You don't know Chad. He's a friend of mine who is traveling the country, meeting homeless people and loving them. And trying to learn from them, and how best to help them. He blogged this today:

But when I was walking the streets of Chicago today, I was overwhelmed by the amount of people who are completely neglected and in total need. There’s thousands upon thousands of humans who are living in the streets and begging for a way out. We walked by one man who was on his knees begging for someone to help him. His face was in complete horror. Tears were surely falling down his face. I had no more food because I had just given my whole bag of food to another man I met earlier. I had no money because I had given it all away. What do I do? What am I supposed to do in a situation like that?

Then there is yesterday for me. I spent the last two days working in a community in Southwest Detroit. Yesterday while leaving a restaurant with three others, we were approached by a woman. She told a long story about needing to get to Arkansas and several other things that, according to those who have worked with homeless people for lifetimes, would seem to suggest a bit of falsities to earn money. But then again, how do you know? I do know this. The whole deal made me feel awful. Awful that there are thousands in my city who need help, that I haven't helped, that I don't even know where they are. And awful that this woman needs a help that I can't provide. Pray that God will speak through the addictions.

From Helping the Homeless:

Each person has such immense value to Him that He gave his life in the ultimate sense for each and every one of us. That is the value He tells us to place on every person in the world. It may be difficult to comprehend, but the longer we live the more we are able to see that we live in a world where we are all affected by and responsible for each other’s welfare.

Bam. A sucker punch to the gut. Discuss.

It has recently been brought to my attention that my blog is the first thing that comes up in a Google search of "Detroit homelessness" (same with Yahoo). As a website owner, it's always cool to discover keywords that bring readers to your blog, but I would much prefer that the search terms had less of an ethical, moral, and personal relevance. Simply put, my post that was little more than a rehashing of resarch done by the Detroit Rescue Mission hasn't changed a single life (at least not to my knowledge). The reality is that there are thousands of kids, adults, seniors, disabled, military veterans, single mothers, and orphans on the streets of Detroit. It's horrifying. They are real people, and yet we almost always step over them or walk across the street because we are afraid of them. Or more realistically, we're afraid of having to love them.

Which brings me to Chad and Marjorie. Their story is told on thier website here. It is a story filled with intrigue, sadness, dozens of characters and takes place in many of the worlds largest cities. But the sad part is, it's all true. They visit cities and live with the homeless to show them love. Just recentlty, Chad wrote:

As we sat with him (Pops, a homeless man in New Orleans), hundreds upon hundreds of people walked by, unashamedly starring at Pop, almost looking offended that a dirty man would set up shop right near a sidewalk that tourist frequent often. On more than one occasion, I made eye contact with people as they were walking by, and though no verbal communication happened, their eyes were asking me, “what in the world are you doing there? are you in danger?!”

When Chad shared this with me a few days ago, it crushed me. I personally am not familiar with New Orleans, never having been there, but I know Detroit and its people. And I know that there are tens of thousands of Christians in the greater Detroit area who stand up every Sunday and profess the Creeds. But what about Matthew 25:40:

And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.'

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Extreme Makeover featured a family that moved from suburbia to a rough Albuquerque neighborhood to make an impact. Early in the episode, Ty asked the father about his motivation. Faith was briefly discussed, but I felt this quote was a great summary of urban ministry as a whole:

I slept in the back of car behind a motel twenty years ago. And I fell in love with broken people. There is something inside of them that if you can dig in and find it they're amazing people that have deep, deep, deep experiences that nobody can touch. And when you get into a person's life and you see that come out of them, there is nothing like it.

I am one of the richest men I know because what I am doing fulfills me. And that is what it's really about. I want my life to count for something. I want for the city to look at this place and say it's not a throwaway. It's not junk. These are real people with real lives with real hearts and they matter.

I agree with most of it, especially the parts about the people whose lives he wants to touch.

According to Detroit Rescue Mission Ministries:

• In the Detroit area, there are at least 3,700 people in need of emergency shelter on any given night. To meet the need, there should be 1,400 more beds available.

• There are less than 940 transitional housing beds for over 5,086 homeless men, women and children per night.

• Over 2,000 people live on the streets each night in abandoned buildings or “double up” with family or friends.

• Over 10,000 families in Wayne County will become homeless at least once during the next year.

• Families now constitute 26% of the number of homeless persons per year.

Heartbreaking. Let's figure out how we can help fix this.

I picked up the book Under the Overpass today and am reading it quite intently. Long story short: a guy and his friend decided to give up everything and live as homeless in several of America's big cities to learn, grow and understand. More importantly, they wanted to answer the question: "What if i stepped out of my comfortable life with nothing but God and put my faith to the test alongside of those who live with nothing every day?"

I'll let you know what I think. So far, it's very eye-opening. I hear that the author is coming to the Detroit area in a few weeks to speak on the topic.