F E AT U R E S
‘FOR I WAS HUNGRY, AND YOU FED ME’ by KARI APTED
Pastor Clara Lett lives out Matthew 25:35-36 through Rainbow Covenant Ministries and the work she performs with The Garden of Gethsemane Homeless Shelter in Covington. Glance around the neatly manicured Covington Square, and you probably will not see them. They are there, however, and their faces might be familiar. It could be the cute guy you sat next to during math class, or your co-worker’s sister. They may be strangers, people you never met who came here chasing the dream of an easier life in Georgia. They are day laborers patching together enough money for a week at a cheap motel, families sofa-surfing between friends and sleeping in their car when the welcome wears out. There are no tent cities in Newton County, no cardboard dwellings beneath the I-20 bridges. It is easy to assume that homelessness is not something that affects the rural and suburban counties this far
12 THE NEWTON
east from Atlanta. However, this area’s invisible homeless population is real—and growing. According to data published by the United States Census Bureau, approximately 14 percent of the population in Newton and neighboring counties lived at or below the federal poverty line in 2017. If even just one percent of these individuals are homeless today, that translates to nearly 500 local people without a place to sleep tonight. Since 2001, Pastor Clara Lett, of Rainbow Covenant Ministries Inc., has been tackling the local homelessness problem head-on. Born and raised in Newton County, Lett has led Rainbow Covenant Ministries for over 25 years. The Garden of Gethsemane Homeless Shelter began as an extension of the church’s Rainbow Community Center. As the center provided meals and tutoring to underprivileged youth, the extent of the homelessness problem