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Ending Homelessness April 28, 2001 Today, we are committing our communions to addressing the social sin of homelessness, The persistence of homelessness constitutes an emergency in our community. Yet because homelessness has grown gradually in our midst, we have grown used to its existence and numb to its impact on thousands of our fellow citizens, including increasing numbers of women and children. If the Ash Wednesday earthquake had resulted in 6,000 people becoming homeless all at once in the Seattle/King County area, we would have marshaled our collective resources to assure that each person received the emergency assistance and the replacement housing that they required. There were 6,000 people homeless in our community following the earthquake. The problem is that they were also homeless before the earthquake. We have yet to demonstrate either the moral vision or the political will to assure that those who are already homeless in our midst receive the same kind of care and compassion that we would unquestionably provide to those who might lose their homes due to an act of nature. The practice of hospitality is at the core of our faith, just as it is at the core of all of the world's major faith traditions. The Bible is replete with admonitions to welcome the sojourner and the stranger in our midst. In Jesus' parable of the wedding banquet, for example, when the invited guests refuse to attend the king invites the people from the streets of the city - regardless of social standing - to come to his table and enjoy the feast. The churches of our city have effectively invited the poor and the homeless to sit at their tables. We are proud of what our congregations are doing to offer ministries of compassion and justice. This includes emergency shelter, transitional housing, low-income housing, emergency feeding, financial assistance, and a wide range of other services. But the religious community must do more, just as the community-at-large must do more. For we believe that the work of overcoming homelessness in our midst is a responsibility we share in common. We stand together today to make several affirmations:
In order to achieve these ambitious goals, we need several things. First, we must provide a safe place for everyone in King County to sleep at night. Ultimately, this must include not only emergency shelter, but also affordable housing for all who need it, and we are in a position to help. Second, we must assure that adequate funding, policies and programs be in place that prevent people from becoming homeless in the first place. Third, we must create a more just economic system so that wages are commensurate with the cost of housing to assure that no one is denied safe, secure, and affordable housing because of inadequate income. Some version of the Golden Rule and the command that we love one another exists in every living faith. It exists because the wisdom of these faith traditions understands what is required for human societies to prosper. Without a tradition of mutual care and responsibility, no community can long survive. Left unaddressed, the human cost of maintaining poverty over time will finally become unbearable in America, and the hope of this great nation will collapse under the weight of injustice. It does not need to be this way. We stand together today to call our community and our nation to a higher ground. We stand together to offer the vision of what the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. called "the beloved community." It is a vision of a community in which the dignity of each person is the central social, political, and spiritual fact of our common life. When the beloved community becomes our reality, then it will no longer be acceptable that anyone be homeless in Seattle, in King County or anywhere in our great nation. This is the vision to which we call the people of this great metropolitan area, and we pledge to work together toward the realization of this vision, as religious leaders of this community. May God who has given us the will to do these things give us the grace and power to perform them. AMEN.
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