Colleen: What is your first/earliest thought when you heard the word homeless?
Scott: When I was. You don’t think about it so much when you are there. I mean I did not. I was very young. I found myself on the streets at a young age and I learned so I understand the survival mentality. You did what you had to do. I started...when God just kind of stuck this on me early in my ministry myself and a few friends just went and tried to figure out who these people were and tried to figure out what they needed and it really started out with something as simple as what we called “sock Sunday”. When I went out into the homeless community I just noticed more and more people and who is doing what, and I couldn’t. All I could find was people arguing about what the problem was, how these people got there but nobody trying to do anything. They just kept talking and creating symposiums and committees and focus groups but nobody did anything and so my attitude was according to James 1:22, do not merely listen to the word and so decieves yourselves, do what it says. I said well let’s do something. So we just started going not, not knowing a thing other than drawing from my own background of homelessness.
Colleen: How did you become homeless?
Scott: 9 divorces between my parents, mostly. The first time I was ever on the streets I was 9 years old and several times then over the years into adulthood.
Colleen: On your own or with your parents?
Scott: No, on my own. And, there is more of that going on than people think. It is a very hidden community because as a kid you figure out things. In my case, in Indiana, as long as I showed up at class I was good. Nobody really asked me questions. I mean people knew something was not right but as long as you showed up at class at that time for the most part you are left alone and so I knew to keep in school. Keep going. You know and as silly as it sounds that is exactly how it worked. I had various friends, families that occasionally would let me take some spot on the couch or the floor but it was not ongoing because most people were too worried about getting involved. There were other times where you just snuggled up to a dumpster and tried to stay warm and found a public restroom that you can kind of wash up. I did not know a term for it. The homeless now call that a ‘**** bath’. I’m learning a lot of knew terminology. That is literally going into a public restroom and washing the most essential parts and that is what they have learned how do to. The question I asked that got everything started was ‘what do you need that you are not getting?’ And it was so silly, it was socks and underwear. You know when i was homeless if you offered me your socks and underwear, no thank you. I may be homeless. I may be dirty but I do not want your dirty on me. What I did is I first went to my church and I said we are going to have a sock Sunday and I challenged each of our families to bring a 6-pack of socks to church and I will make sure that they get to the people that need them and that then went on to become undy-Sunday and then from there. I did that for a couple of years. When the weather changed I started taking jackets and gloves and beanie hats and then a few years ago some friends and I were talking and we were saying, you know, there has got to be a better way to do more. Nobody is doing anything, especially in (this) county. The closest place for shelter to here is 10 miles. We started to look at the idea. What if we could get various churches to agree to host homeless people when the temperature was 39 degrees or below. Could we not find churches that would share the responsiblity?
**** more of this interview next post.
I look forward to reading more of this series, thank you for posting!
ReplyDeleteWow, this is such an inspiring interview. It's sad to learn about kids living on the streets, but it's important to know.
ReplyDeleteMy uncle does a lot of work for the homeless. I commend you for your efforts to bring awareness to the issue of homelessness.
ReplyDelete