On Ending Homelessness with a Bulldozer

by Carl Mazza

There should be no poor among you, for in the land the Lord your God is giving you to possess as your inheritance, the Lord will richly bless you, if only you fully obey the Lord your God and are careful to follow all these commands I am giving you today. For the Lord your God will bless you as promised, and you will lend to many nations but will borrow from none. You will rule over many nations but none will rule over you.

If there is a poor man among your brothers in any of the towns of the land that the Lord your God is giving you, do not be hardhearted or tightfisted toward your poor brother. Rather be openhanded and freely lend him whatever he needs.
- Deuteronomy 15:4-8

In 1983 a 15-year-old girl came to Meeting Ground for help. She was alienated from her family - homeless, scared, and bewildered. We tried to befriended her as best as we could, but living in an emergency shelter, and being with and among other much older homeless persons, was a not an experience she wanted. After a few days, she found a place with friends and left. Carla didn't stay with us long, but she never forgot us, nor we her.

On August 23, I was traveling out-of-town when I got an emergency phone call from Carla. Over many years she has never stopped remembering her own homelessness and has become a fierce advocate. Her voiced choked with anger and pain, she described how police had just bulldozed and trashed a homeless camp in the woods behind a shopping center in Elkton. Carla is like so many of us at Meeting Ground. Once we experience homelessness, even when we are moving on with our lives, we can never forget others who continue to be trapped in its cruel spiral. Over many years she has kept in touch with these, giving whatever help she can: preparing and bringing meals to the camps, collecting blankets, tents, and sleeping bags - and above all, keeping a close and caring contact.

When the town of Elkton went in without notice or warning to collect the personal belongings of its poorest citizens and trash them, it did so in response to a complaint. Merchants had expressed displeasure that people were rummaging in their dumpsters, and they wanted it stopped.

Persons who are so vulnerable and forgotten that they sleep on the ground, unprotected from bitter cold and searing heat, insects and predators and the whims of human violence, deserve a modicum, and perhaps much more, of respect and forbearance.

Those who dive into dumpsters for their meals are no disgrace to the respectability of a community - but those who forbid them this last-ditch effort to survive, may well be. How can a community be so hardhearted or tightfisted as to deny a person the right to pick their meals from a garbage bin on the grounds that they are causing a disturbance and making a mess?

Elected officials need to ask the right questions. On becoming aware that human beings are living like this in our own neighborhood, we all should demand answers from the social service agencies and churches as to why some minimal alternative is not available - a heated warehouse with a shower, a church basement with a kitchen - anything to afford a small bit of margin to folks so down-and- out.

Instead of demanding a response from ourselves and others in the community, we react by blaming the victims and rushing in to clean up the problem with a bulldozer. It is hard to disguise the fact that the real intent is to make homeless men, women, and families feel as unwelcome as possible, in the hope they will move on to another town.

Carla is not a minister, nor a pillar of any church, nor chair of a mission committee. She is just a woman who has seen homelessness close up, and whose anger and frustration has been converted to passionate action. She cooks the food, gathers the needs, walks the dangerous paths, makes the calls, pounds the desks - and in a hundred other ways does all in her power to help. She may not have a church home, but she is serious about the mandate of Deuteronomy 15 and committed to a community where there is a place for all. The principle is simple: we are expected to be generous because we have been treated generously.

Meeting Ground has been laying the groundwork to provide a place where anyone can come, especially in the winter, to find a warm place to sleep, good food to eat, and neighbors who care. As this issue of Loaves and Fishes goes to press, we are taking helping to provide the leadership to make it happen. Our hope is that the town of Elkton, the Department of Social Services, churches and faith communities, civic and private organizations, and many volunteers will come together to provide another a housing refuge in a community where all established shelters are full to overflowing already - even before the onset of winter.
One man, whose belongings were destroyed, came up to me at Community Kitchen on the following Friday. He wasn't angry, as he had a right to be, but he was obviously very injured. He wanted to talk. Among the bulldozed "trash" was the only photo he had of his deceased mother. He had begged for permission to retrieve it, but was threatened with arrest if he tried. So, as the machines raked and scooped everything, he stood by silently and watched.

As did we all.