ah you know, trainings to
00:56:31
Speaker
you know, higher learning educational professionals. But what about churches? Right. Lament is all throughout the scripture. And we have to have the type of faith that has the capacity to allow suffering to be in because it's not our job to fix things as much as it are is it our job to say that we serve a God that can comfort those in the midst of their struggle.
00:56:56
Speaker
And that's through the body of Christ. Right. by us showing up, you know what I mean? And so I wish we had more churches that were trauma-informed, that utilize their sanctuary and their spaces to invite in the type of support that is needed by the community.
00:57:13
Speaker
But also on the individual level level, I always go back to proximity because proximity is what It informs everything. you know You can never meet the needs of people that you've never met.
00:57:25
Speaker
But if you've never met people, then how can you stand aside and you know create all sorts of stories and and judgments about them? Go meet people. But you have to also create the type of margin in your life that affords you the opportunity to be in relationship with people because there are a lot of willing people.
00:57:43
Speaker
It's just not a lot of available people. Right. um If your schedule schedule is busy, you're not you're going to treat proximity to people like an event, not a lifestyle. That's what Jesus pushes us to to do. he He had this type of proximity nature about himself that was a part of who he was.
00:58:02
Speaker
He practiced proximity in a way. it was just like, man, I want to be that. Right. And it also will inform you how ah to show up in other ways, because every person is different. Every community is different. And we need to approximate ourselves so we can understand how we are best able to serve them.
00:58:18
Speaker
Man, man. i Margin for relationship, another great phrase. I just got all these little things here from this conversation that are just fantastic. And I just reflect on just the the the incarnation is our guide in this issue.
00:58:31
Speaker
yes I mean, Jesus is rich and leaves it behind to come into the poverty of this world and the poverty of humanity and experience that with us. He could have fixed it, and and he didn't.
00:58:42
Speaker
He experienced it with us. I'm not saying I understand that mystery. I don't. But I i love that he that his passion was to dwell with us. and And so, figuring out ways to dwell with the other, to dwell with those on the margins, and to create space for relationship to happen there.
00:59:01
Speaker
The truth is, if we just do that, we're going to figure out answers. And sometimes that's just going to be walking together in pain. And sometimes that's going to be real work that we're going to do in our communities of feeding and building places without walls and and addressing cleanliness, addressing mental health through relationship and maybe not through medications. And I'm not saying I'm opposed to medications.
00:59:23
Speaker
Just think it's a holistic solution that we need to be talking about. And I'm just hearing so much that that passion and that desire for for incarnating ourselves with others.
00:59:34
Speaker
And yeah, that's going to be challenging. But I do know this, and you and I both know this, If we step into that space, we are going to be more blessed than we're able to provide blessings to others. I know that's the truth for me. In walking with people experiencing poverty and people experiencing homelessness, I have been more changed and more blessed than I will ever be able to offer to them. Oh, yeah.
00:59:57
Speaker
Yeah. Some of my greatest stories of friendship have come out of the work that I get a chance to do. And, well, thank you. Well, thank you, Terence This has been an absolutely fantastic conversation for me. And i I can't wait for a time. I'm going to be in Atlanta and I'm definitely going to look you up and buy you lunch. We're going to have some time together. And so I'm going to finish us off here with a thank you all for everybody out there listening to the CCDA podcast. And again, thank you, Terence, for joining us today.
01:00:30
Speaker
If you want to learn more about Terence's book, which I know I've got it up on my browser, and I'm going to be hitting purchase here in just a second. It's called From Dropout to Doctorate.
01:00:42
Speaker
And if you want to learn more about CCDA, check out the show notes of this episode. So don't forget to subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts from.
01:00:53
Speaker
This episode is produced by Sarah Callen in association with Christina Foor And we'll be back soon with another episode featuring CCDA practitioners who are committed to seeing people and communities experience God's shalom.
01:01:05
Speaker
We'll see then.