TLDR: Helping the homeless is more than gifting one’s time, talent, or treasure. It is acknowledging, with gratitude, that “every good and perfect gift comes from above.”
Every year, Monday, October 10th is designated as World Homeless Day. As someone who spends most of his waking hours advocating for the needs of the homeless here in Houston and beyond, this year’s observance is of special concern to me as I pray for the newly homeless and those most in need in Florida, Puerto Rico, Palestine, and Ukraine. And as with those experiencing homelessness living anywhere in the world, the cause of their homelessness is not really what is most important. For whether the cause is mental health, PTSD, poverty, addictions, hurricanes, or war, the outcomes are always the same: men, women, and children left without a house, or homeland, to call home.
It would be quite easy for me to use this opportunity and platform here on the St. Dunstan’s website as a bully pulpit, using compelling facts and dazzling statistics as an emotional weapon in an attempt to persuade you, gentle reader, to feel a sense of compunction, guilt, or angst for not doing enough to help those less fortunate than ourselves. But I am not.
Indeed, I could offer here a history lesson that traces homelessness to ancient times and peoples, including Diogenes, Jesus, and even Saint Francis of Assisi. I could quote chapter and verse on God’s command to help “the least of these.” But I am not. I am tempted to cite financial inequality, cultural inequity, and social injustice as root causes of homelessness. But I am not. And how easy it would be for me to speak on behalf of the estimated one thousand or more homeless men and women living along the Hwy 1960 corridor between Hwy I-45 and 249 in Northwest Houston, or the more than half a million individuals living in a state of homelessness in the USA, or the 1.6 billion people around the world living in inadequate housing. But I am not.
Thanks be to God!
Truth be known, I could spend the remainder of this blogpost protesting the plethora of misinformation that is frequently shared about Houston’s and Harris County’s homeless population by our local media and news outlets, claiming as they do that homelessness in our area is actually on the decline. But I am not.
And finally, if I chose to do so, I could try to tug on your heartstrings making a major ask in an effort to get you to open your purse strings to help us at Hope Center Houston by providing much needed volunteers, money, donations, meals, pantry items, jeans, sneakers, manna bags, and more. But I am not. Instead, I simply want to say: “thank you!”
With all my heart I humbly say “Thanks be to God” for my calling from our heavenly Father to serve our homeless friends in any way I am able; for allowing me to be embedded as a Franciscan friar at Saint Dunstan’s Episcopal Church and Hope Center Houston to serve all of you here and all of our guests there; for my pastor, Father Roman Roldan for all of his encouragement, wisdom, and support through the years, as well as that of Mother Beth Anne Nelson and Father Alvaro Pinzon for their faithful prayers, example, and friendship; and finally for all of you, my parish family, whose love, encouragement, support, and prayers inspire me every day by your own love and generosity in so many ways to be more like Christ and to continue to advocate for all our homeless friends, wherever they be found. Thank you!
