TALKING IT OVER
A Place to Call Home
Photo: © iStock.com/MarsBars
Can the Housing First philosophy offer a just approach to homelessness?
In their Talking It Over series, Dr. James Read, director of The Salvation Army Ethics Centre in Winnipeg, and Dr. Aimee Patterson, Christian ethics consultant at the centre, dialogue about moral and ethical issues. DEAR JIM,
A
number of years ago, I saw a fundraising ad for a homeless shelter. I may not get all the details right, but the strong impression it made on me helped me retain the general idea. The ad featured a middle-class couple sleeping in bed … with a homeless man in between. The tagline went something like this: “We’re not asking you to invite him to your house. We just want you to help us invite him to ours.” My immediate reaction was from the gut: I was glad this was not a Salvation Army ad. In my mind, it only shored up the social exclusion that reinforces homelessness. My second reaction was a reflection on reality: I would not welcome a homeless person to sleep on my couch. I’m probably guilty of living an arms-length sort of justice. But doing justice in today’s world is complicated. Maybe it always was. Offering someone shelter is about more than providing a place to sleep for the night. There must be a difference between a NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) attitude and a NIMB (Not In My Bed) policy. Don’t you think? Grace and peace, AIMEE 14 • July 2014 • Salvationist
DEAR AIMEE,
I
know you. You’re not an unfeeling person. To say that you wouldn’t welcome a stranger—even a homeless stranger— onto your couch shows you are discerning. Caution isn’t unchristian. At the same time, I think I know what you are saying about “the homeless.” They suffer so many injustices. However, justice isn’t the theme of that ad, is it? I need to be careful about imputing motives, but it seems to me that the makers of that ad were playing on my middle-class fears: “Beware. If you don’t pay up, homeless people are going to move in on you and take away what you count most precious.” That happens a lot with homelessness. I find groups try to fund solutions by playing on my fears or appealing to my compassion. But seldom do they call on my sense of justice. Yet it’s justice that comes to mind every year when I hear the story of Jesus’ birth. That is not a narrative of misfortune; it’s about oppression and exclusion. No specific Bethlehem innkeeper had an obligation to Joseph and Mary and unborn Jesus to find a place for them, but something was deeply wrong when no one made space. People have a fundamental need for a “roof over their heads” and a place to belong. Both are essential to human thriving. The homeless can count on neither. The Gospel of John encompasses both injustices in its pithy sentence, “He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept