I was outside The Listening House in St Paul, with some middle schoolers from Las Vegas in town for a mission trip.
We had spoken to several people there, offered hygiene kits the kids had assembled, and prayed with a few folks. Then Danny came over. Danny is middle-aged, and dressed moderately well. "What is the cause of homelessness?", he asked us.
Cause? A single cause? I was thinking about job loss, addiction, running away from abusive homes, mental illness, freedom, and the other reasons people have told us about being on the street. I couldn't think of only a single cause.
"Broken relationships" he continued. "I have family in town, and if those relationships weren't broken, I would have somewhere to sleep tonight." He went on about how important is it to work at relationships and keep them healthy, so that when you need people, they are there for you. Maybe he said that last part, and maybe I imagined it, because I mentally drifted away as I wrestled with whether this could be a root-cause. When I mentally returned he was telling the kids a bit of his life story. Yes, there was job loss, but without relationships he had no one to turn to when the money ran out. Was there an unspoken factor involved? Don't know, and it really didn't matter - Danny had opened my eyes a bit further to the fact that there isn't an "us" (housed) and "them" (unhoused). There is just "us", and God was clear that we are to look after the hungry, cold and naked, and yes, the lonely.
We prayed with Danny while he wept, and then we headed back to Mears Park. I could tell that one of the boys and one of the girls had their eyes opened a bit. I hope that that morning has planted something in them.
