July 2016 Blog Update
Mid-Summer! and so far it’s on again/off again between Congress and Oxford
streets and down Preble and all the side streets where Grace-Street Ministry
works. First hot and humid is on then off, then dark and dank, then bright and
clear.
When you’re comfortably housed and well transported, you just turn the
ac on or off and it’s another good Maine summer of work and play and family,
and maybe there’s a week at the beach in view. When you’re homeless and your transport
is by foot, daytime you sweat, shiver, and pray for more depending on whether
it’s hot and humid, dark and dank, or bright and clear. Nighttime you sleep in
a crowded shelter or outdoors under a bridge or a doorway, in a park or an
alley, or in the woods.
If you’ve chosen the wrong friends, there is one substance or another to
numb your senses and suspend the despair you feel mounting inside you. If
you’ve chosen well, you’ve at least got each other’s backs. Against what?
against having everything you carry stolen, your wallet or purse and all your
money and id and prescriptions; against assault, physical, sexual,
psychological; against aloneness and vulnerability.
What do you have when you are homeless then? Nothing? Well no, not
entirely. You have the hope and the fortitude, the faith and the friends you
can muster. You have the multiple services offered by Preble Street: the Resource
Center and Soup Kitchen; the men’s, women’s, families, and teen shelters; the
allied Health centers; and the Amistad day shelter and lunchroom.
And you have three pastors from Grace-Street Ministry working a 52-week
Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday schedule, and each of them sooner or later is going
to say Hello? Need a pair of socks? Everything okay? Then they’re going to
listen and, depending, ask something like Where’d you get that bruise? What’s
your shoe size? Got a case worker? Great you got that job, bus pass help? 15$
cover the rental app? Want us to call the landlord? Can you cover that
prescription? What about getting a GED? When’s your appointment at Mercy? How are
you planning on getting back to North Carolina? Would a prayer help? A food
card?
So yes, it’s hard, really hard when you’re homeless in America. But in
Portland you are not alone. You have Preble Street and Grace-Street Ministry. Sincerest
thanks to our individual supporters and church partners. We can do this.