City Struggles to Meet Needs of Homeless

Council to Reconsider Interfaith Rotating Winter Shelter on January 12th.

The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the City of Davis and the Interfaith Rotating Winter Shelter (IRWS) regarding homeless services took over a year to write.  It lasted one week.

I have a bias on both sides of this issue. I am on the leadership team at Davis Community Church (DCC), one of the hosts of the IRWS.  However, I am also a neighbor. I live on B Street with a bay window that overlooks the north end of the park where transients often hang out. When I first heard about how much difficulty the pastors were having coming to a compromise with their neighbors about offering services to the homeless, I questioned DCC’s goal. The church has so much to offer so many other needy folks—why insist on helping the homeless? Simply help some other group instead.

Then I volunteered at the shelter. The Interfaith Rotating Winter Shelter  is a collaborative effort between about eleven faith organizations and is hosted at DCC for about three of its 12 weeks of operation each winter. Associate Pastor Bill Habicht of DCC has personally administered the shelter’s operation since spearheading its founding in 2007.

Vounteering at Shelter Changes Perspective

Suffice it to say, I was impressed by the humanity of the shelter guests. I came to know some of the guests by name and trust that they had no violent intentions toward other people. One experience in particular still weighs on me. There was a woman who had come into town for a job interview and lost her wallet. She ended up staying in our shelter, for lack of anywhere else to stay. She happened to be sleeping near an overhead light just outside of the bathrooms. One of the guests, who I knew, sat under the light near her to read a book, and this woman was scared. What is it that threatens us about the presence of homeless people? I don’t know exactly.

She asked me to ask him to move. I listened to her concerns, and I assured her that he was a friendly man, and she was in good care. When that wasn’t enough to ease her fears, I agreed to speak with him. In the most diplomatic and polite way I knew how, I explained to him that this woman was from outside of Davis and asked if he would give her some extra personal space. He begrudgingly moved back to his own floor mat and sleeping bag, for which I thanked him profusely. After about five or ten minutes, he decided to leave. He was angry and offended, and he walked out the door in the middle of the night. I don’t know where he slept.

My experience is that when you smile at homeless folks and say hello just as you would greet anyone else, they appreciate it. I don’t often give money to folks begging on the street, instead, I smile and ask how they are doing. Often, they smile back and wish me a nice day. They don’t take advantage of my friendliness to beg some more. If they did, I would simply smile again, apologize for not lending my help, and wish them a nice day as well. I don’t understand how some residents can say they want to help homeless people, but don’t want to see them. Insisting on making transients invisible is part of the problem. All day long people ignore them, glare at them, and resent their presence when they simply want to be treated as human beings.

It is also my experience, however, that when the homeless are not treated as humans, they react. When we cower, when we ask them to please go somewhere else, they are offended. And I understand that. I have to live with the fact that I chose that way out myself. I asked the gentleman at the IRWS to move. Although that was a reasonable way to resolve the situation, it made him feel less than human. I could have instead introduced the woman to him, encouraged them to talk for a few minutes and find some things they had in common. I could have instead invited and helped her to move her own floor mat and sleeping bag to a different place. I could have offered to move closer to her myself so that she knew I would be watching her more closely all night. I knew him, and I could have stood up for him. Now, with the homelessness issues being debated in Davis, I want to stand up for them. I don’t want to make the same mistake twice.

Concerns about Safety at Central Park

I personally enjoy looking out at the north end of the park from my living room. Sometimes there are homeless folks gathered there, and sometimes it is empty. Sometimes they play horseshoes in the horseshoes court, which I don’t think homeowners and renters ever take advantage of. Did you know that our park has a horseshoes court?

The gentleman that walked out of the shelter that night handled his conflict quite well. He didn’t take his anger out on me, he didn’t take it out on the woman; he simply verbalized his feelings and extricated himself from the situation. It was a very mature response. I have never personally observed a brewing melee in the north end of the park, but I know that they happen. Contrary to popular belief, crime is actually significantly less frequent in the park than elsewhere in downtown. Nevertheless, I see the police there every once in a while, and I can imagine that homeless folks would benefit from learning about mediation. Learning how to resolve differences without turning to violence. Pushing them out of town, however, doesn’t help to teach them that.

Unmet Need for Davis Homeless Requires More Solutions Not Less Services

I don’t think this is a case of “if you build it, they will come.” On the contrary, there were 114 homeless people in Davis last year and, with the MOU, the IRWS brings the number of emergency beds available in Davis from 12 to a grand total of 37.

When you talk with the homeless here in Davis, you see their need. Unlike the rest of us who bury our insecurity and our vulnerability underneath layers and layers of culturally imposed self-denial, the homeless wear theirs on their sleeve. They don’t hide their neediness. Pastors of churches like DCC become pastors in the first place because they don’t like to turn away from people who have a deep spiritual need. Sometimes I wonder if it really is the perceived potential for violence in homeless people that we are threatened by, or if what threatens us is their exposed vulnerability and neediness.

It is so wonderful to see members of our community support DCC’s work, particularly at City Council meetings. Perhaps the approach has some imperfections, but at least the church is trying, and being open-minded about the approach. I believe that DCC wants to ensure that these homeless services get offered. If the city were to step up and offer them, then DCC would be in a position to reconsider its role.

For instance, the city might consider hiring an IRWS Administrator to facilitate the operation of the shelter among the other collaborating faith organizations. That would allow DCC to relinquish its role as a host site, as the city insists, without threatening the very existence of the shelter. I can feel every pastor and member of DCC wincing at that suggestion—it is unfair to have to give up the reins on something that DCC played such a strong role in birthing. In addition, if DCC relinquished its role in the shelter, there would still be a need for lunches, a need for the services provided at Grace House, where maybe a mediation class could be held in the future, and a need for lockers for the homeless folks that are gainfully employed. These services are sorely limited in Davis, and DCC would like to provide them.

City MOU Creates More Problems Than It Solves

The MOU (pdf)between DCC and the City of Davis was signed on December 1st, 2009 and imposed a 25-person cap on the number of guests at the shelter. One week later, shelter volunteers obeyed the 25 person limit and turned away two homeless people who needed shelter from the cold. Guests 24 and 25 on that sub-freezing night included a pregnant homeless woman and a woman with no shoes.

In my personal opinion, the MOU process is inherently flawed. First, it attempts to alleviate the existing controversy rather than establishing common goals and priorities and laying out a path to achieving them. Second, the MOU is between the city and DCC, and yet DCC has no leverage in the process. As has been explicitly stated by City Council members, the process was undertaken as an alternative to rezoning the church property. Whether rezoning is appropriate or not (an issue warranting some controversy itself), rezoning would cripple the church’s ability to continue serving the homeless population. The church has no recourse but to accept any agreement that is better than having its own property involuntarily rezoned.

The ability to fulfill each other’s needs is what makes a strong community.

Please consider strengthening our community by participating in the next City Council meeting at 6:30pm on Tuesday, January 12.  Your voice needs to be heard in the Community Chambers behind City Hall, which is right in the neighborhood, at the corner of Russell Blvd. and B Street.

Editor’s note: The views expressed herein are those of the author alone, and do not necessarily reflect those of Davis Community Church or of its other neighbors.