World Homelessness Day

Today is specially set apart, one could say it’s sacred. For nearly 15 years October 10^th has been honored as World Homelessness Day. On this day we take a moment to reflect, act, and pray for those experiencing homelessness and for those who serve and uplift them. It is a day to raise awareness and promote the good work in our community. We know that the numbers of those experiencing homelessness in San Diego is increasing. We regularly see vulnerable, unhoused individuals and families.

While homelessness regularly makes the news cycle and is visible throughout the county, it can be easy to fall into two-dimensional narratives about those experiencing homelessness. Inaccurate assumptions and stereotypes allow us to lose sight of our shared humanity. World Homelessness Day invites us to remember that, “We are tied together in the single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. And whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly…This is the way God’s universe is made; this is the way it is structured.” – Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

On this day I am reminded of an article I read from earlier this week out of Oceanside.

“A law enforcement official in North County said on Tuesday that two unhoused individuals were killed in the past three weeks, and another person had survived a third violent attack.”

The brutality of the attack broke my heart. The article reminded me of the security efforts taken at various shelter sites. Again and again, I hear that the security at these sites is not to protect the surrounding community from the unhoused but to protect the unhoused themselves.

Near the end of the article the police urged the unhoused community to “stay together, be vigilant and avoid sleeping alone.”

Avoid sleeping alone.

Years ago I heard of an organization that hosted a “Sleep Outside” event meant to raise funds for a local homeless shelter. Participants were invited to gather on a large lawn with their sleeping bags. There would be a speaker, a meal provided, and a movie. While I appreciated their goal and intentions, I shared with the organizers that homelessness was about much more than sleeping outside. Often the trauma of homelessness is rooted in isolation.  Disconnection with community, family, and friends, leads to the experience of homelessness. The pain of disconnection can result in dangerous self-medication. Ongoing disconnection and isolation can lead to further suffering, such as it did in Oceanside.

On World Homelessness Day we take a moment to reflect, act, and pray in order to deny the disconnect. We offer our time, our resources, and our prayers in order to show those experiencing homelessness that they are not forgotten and alone. Let’s us continue the efforts we have made in uplifting those experiencing homelessness and let us move forward with hope knowing that our efforts connect with the hearts and hands of other compassionate people around the world.