Tag: homelessness

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Someone So Beautiful

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We were at the second to last stop of our weekly water distribution and I was counting the cases left for the last group. A woman stood beside me, wondering if we could offer a little more water or fruit. I mentioned the group ahead of us and how much they had grown recently, as I figured out how to separate the last of what remained in the trunk. “Someone died there yesterday,” she said. My stomach clenched, “Who?!” I asked.  My mind flashed to the face of the person at that site that we knew best, someone who exuded… read more

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Abatement of a Community of People

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There had been a longtime community living in a creek area, mostly hidden under a cover of trees from the housed neighbors surrounding them. Some of them lived together for years, off of meager resources, taking care of each other, and offering some degree of safety and stability to each other. O–, E–, U–, and T– were four people living there that I came to know. Sometimes they didn’t have enough food. O– reached out to a local faith-based charity and received food. As she shared information about the needs in the camp with those who responded to her call,… read more

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Discharged from the Hospital on a Cold, Wet Morning 

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On a cold, wet morning in the winter of 2019, I was talking with another parishioner in a Catholic church following daily mass. A man came in, shaking and crying, pleading for help. He had been in the hospital nearby for hernia surgery, and was discharged shortly after the operation. He had nowhere to go, and when he returned to where he had left his belongings before going into the hospital, they were gone. He had no coat, no shelter of any kind, no survival supplies, no belongings, and he was shivering. We spoke with him for a while, and… read more