The Homeless Interviews #3

I will get back to Scott later.  Today's interview is with a young man I will call Al.  He is 40 years old and this was his second day at Matthew's Hope.  He was very nervous to talk to me. I completely understood that.  All of the homeless I spoke to were nervous, leery, afraid of me in some ways.  With each interview I started with their childhood in order for them to see that I was interested in who they were as a person, not simply their current situation.  Here is Al's story.  


Colleen: Tell me about your childhood and then how you became homeless.
Al: I was born in Rhode Island, a small town in Rhode Island.  My mom and dad got divorced when I was 7 or 8.  Father was an alcoholic.  Chronic alcholic.  Once my mom and dad got divorced my mom decided to move to Florida so my mom packed me and my brother up and we moved to Florida  I never went to HS.  I quit school in 9th.  My girlfriend got pregnant.  We were both 15 years old.  I had my first child when I was 15.  And then I was introduced to crack cocaine.  That was 1985, 1986.  I went to rehab.  I was with her.  He was born while I was in rehab. I got out of rehab and she was 17 and stayed clean and sober for 4 years.  After that I relapsed. Ever since then I have been in out of jail.  I spent my life in department of corrections.  Dealing with addiction.  So, just got out.  I spent 7.5 years.  I just got out not long ago.  I did so much damage in the past to people. Burnt so many bridges when I was on drugs that nobody wants to help me or anything like that.  My family don’t want to talk me, nothing like that.  So now I am homeless pretty much. I do not have any ID.  I have a department of corrections ID.  So any job I applied for as soon as they see that they do not even want to look at me, they dont want to talk to me. I’m having a hard time.  Now I am here trying to get some clothes and stuff like that.
 

Colleen: What brought you here (to Matthew's Hope)?

Al: A friend of mine told me about it. Another homeless person told me.

Colleen: Where do you see yourself in 5-10 years?

Al: Well, as long as I stay clean and sober I see myself, if somebody will actually hire me with my record, I see myself probably having a decent future.  I do the best I can with my record.  As long as I stay clean and sober that is my main goal.

 

Colleen: Did you have a goal in life when you were younger? Something that you wanted to do? 

Al: Like I said, you know me and my wife we had our son really young and we did not have time to set goals or nothing like that.  We had irresponsible sex, you know, puberty, and all of that and then we had 2 more sons after that right behind each other. They live in (south Florida).  She divorced me when I went to prison. She has remarried.

 

Colleen: Have you seen your children?

Al: I seen then a few months ago.  they are grown now. I mean, they are doing alright. 

 

Colleen: Do they know about you, where you are now?

Al: Yeah, they know. 

 

Colleen: Looking back, what would you do differently?

Al: Maybe if my mom would not have moved me to Florida. If there was some way that her and my dad could resolve.  My dad would have gotten help for his alcoholism, but then I would not be here and I would have never met my ex-wife. I would have never been here.  I would have never dealt with the crack issues they have here, AIDS, you know.  I think that if i had just never came here I would have been a lot better off.  But then again I just have the personality that it could have happened anywhere, you know what I mean.

 

Colleen: (Without sounding 'preachy' I asked everyone a quick question about church) Do you attend church?

Al: No.  I have not found a church yet.  I have only been out a couple weeks and I am just trying to survive.  You know what i mean. 

 

Colleen: Describe a typical day.

Al: Typical day for me is get up, sleep in the woods, get up and try to find a job.  Try to find something to eat.  Just try to make it through the day without using drugs and alcohol basically.

 

Colleen: Do you live in the same place all the time?

Al:  Yeah.  Last week was my first week here.  You are not going to believe it.  They (Matthew's Hope) gave me a tent.  They gave me a sleeping bag, everything I needed. This is only my second time here.  I am amazed at how much help they give here to people.  I cannot believe how they can fund it.  It feels like kind of a community situation.  Like I said it is only my 2nd time here.  I really do not know anybody.  There are a couple of people that I used to use with that are here that are clean and sober now, and uh, they seem to have their act together and they seem to like it here.  I mean they do a lot here for people.  I cannot believe it. 

 

** More with Al next time. 

The Homeless Interviews

This is part 2 of Scott:
Scott and I talked for a few minutes about how Matthew's Hope came to be.  To sum up, he was looking for a church/building to help and house the homeless when the temperatures dropped. Initially he found no one.  Eventually he found my church. We opened our doors whenever the temperature dropped below 39 degrees.  We provided shelter for the night, breakfast, and since we had 1 shower in the building, a shower. The local news found out about this and people began bringing us blankets, clothing, money, food, etc.  We had extra space, they needed a space.  God provided. 


Colleen:  How did the homeless know to come here?

Scott: Because we were going to the camps.  I had been going to the camps for years, for 8 years, so I knew where the camps were and I knew where I could find them and word started to spread once we got out there.  Initially people were very leery because what they really thought was going to happen was- listen to me preach and i will feed you.  Show me where Jesus did that.  Normally he fed them and then he shared his word with them.  It goes down so much better that way.

We got to talking with the shepherds a little more and they said, what’s your vision? I don’t know if I have one but God is certainly doing something here and they agreed and I said could we get ongoing use of that trailer?  The attitude was sure, we don’t care.  At the time they were talking about possibly using the back half for some other things and so they gave us half of the trailor to use and we said we want to offer something for every Tuesday. (Currently Matthew's Hope feeds and takes care of the homeless's needs on Tuesdays).

Colleen:  What is the most difficult part of working with the homeless people?

Scott: Not becoming an enabler.  That is everybody’s problem. 

Colleen:  What is the easiest part?

Scott: The easiest part is we are based on Matthew 25 right out of the Bible.  Who can argue with a mandate from God like that when He said- when they are thirsty give them something to drink.  We do that.  We got bottled water back here.  We give it away by the case.  It says when they are hungry feed them.  We do that.  We now offer breakfast, lunch, and dinner every Tuesday.  We also provide MRE’s and some other things given to us when people are new to the woods and try to help them set up.  When it said, they were naked, clothe them.  We clothe them.  When they are in prison, visit them.  We visit them.  We do go to jails sometimes and between our own folks and a few volunteers that go to visit them at 33rd (a local jail) and we also partner with some prison ministries that are helping minster to these people. Just becuase they go away it does not mean they let go of them. So the easiest part was, here is what God said do, for crying out loud do it.

The Homeless Interviews

Several months ago I did a series of interviews with a dozen or so people involved with a homeless ministry in my state.   My blog for the next about a month or so will be excerpts (edited only for relevance and length) from those interviews.  This first interview is with Scott, Founder and Chairman of Matthew's Hope:


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.  

God Bless America and Happy 4th of July!

This morning I awoke at 8 a.m. to the sound of my Face  Time alarm.  It was my son who is based in South Korea.  He pointed his camera out his window and proceeded to share with us a spectacular fireworks display.  What a way to begin my 4th of July Celebration!   Thank you to God for this Amazing country we live in.  Thank you God for the men and women of the United Sates Military who voluntarily serve our country. Thank you God for the technology that allowed us to share in the moment of a fireworks display from half way around the world.  Thank you to the US military for giving the men and women who serve the spectacular light show!  It was amazing. Even though I was watching (via web cam) from an upstairs window I could still hear the cheers of "God Bless America" and "USA, USA, USA".

GOD BLESS AMERICA AND THE MEN AND WOMEN WHO SERVE.

New Release

My 7th book, "Love on the Run"  has just been release by Smashwords.   Purchase it now here. It will be available on Amazon by the end of the week, and other ebook online retailers in the very near future.