It was an amazing, scary, humbling, uncomfortable, terrible, learning, exciting experience...
Now don't freak out, I didn't just decide to run away from home and become homeless for a night. I was on an
Urban Xpose tour with Hope St
ministries. The idea is to spend some time in
Woolloomooloo with the homeless and marginalised communities in order to find out what it is like to live that way and learn about the different things the churches in the area are doing to help.
Our tour started on Saturday afternoon with a brief introduction to Hope St and what they do. Then we walked around
Woolloomooloo,
Darlinghurst and Kings Cross learning about the different facilities run by Hope St and others in the area. Among them were Rough Edges cafe (more about this later), The
Women's Space (a drop-in Centre for female sex workers),
Table for 20 (not so much for homeless people as for other lonely and marginalised people in the area).
At the Women's space we met Kevin and Theresa who told us
their stories, both had been in trouble with the law, both had lived on the streets and both had found their feet through meeting Jesus and the people at Hope St. It was really brave of them and encouraging to hear their stories.
We then split into smaller groups and headed out on to the streets for the night. Our group wandered over to midnight Basketball, a
competition put on by the Commonwealth Bank and Cook & Phillip Park for kids aged 13-18, as somewhere safe for them to go. We didn't get to talk to many of the kids but watched the game for a bit.
After basketball we headed to Rough Edges cafe for dinner, Rough Edges is run by St John's Anglican church in
Darlinghurst. It's basically a safe place where people can hang out, watch
tv, play chess and get a free meal and some cheap drinks (non-alcoholic). The food is donated by
Govinda's restaurant which is just down the road - the food was great!
I played chess with a guy called John who was very patient with my silly mistakes... I think this was one the highlights of the weekend for me, I had been feeling fairly insecure and scared by the whole hanging out with homeless people thing and I think John could sense this and went out of his way to make me feel at ease. I realised that these guys are just people like me who like to hang out with their friends and play a game occasionally. BTW John said it was the easiest game of chess he's ever played.
After Rough Edges we headed out to the railway bridge to sleep. The guys who were set up there were great, they had no problems with sharing their space with a bunch of middle class uni students who thought sleeping out would be a great idea.
I was really struck by the contrast between these homeless guys who were mostly friendly and polite and let us sleep with them and the party goers and clubbers on their way home who taunted and made fun of us - the "homeless people". We got yelled at and told to get a job, at one point I heard someone say "here are some bricks, and here are some homeless people" as though they were intending on throwing the bricks at us.
Throughout the weekend this was a common theme - the idea of living in fear, always watching your back and never knowing who would attack you, maybe just for fun, maybe to steal your stuff... And you could really feel the fear.
Needless to say, between the
partiers, the bright lights in the park, the trains and cars going past we didn't get much sleep.
In the morning we headed back to Hope St and helped serve breakfast to a few of the guys we'd slept with and a lot of others. Again members of the group had lots of interesting conversations with people.
After breakfast we attended
Woolloomooloo Baptist Fellowship which was an outdoor service and very informal reminds me of mum and dad's church at
Cessnock) with lots of congregational participation. It was
exciting to see the different ways the service leaders used in order to get the congregation involved - again helping people who wouldn't
necessarily be able to concentrate throughout a regular church service.
I think the big thing I've taken away from the weekend is the idea that those living on the streets and in public housing need more than just a bed and some food - in fact giving
them those things doesn't fix the problem. They need to feel as though they are cared for and loved and part of a community.
Everyone you talk to doesn't want to be homeless but because of circumstances, addiction, mental illness they've ended up on the street, and have lost, or never had the motivation and social skills to get out. This isn't an excuse for those who have made the wrong decisions and ended up where they are but unless they feel they are people who are worth something to someone they won't have the motivation to learn the skills they need to get off the streets.
So what? Well, now it's my turn to work out how to love them like God does and what does that mean for me next time a homeless person asks me for money...
