It’s a cold January day in Everett, the kind of day where the combination of wind and rain make it both ugly and beautiful in a Northwest kind of way. It’s cold and wet, and you hope that wherever your day leads, it is mostly indoors. In spite of this weather, there are many people in Everett who slept outdoors the night before, and a good number of them are upstairs right now, where the Our Common Ground hospitality space is in full swing. When we opened an hour ago, people streamed in out of the cold and the rain, and were greeted by some hot coffee and some good people. Folks have settled in, and they are reading books, sleeping in the corner, and catching up with friends. As usual it is hard to tell who the Our Common Ground volunteers are, and who is there to get out of the cold, because community has a way of blurring these lines. Yes, there is some tension as well. The challenges and the trauma of living outside can put you on edge, even if you aren’t dealing with other issues such as mental (un)health or addiction, as many of our folks are. But through all of this, we are doing our best to live into our mission of community and hospitality in Everett.

But I am not upstairs.

While our other staff and volunteers are welcoming people to our community, I am in our office, downstairs from our hospitality space, pacing around, trying to just breathe, and holding back a few tears that want to come out. I feel like many parts of my life are crushing in on me, and I am doing my best to keep them in perspective and not freak out. Inside my head are a myriad of worries and fears and thoughts. Some of them seem like things one ought to worry about, and some just seem ridiculous. Sometimes these all come at my brain at once, and my mind is filled with the anxious and depressing thoughts.

I am worried about Our Common Ground, that we will not have the resources to be sustainable and that it is going to fail. I am worried that folks living outside will no longer have this place to go. Then I worry that Our Common Ground is great, but I am the one that will fail, and I never should have been in charge of this thing to begin with. My mind moves to a meeting I had last week that I can’t stop dwelling on, because I think I screwed it up and didn’t say what I needed to say. Now I can’t stop worrying about it. Then I see the mess in the office, and I think that I can’t even keep my space clean. What am I doing trying to lead something like Our Common Ground? And then I get angry. First at myself, for all of these things. Then, because the anger at myself is too much, I get angry at work, at the church, at things around me. I want to say screw it all and find a job that doesn’t have any stress and run away from everything that worries me. Then I feel awful, which can lead me right back to the beginning of this whole thing.

I look at the clock. I have only been in the office five minutes.

This is the reality of living with anxiety. Sometimes you feel great, and sometimes you find yourself in your office, hiding away from what you see as chaos outside. But the reality is, you are really just trying to hide from the chaos in your own mind.

I have had anxiety for years, maybe much of my life. But it is only in the last year that I have spoken openly about anxiety. Only in the last year that I would admit something might be happening inside me beyond my control sometimes. And it is only in the last eight months that I have taken steps - like seeing a counselor weekly and trying to medication - to be healthier. For many years, I knew something was up in my brain. I would get extra angry at little things, and sometimes in those moments I felt almost like a different person. I would feel overwhelmed with work and worry and life - sometimes to the point where I couldn’t bring myself to sit down and do simple and needed tasks for work. And then I would feel lazy. Like I was failing. I worried that the work of being a pastor and walking alongside neighbors living outside was just not something I could do, or, maybe, something I was never really good at.

And my response to all this, prior to this last year, was to put my head down and work harder. Because that is what one is supposed to do when things are hard. Press on. I saw my feelings and emotions as betraying me, getting in the way, making everything harder. So I would shove them down and move on. When I had a bad day and couldn’t get work done, I would work extra hard the next day, beating myself up until I accomplished what I needed to accomplish. My anxiety and anger and depression were things to overcome. And because I couldn’t overcome them, I felt like a failure.

It has taken me awhile to be honest about my anxiety. I felt for so long like it was something I just needed to get over. Something that, with a few more skills and routines, I could overcome. I felt blaming anxiety for any part of me not accomplishing what I wanted to accomplish would be just an excuse for my own limitations. But the more I have been able to be honest about it, the more I have felt like I am on a good path toward wellness and better mental health.

I share all of this not only to be honest about my anxiety, and to shed light on this common issue that so many people deal with every day. I share this as a way of having a small amount of grace on myself. And also as a way of recognizing my privilege in my struggle with anxiety.

You see, my work at Our Common Ground, and the years I spent before that working with neighbors experiencing poverty, addiction, and mental (un)health, have given (I think) me a decently large capacity for grace when it comes to the reality of mental (un)health and the street and how that can affect my friends and neighbors. But I came to realize over the last year that I was unwilling to give myself any grace when it came to my own anxiety. I am learning, slowing, how to do that.

But my unwillingness to give myself grace had another side as well. I could recognize that my friends dealing with mental (un)health on the street were dealing with things out of their control. I could see they needed more that just some encouragement to deal with what was happening inside of their brain. Yet with my own anxiety, I thought I could just deal with it. I could fix it, because I had the skills to do so. As much as it hurts to admit, I think that deep down, I saw myself as more capable of dealing with anxiety than my friends who lived outside. That I, someone who has taught classes and preached in churches about this very thing - that people who live outside are human beings with the same capacity and agency as anyone else - had internalized the idea that as a middle class person who lived inside and had a steady job, I was more capable of dealing with my mental issues than someone living on the street. Now, the reality is, things like housing and good food and supportive family go a long way toward helping people deal with mental (un)health. (In fact, they are vital much of the time, and one huge barrier folks on the street have in dealing with mental health issues is lack of these things.) And I recognize my own privilege in dealing with my anxiety. But I do want to show how easy it is, in our culture, to internalize the myth that poor people are less capable than others. And for me, it took my own mental health issues to realize just how much I had internalized this myth.

As you can see, anxiety can make the work I do quite difficult at times. It requires me to live in the tension of working with people who are struggling with mental health, on top of so many other things like poverty, addiction, did-connect from others, etc., yet also taking care of my own mental health. It requires me to recognize the power and privilege I bring into our space, while also not downplaying my own anxiety because I see it as a smaller issue that what many of my friends deal with. It requires me balancing caring for myself and caring for others. And it requires me to recognize that my drive to do good work in the world is good, but also means taking an honest look at what I can and can’t do sometimes, saying no to things, and giving myself some grace when I mess up.

If you have read this far, I thank you, for walking alongside me as I share this story, a story that will continue to unfold as I journey on. And the truth is, I hate sharing this. I hate letting others into my own junk like this. And I see so many more things I should be talking about - systemic racism, sexism, homophobia, climate change, etc, etc - rather than my straight white dude anxiety. But I truly believe that one element of toxic masculinity in our culture is the inability to talk about these things. To deal with these issues. So I share this small story today in hopes that we can do better. That I can do better. And that maybe some healing can come to our world to more we are honest about these things.

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This last week, the city of Everett passed a law that increased the penalties for “aggressive” panhandling. Around the same time, some signs began popping up, saying to please not "encourage panhandling or enable addiction" by giving people money, but rather give to local organizations instead (with a list of said organizations). As someone who has worked with folks living outside for many years, this made me angry. I know that further criminalizing folks in poverty or dealing with addiction just won’t work. And that stigmatizing them with signs will only further the divide between those in poverty and those not. I could feel an angry blog post being formed in my mind as I reflected on both of these things. 

But when I sat down to write, anger was not what came out. Hope was. Yes, I was still angry and sad about those things, but hope pushed through.
 
So rather than an angry blog post, what I want to do is offer an invitation. And invitation to dream, to collaborate, and the imagine how our community might engage the reality that in our neighborhoods there are people experiencing poverty, addiction, and mental illness.

I invite you to dream of a Everett community where ALL people can live, be safe, and thrive. Where those experiencing poverty can find stability. Where those dealing with mental (un)health can find health. And where those dealing with the illness of addiction can find healing. And where all can find community and connection. Because this is what all of us want. 

I invite you to imagine about how we can work toward that goal. What if people who lived outside and people who lived inside worked together to end poverty? What if we began to see addiction as an illness, rather than a criminal behavior?  What if our collective imagination could think of ways to engaging these things what we haven’t even thought of?

And I invite you to collaborate about how we can begin to do this work. This month, our little church-in-formation is starting a new organization called Our Common Ground. Our mission is be a community of hospitality and collaboration that is open to all, as we journey together with our neighbors experiencing poverty, addiction, and mental illness. We want to do whatever we can to live out the vision above. But we can’t do it alone. We will need help. 

Because this work of helping all in our community thrive is too important to be left to the professionals. Or those with money and power. Or those who have enough time. There is a place for all of us. We need everyone's voice.

Every once in a while, there is a book that you begin to read and end up stopping a few chapters in, not because you are losing interest, but because you realize that the book is going to be important, and you just don’t have the capacity that week to really slow down and read. Souls in the Hands of a Tender God, by Craig Rennebohm, was the most recent book for me that fits into that category.  I first picked it up last year, having heard from so many people that it was a must read, especially for anyone working among folks who are marginalized by poverty, mental illness, or addiction. But I was in a huge life transition, and just didn’t have the time to really READ a book. But I finally did, and was left wondering why I waited so long.

This book was like an old friend, who is far wiser than you, but willing to stop and help you along. I felt both affirmed and challenged as I read. Affirmed in my belief that community and relationship must be central to working alongside neighbors marginalized by poverty, addiction, and mental illness. But challenged by the fact that believing that, and living that out, are two different things. I discovered a deep sadness within me as a read, realizing how often I had put all of the other elements of being a pastor ahead of the simple call to come alongside people. But it was a sadness that was full of hope, as I saw the challenging but beautiful simplicity of what Rennebohm was calling us to:  companionship with other human beings on this journey of life.

Though this book was full of many things that are worthy of reflection, I want to focus on two things in particular, that have had an impact on me even in the short time since I finished the book. One is the beautiful idea of companionship that Rennebohm lays out. And the other is the idea of “circles of care” that we can be a part of creating in our communities.

Companionship is central to what Rennebohm is talking about throughout this book. The simple yet profound act of walking with someone through the challenges of life. As Rennebohm says, “The aim is not to fix things; it is simply to be together, to be present for one another. Companionship is an unfolding and growing relationship, a way of sharing the world together (72).” This is so important to remember. I am one of those pastors that seems to function well when there is something to fix. I often have a very difficult time just slowing down and truly being present. Though being someone who can get things done effectively has it’s place in the church, it can become a hinderance to pastoral care, and this book was a kind yet constant reminder that simply being present is so much more important that how many people I helped today.
 
Rennebohm describes four key elements of companionship: Offering Hospitality, Walking Side By Side, Listening, and Accompaniment. He weaves these together to paint a beautiful picture of mutual care and support. Hospitality, he shows, is about created space with another. It goes beyond simply welcoming people into your physical location, but creating what he calls sacred space, where someone is welcomed without judgment. From that place you can begin to walk side by side. Rennebohm says that, unlike sitting across from someone, side by side is the natural position of journeying together. It models a relationship of equality, where we walk at the same pace, where questions about where we are headed are discussed, not ordered from one of the parties. Which is why listening is so important on this journey. Though hearing is a part of our daily lives, truly listening often happens few and far between. Where we seek not simply to hear another person, but to understand them. Where we can listen to all that is happening in that moment, and not simply the words being spoken. And to listen for hope. Which brings us to accompaniment, where in both physical, spiritual, and metaphorical ways, we commit to journeying with another, being willing to navigate the twists and turns even when it becomes difficult. 

This vision Rennebohm paints is beautiful. It fills me with hope. Yet even as I typed it, I felt myself questioning how much this is possible. I have been there before, in a space where I wanted to practice being a companion. And where I felt like I dropped the ball. Because this way of being present with another human being on a journey is hard. It can drain you mentally, spiritually, and even physically.  Even when we are healthy, being a companion is something that must be done purposefully and slowly over time. And it is also something that must be done in community.

Which brings us to Rennebohm’s concept of “circles of care.” The work of caring, of healing, of companioning should not be left to one person. Rather, each of us can have a role to play in someone’s journey. And as each of us lives into our role, we can become another connection in someone’s circle of care.  For instance, as a pastor, I can have a role if I encounter someone living outside, who is looking for support on their journey. But let’s say they also need housing. I would try to find someone who know’s the housing situation in my area far better than me, and hopefully they could meet with them. And like that, another person is added to the circle of care. 

This image, of companioning with others and creating circles of care, fills me with hope in it’s simplicity, but also with cynicism, as this way of living is so against our Western consumer culture. A culture that has even infiltrated the church, where many of us look for a place that can fulfill MY spiritual needs. Even in myself I can see how much this goes against my tendencies and desires to get things done and be “successful” in the eyes of the world. Yet at then end of the day, the hope is stronger.

As I picture my own neighborhood of Bayside, in North Everett, I can see how even a small group of people living in this way might change our community. I dream of a community that, rather than kicking people experiencing addiction and poverty out of our parks, comes together to better understand the reality of poverty and addiction, in order to make our neighborhood a safe place for all. I dream of a community that sees people living on the street, experiencing mental illness, and struggling with addiction, and sees them as people rather than problems to fix. People who are hurting, and a majority of whom do not choose to live like that. I know this is a big dream. But like the X-Files poster on my office wall says, I want to believe. I want to know that this simple but beautiful idea of coming alongside people who are hurting and creating networks of care in our community can happen. But it will mean working together, not just with people outside my church and faith tradition, but outside my cultural and socieo-economic and friendship groups, for the bettering of my neighborhood and community. 

But I think it is a neighborhood that we all would want to live in. 

A few years back when I was living in Portland, I saw an article about a church not far from where I was living that wanted to let a few homeless women and children sleep in their cars on the church property.  The church had seen the reality of how many people in Portland were sleeping on the street or in their cars, and they wanted to do something. Because that is what churches should be about.  And one way they wanted to help was by opening up their parking lot to a few people who were sleeping in their cars. Though not ideal (it wan’t actual housing, after all), it would be a start. They were also going to make sure those who stayed there had access to restrooms and garbage cans. All sounded good and simple.

And then some neighbors got wind of what was going on, and their complaints helped to shut down the project altogether. And one of their primary complaints was one of safety. Yes, you're are hearing that correctly. Because a church was going to let just a few women and children sleep in their cars in the parking lot, neighbors were worried about safety. For themselves. The most poignant and heartbreaking reality of all of this was in a statement by the church after the program was shut down:  "The amount of publicity generated by the situation created a hostile environment where the church could not be confident about the safety of the people in the car.”  Yes, you heard that right. The neighbors, out of a concern for “safety,” were so riled up, that the church was concerned for the safety of the women and children.  

I remember being so angry when I first heard this story. It is a perfect example of NIMBY-ism. The “ let’s help people, but how dare you try to help them in my vicinity” mentality. But the reality is that this way of seeing those in poverty who live on the streets or in their car is not limited to this one neighborhood, but has become a part of our cultural myths about those living on the streets.

I was reading an article this week, and this story of the church in Portland kept coming back up in my mind.  The article was simply titled, “Our fear of the homeless is killing the homeless.”  The main idea of the article was that there is a widespread culture of shaming the homeless in our country. From ridiculing people who live outside for engaging in life-sustaining activities, to building a culture of fear about those who live on the streets being dangerous, this narrative is carried along by the news and other powers that be. The reality is, however, that it is those who live outside who are actually unsafe. Those who live inside are actually the ones who are a threat to those who live outside, and not the other way around.

One of the most striking things cited in the article was that the idea that those who live outside are dangerous to people and property is just a myth. The realty is that, though homeless people are more likely to have a criminal record, there are actually less likely to commit a violent crime.

On the contrary, those who live outside are more likely to be on the receiving end of the violence of our system.  Here are a few of the statistics cited in this article:

• The mortality rate for those living outside is around 7 times great than it is for the general population
• Half of the women and children on the street ended up their because of domestic violence
• At least 2/3 of women on the street have been sexually assaulted (and that is likely a low estimate)
• Treatment for everything from addiction to HIV/AIDS is much harder to access when you live on the street
• The average life-expectancy for someone living on the street is between 40 and 50. The average for the general population is 78.

To live outside is to be perpetually unsafe. Those of us who live inside have many layers of safety surrounding us. We have doors to lock. We have neighborhoods who care about safety. We have security systems. We have healthcare, and cars to get us there. We have social networks of people that can help us.  To live outside is to lack most, if not all, of these things. 

Yet our fear of those who live outside contributes to their lack of safety. And part of that fear, I think, comes from the fact that such visible poverty is a reminder of how close poverty can be. To quote the article again:

Criminals. Drug Addicts. Lazy. Dirty. Bringing down the neighborhood. Eyesores. 

These are a few of the things you would likely assume about those living outside, if the only information you received about houselessness was from the media. While it’s true that there are journalists and media outlets that portray those living outside in a better light, by and large, since I have been paying closer attention the last few years, this is the kind of coverage I have seen. 

For example, this morning I woke up to this on twitter: 

The picture shows the reality of poverty, that human beings are living in their RVs, likely moving around week by week so they won’t get harassed. But what does this reporter say? They are in the way for a festival. That they are unsafe and we should be worried.

I was going to rant more about how the media portrays those living outside (and indeed they often do an awful job), but I’m going to hold off on that. Because the thing is, if this was just a media issue, it would be easier to just dismiss. After all, my friends who live outside are by no means the only group that the media regularly shows in a bad light. But I see these perceptions just as much in the broader culture, and the media much more as falling in line with the popular narrative of those living outside, then orchestrating it themselves. Our society wants to believe that to end up on the street means you have some personal failing that brought you there. You were lazy. You were on drugs. You messed up. You are a criminal. We refuse to believe that someone who didn’t make poor life choices could end up on the street. We cling to the American Dream Myth that hard work = success = morality.  We continue to see poverty as a moral failing. And this is much easier to do if we associate poverty and houselessness with tangible acts of social immorality.

Which is why we often don’t notice the media’s portrayal of those living outside. And also why we must. Because, as so many wise people before me have said, the opposite of homeless is not housing, it is community. It is relationship. And the way our society sees those living outside makes is incredibly difficult to find a community where they are welcome, and where they are seen as simply neighbors, rather than shunned. A community where low income housing is met not with fear, but opportunity for our neighbors to succeed.

The way our society sees those living outside continue to build barriers between us and those who live outside. So let us work toward bringing those barriers down.
 

While scrolling through my news feed the other day, I read the first of what would be many articles I would read about my former city of Portland, and one way that they are choosing to address those who are living outside: The Homeless Sweeps. This is nothing new, and has been done from time to time since long before I ever started working among those living outside in Portland. I have seen them happen to my friends, and have seen the devastating effects the sweeps can have on people who are already pushed to the margins of our society. But the fact that is still occurring, and even increasing in certain areas of our country, just made my heart heavy. That this tactic, which is proven time and time again to do nothing to help those who live outside and only to protect the middle class from having to see poor people in their area, is being wielded by the powers that be.

If you are not familiar with the sweeps, they happen when the city decides - either on their own or because of citizen (read: middle class) complaints - to clear out anyone sleeping in a certain area. They are required to give at least 24 hours written notice before they clear out an area, but that is not always that much time if you happen to be gone for the day. Then the police show up one day in force, and make everyone who they think is sleeping there move out of the area, with the threat of arrest should they not comply. If people are gone, their possessions are confiscated. Now, legally, the city must hold their possessions (which for many is their worldly belongings) for at least 30 days (4th amendment and all that), and make a reasonable effort to get it back to them. But having seen this stuff firsthand, I can say I rarely saw any effort to locate the owners, and in fact i have seen friends of mine who tried to get their stuff back have a very difficult time finding out where it was being kept. 

Often the folks who were being cleared out would ask the officers where they can sleep, if they aren’t allowed to sleep in this area. They were never given a straight answer. Often they were told by the officers, “I don’t know, you just can’t sleep here.” I have asked officers this myself and not been given an answer. I have been in a room with the downtown Portland precinct commander who was asked this question, and even he couldn’t give us a straight answer. So what those who sleep outside hear is that you can’t sleep here, and you can’t sleep anywhere. That you are not welcome in this city. That basic life sustaining activities like sleeping are not available to you because of your economic status.

Given all of this, I find it telling that the powers that be don’t like it when people use the word “sweep.” The police spokesmen says that clearly in the article. They don’t like that term. Because it describes accurately what is happening:  the sweeping of human beings. Just look at any article about the sweeps. You will likely see the city, the police, and the media talk about cleaning up an area as a reason for the sweeps. Cleaning up people. Sure, they will point to the actual garbage in the area, and the need to clean that up. (Which, by the way, is a by product of not having a garbage can outside of your back door like us good middle class consumers do.) But in the end, the result is the sweeping of human beings.

And at the end of the day, sweeps will not work. They are the city wide equivalent of me shoving all of my toys under my bed, and then telling my mom that my room is clean. Only instead of a messy toys in my room, we are talking about people, and the injustice that so many people sleep outside every night in our prosperous nation. I do not have all the answers for what a city should do. I am a pastor, not a public policy person. But regardless of what solution they come up with, people deserve to be treated like human beings, deserve to practice life sustaining activities without harassment, and deserve to have a say in the solution to their own situation. 

And sweeps deny them all of this, which is why they need to end.