The focus of our ministry is not on people who are chronically or perpetually homeless (our focus is on the working poor population of East Hollywood). Still, homelessness is a regular part of life here.
When I look around at my neighbors and new acquaintences in East Hollywood, I wonder how many have been, currently are, or soon will be without a place to call their own. The stereotypes of what kind of people end up homeless (and how they got there) just don’t seem to fit anymore. Sometimes people end up on the streets because of poor decisions, while others end up there after one or more events that were out of their control. We’ve all heard the tales, for example, of doctors and divorcees ending up on Skid Row.
A family with whom we’re studying God’s Word just obtained enough money to rent an apartment after a several-month period of homelessness. They are a clean-cut, hard-working family with children my kids’ ages.
Another hard-working family we know is unable to find enough work and has been living on the verge of homelessness for months. Talk about stress!
When families like these find themselves between jobs, they can find themselves “between apartments”, too. Many find a friend to stay with until the paychecks start coming in again. Others aren’t so lucky.
I am always surprised, for example, at how many car windows steam up at night as neighbors use their vehicles for beds. Rent is costly here in Los Angeles! Often more than one family shares an apartment to cut down on expenses. But when that arrangement can’t be achieved, into your car you go. And then, not everyone can afford a car, so the car-less are even less fortunate.
Of course, there are the stereotypical homeless. Men pushing shopping carts full of recyclables. Predictably sleeping off a hangover. Perhaps mentally ill in some way. On our street a young man curls up, blanketless, on an abandoned mattress. A skinny woman searches my trash bin for recyclables. For hours a tiny man sits deep in a shopping cart, his legs dangling as if he fell into a trashcan and got stuck.
Then there are Hollywood’s runaways. Hundreds of young people, but you’re not likely to notice them if you’re not looking for them. Hollywood is only one of their hangouts, as they travel a lot. With unique hairdos, tattoo sleeves and piercings, some can be found panhandling outside Vons grocery store. During a red light you suddenly notice two or three of them skateboarding through an intersection and ‘poof’ they’re gone again. I remember meeting Kimmy years ago in Hollywood — a teenager with sun-bleached blonde hair, emaciated torso and leathering skin. Clearly she has had a hard life. Sometimes I still see Kimmy passing by on the sidewalks – each time with a different boy accompanying her – and I wonder how long she’ll live.
Even more “hidden” I think are moms and small children — many make their way to Downtown LA to join the thousands of people connecting to resources in and around the rescue missions on Skid Row. Sometimes you intersect with them on the city buses in Hollywood, Santa Monica and Venice. And who wants the homeless? Hollywood doesn’t. (I’m talking about Hollywood the place, not Hollywood the Industry. Only in some cases are they one and the same.)A few years ago, Hollywood closed down its cold weather shelter at Highland and Romaine and discontinued several other homeless services in and around the tourist district to discourage the homeless population from frequenting the area. Once we naively telephoned the Hollywood police station to assist a man we found passed out on the sidewalk, only to discover the police outsourced our request to a city-funded group, who sent two men in green shirts (there were off-duty police officers) to pick up the man, put him in their car, and dump him off outside the borders of Hollywood.
My missionary friend Jim Beck rightly calls the homeless “social lepers of America.” We pay people to physically remove them from our sight. We go out of our way to discontinue services near us so they’ll tap into services near somebody else. We see the homeless so negatively, don’t we? We just want them to disappear. But how does Jesus view and relate to such “lepers”? Doesn’t the Bible teach that He reaches out and touches them???
My finger is at myself. Sometimes I’m like Jesus; I reach out and intentionally touch the lives of the unwanted. Other times I’m like the people who shut down the shelters; I do whatever I can to minimize the inadverted touches. I’ve shown genuine love and hospitality to people who were (whether by choice or circumstance) without a place to call “home” (as society defines it). And, I’m ashamed to admit, I’ve ignored, looked down on, and lied to the homeless.
Now I don’t even like calling a group of people “the homeless” or making a distinction between “them” and ”us.” Given a different set of circumstances and choices, I would be one of “them”. And surely then I would want to be treated as one of “us”.
The new churches in East Hollywood may not be made up of that group of people we lump together and call “the homeless”. But it is reasonable to expect that several of them will know what it’s like to be without a home (perhaps some of the residents here knew “street life” when they first arrived to this country). I do hope Jesus’ love for and treatment of the poor and “social lepers” will be a defining characteristic of the new churches here.
…Until then, my heart is heavy.