EMPTY ROOMS + RELIGIOUS CALLING:
AN ANTIDOTE TO LEAVING THE HOMELESS IN THE COLD

In the best of all possible worlds, all homeless people would transition into independence and off the public dole. That is happening to some significant degree via agencies whose sole purpose is to provide the resources and guidance to move the homeless into productive lives. These initiatives are still receiving considerable public funding, as they should be. The premise is one to which liberals and conservatives should both subscribe: It breaks the vicious cycle of welfare dependency.

So much for the best. Chronic homelessness will always be among us. Once "cursing the bums" subsides, I hope we would agree that barebones emergency shelter for even the most persistently homeless is a societal mandate. The alternative would likely be sleeping in a rusted car or under a viaduct. Besides, they are not all "bums." Homeless also includes blameless babies, abused women and people without means who are mentally/physically disabled. We can let them starve or freeze, or we can provide them a roof, a cot, a shower and at least a bologna sandwich.

Ask anyone who works with homeless people. The emergency shelters are already full. People are on waiting lists. Resources are depleted. Babies are out on the street for want of any port in the storm. And, it is not yet even winter.

Public funding for emergency shelter? Yes, the issue is debatable. But, this I do know: Public funding should not be an issue. Drive up and down your neighborhood. Look at all the big houses of worship. Look at all the rooms with lights off. Look at all the unutilized space. Look at the kitchens that are used once, maybe twice, a week. Look at how few houses of worship provide a meal and shelter for the homeless. Despite their heroic efforts, look at how few houses of worship even offer their space to initiatives like Interfaith Hospitality Network.

Sometimes it is tough to figure out whose job it is to provide essential community services. In this instance, there is no question. Houses of worship not only have the divine mandate to feed the hungry and offer refuge to the homeless. Many of them also have the space, manpower and wherewithal to bring homeless people under their roof, at least during the coldest months of winter. They are not doing it. They may contribute generously to other overtaxed ministries and agencies, but their own space remains clean, heated, lighted . . . and unoccupied.

Lots of programs in houses of worship come into being from the bottom up. Well-motivated, eager laypeople can pull together the resources to do honorable things. But, the mandate to do something so visionary and aggressive as providing shelter for the homeless demands a top-down initiative. Bluntly, if your congregation is ever to provide shelter, it will emerge from bold call from the Sabbath pulpit by the senior pastor/rabbi/priest. Pastoral "support" is not sufficient. Unless the charge comes as a prophetic imperative from the congregation's highest spiritual leadership, lay-driven efforts will likely not sustain the energy for such a demanding undertaking.

I speak from a modicum of personal experience. Calls from my own pulpit in 1982 and 1986 established the first two synagogue-based shelters in the country. I would like to say that I was the "founder" of the shelters, but the best I can aver is that I was their primary stimulant. From that point on, the laity made it their vision, and all I need to provide was encouragement and some personal time working in the trenches.

Every pastor must know that feeding and sheltering the homeless is a biblical imperative. It is literally the punchline of Isaiah 58. ("This is the fast I desire . . .to share your bread with the hungry and to take the wretched poor into your home.") I will not debate the issue of "salvation by grace through faith" versus "salvation by works," but I have read the Synoptic Gospels. From those it seems clear what Jesus would do, even without looking at a WWJD bracelet. Hence, this issue is not "Should the preacher preach about it?" but "Will the preacher preach about it?"

Every homeless person we see huddled under a viaduct should tug at our conscience. But, every persistently unutilized room in a house of worship should evoke words like "shame," and "dishonor," and "disgrace." That profound sin of omission should lead us directly to the study of our minister/rabbi/priest, where our appeal should bear the reminder that before one can save the world, he must bring the "wretched poor " into his home.