Soul Food

Soul Food is a weekly sharing of thoughts, prayers and experiences that nourish Bethesda members in our work of being family to those who have none. It is emailed each Monday to all staff and volunteers, and to those others who wish to request it.

If you would like to receive Soul Food every week via email, simply send your email address to soulfood@bethesdaproject.org.

The following are recent Soul Food emails distributed by Director of Community Life Tony Medwid:

We started the move-in yesterday at our newest home. A couple of the guys were so happy to have their own place they were actually crying. I was really moved. -- Bethesda Caseworker

On Rosh Hashanah,
Judaism begs us to redefine success
so that in order to achieve it,
we must go beyond the 'me' to the 'we'.

Rather than being intimidated
by the sheer enormity of the challenge
to rid our land of homelessness,
it falls to each one of us to worry
and to translate that worry into action.

When we come face to face with the problem
and soul to soul with those who suffer from it,
we move outside of the 'me' to the 'we'.

Excerpted from
Rabbi Leah Lewis
Rosh Hashanah 2006

Our volunteers had a great time talking with the shelter guests and hearing about their life experiences. We all left with challenged perceptions about the homeless and homelessness. -- College Volunteer Coordinator

The homeless poor desperately need a sense of home, that is, to actually have a home, even a room, which they can enter, close the door, and live in peace. Just as all of us thrive in the sanctuary of our own homes, the homeless need not just a shelter, a room in another’s house, but their own space. -- Wayne Teasdale

Number of city homeless down

The number of homeless people living on Center City streets was lower this summer than last, according to the most recent quarterly census of Philadelphia's street population.

Project HOME, which conducts an overnight survey once a quarter for the city, reported yesterday that the census last Wednesday showed that there were 475 people sleeping on city streets or in parks - down from 621 people a year ago. In a broader area that included not only Center City, but also parts of West Philadelphia and Kensington, the street census was 572, down from 698 a year ago.

The drop in the summer number followed a similar decline in the spring census for Center City - 261 vs. 429.

On any given night, more than 3,000 individuals and families sleep in city shelters, with several hundred more encamping on sidewalks, benches or parks.

According to recently released HUD data, Houston has more than 5,000 unsheltered homeless people, while San Francisco, Seattle and Atlanta each have more than 2,000 people on their streets.

Jennifer Lin
Philadelphia Inquirer, 8/26/08

Everybody can be great... because anybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love. -- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

A respite all too temporary

The line starts forming outside the Lutheran Church of the Holy Communion after the sun goes down. Homeless men and women - lugging knapsacks, shopping bags and suitcases - wait patiently on a ramp, hoping to get one of the 40 slots to stay inside for the night. It's first come, first served. But tonight's a good night. Everyone gets into the all-night "café" near 21st and Sansom Streets.

The café is not a shelter but a stopgap measure to help ease the number of people living on Philadelphia streets this summer. Guests tonight say that if it weren't for the café, they would be sleeping on a park bench, in a train station, or in an alley. And this week, they could.

The café needs to relocate by Friday, and while the city is working on a permanent location, it is not ready yet, says Dainette Mintz, head of the city's Office of Supportive Housing. "We're trying to do all we can," Mintz says. She would not disclose the location, but says that workers are preparing the site and that city officials are reaching out to the surrounding community to prepare it, too.

Inside the café, there is a noticeable sense of order, routine and familiarity. Guests get hot soup, coffee, and space to stretch out on the carpet in a big, clean, bright room with butter-yellow walls and white columns.

"She's my best friend," gushes (a café guest), throwing his arms around Wendy Gaynor, a worker for the Bethesda Project, a nonprofit provider of homeless services and shelter that runs the café.

Philadelphia Inquirer, 8/10/08

When we came down here, the teachers said we’d be seeing people in the shelter. I didn’t really know that people were this bad off. I think that maybe it was me that was in a shelter. -- High School Volunteer

Suppose there are brothers or sisters who need clothes and don't have enough to eat. What good is there in your saying to them, "God bless you! Keep warm and eat well!" — if you don't give them the necessities of life? So it is with faith: if it is alone and includes no actions, then it is dead. -- James 2:15-17

I picked the idea of affordable housing and breaking the chains of poverty because one night I was viewing out of a hotel window in Philadelphia – the birthplace of our nation, the place where our forefathers wrote the Declaration of Independence. As I saw a man sleeping on the steps of the City Hall in the middle of the winter I thought this isn't what they were thinking at the time. It doesn't matter if you're young or you're old, you're rich or you're poor, you're white, you're black, Republican or Democrat – homelessness can affect anyone at any given time. -- Jon Bon Jovi

More and more I come to value charity and love of others above everything else…. All our lauded technological progress – our very civilization – is like an axe in the hand of a pathological criminal. -- Albert Einstein

Temple University students worked with SafeHome Philadelphia this semester to find affordable housing within the community for Philadelphia's homeless families. By searching rental listings, calling landlords, and in some cases, driving through neighborhoods, the students found 442 available and affordable housing units that could be used to house most of the 500 Philadelphia families who are living in shelter.

The goal was to show the city that affordable, private-market housing already exists within the community and that reinvesting shelter resources in housing, supports, and subsidies is cheaper, more effective, and more humane than housing families in shelter. -- PNNOnline

I feel (our volunteers) returned to their homes not only more aware of the situation of homelessness, but also aware that there is always something that can be done. They will carry this experience throughout the rest of their lives. -- Coordinator of recent volunteer group

Let your neighbor’s dignity be precious to you as your own.. -- Rabbi Eliezer, first century C.E.

Economic decisions must be judged in light of
    what they do for the poor,
        what they do to the poor, and
            what they enable the poor to do for themselves.

The fundamental moral criterion for all economic decisions, policies, and institutions is this: They must be at the service of all people, especially the poor. -- US Catholic Bishops

In one sense, (even) well-run homeless shelters do little to diminish the social problem of homelessness. In another sense, there may be no more important bond than that between the anonymous volunteer and the anonymous victims of hard times. -- Robert Payton

To be committed to the poor is to enter the world of the poor, to have our residence in the world of the poor, to have friends in the world of the poor. -- Henri J. M. Nouwen

Bon Jovi Helps Homeless Vets

Jon Bon Jovi has teamed with Project H.O.M.E, an advocacy group that empowers people to break the cycle of homelessness and reach their potential as members of society, to help vets in need or with their addictions.

Bon Jovi and the Philadelphia Soul Charitable Foundation are part of a combination of funders that donated $3.3 million to support the veteran’s program and upgrade the facilities at St. Elizabeth's Recovery Residence. The funds for the residence, which held a groundbreaking ceremony Friday and is expected to be completed in the fall, will aid a housing project that provides a structured environment for veterans

DAN GELSTON, Channel 6 Action News

"I’ve had a rough life. When I was sick, the owners sold the building. Where was I supposed to go? I was angry with God. How could God let this happen to me?

I used to go from door to door, ringing people’s doorbells, begging on the street. God wasn’t in my life – he didn’t care. Why did this have to happen to me?

Then for almost two years I was in a woman’s shelter, and I would go to the church next door. It was there that I met God again, and he finally heard my prayer. A friend of mine at the shelter moved to Bethesda and she told me about it. It sounded nice. I applied and was lucky! I got picked and moved in.

Today God’s back in my life. I feel His presence. I know he’s there. He heard me when I prayed to him. Today I’m under His protection." -- Bethesda Resident

Rally and Press Conference
TODAY 12:00 NOON
National Constitutional Center
(525 Arch Street)

WE CALL ON
THE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES:
WE NEED SOLUTIONS TO HOMELESSNESS

In Philadelphia and cities around the country, the number of homeless persons is rising. So far in this campaign, the presidential candidates from both parties have failed to realistically address homelessness and severe poverty that affect thousands in our city and millions around the country.

Let’s say loud and clear that without a meaningful investment from the federal government, we cannot make real progress in combating homelessness in Philadelphia.

For more information, contact Will O'Brien at 215-232-7272, ext. 3047 or willobrien@projecthome.org.

It is better to relieve a hundred imposters (if there be any such), than to allow one really distressed person to be sent away empty. -- Catherine McAuley, Foundress, Sisters of Mercy

At 5 a.m. on any given day, Anne Mahlum could be found running the dark streets of Philadelphia -- with homeless men cheering her on as she passed their shelter. But one morning last spring, she stopped in her tracks. "Why am I running past these guys?" recalls Mahlum, 27. "I'm moving my life forward every day -- and these guys are standing in the same spot."

Instead of continuing to pass them by, the veteran marathoner sprang into action so they could join her. She contacted the shelter, got donations of running gear, and in July 2007 the "Back On My Feet" running club hit the streets.

The first day, Mahlum led nine shelter residents in a mile-long run. Today, Back on My Feet has teams in three Philadelphia shelters, including 54 homeless members and more than 250 volunteers. The group has logged more than 5,000 miles.

For Mahlum and others, Back On My Feet is more than a running club. "We're a community of support, love, respect," she says. -- CNN.com/Living

I was an army brat and traveled around the world. I spent 5 years in the service and worked for 20 years in metal finishing. I wasn’t a bum. But things came apart in the late ‘80’s. Mental problems from my time in Vietnam, divorce, and substance abuse – all at once. From 1992 I bounced from one shelter to another until I arrived at Bethesda. God intervened and gave me a place where I was treated with respect, like a decent human being. Today I have dreams and plans again. My life is sweet now, pleasing to God. -- Bethesda Resident

Someday, after we have mastered the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for good the energies of love. Then for the second time in the history of the world, we will have discovered fire. -- Teilhard de Chardin

"Philadelphians should feel proud that we exemplify what Alexis de Tocqueville called civil society - ordinary citizens coming together to engage in, work on and solve society's problems. We see it happen every day, and we feel its powerful impact. We know that when we apply the collective compassion, creativity and commitment of the public and private sectors we can make real change." -- Angelo Sgro, Executive Director, in 3/5/08 Philadelphia Inquirer. See article: http://www.philly.com/inquirer/opinion/pa/16248577.html

"You know that saying: 'the meek shall inherit the earth?' That's what I think of when I'm at Bethesda. People have all they need, and they're grateful and genuinely happy! It's really affected me; I'm actually living more simply now." -- College Volunteer

For two years I was living under a bridge and would wash in the Schuylkill. During that time I wasn’t sure whether God still remembered me. But there was a man who used to come a couple times a week with food and clothes. I sure did love it when he came around. Then I went to Our Brothers’ Place, and here I am with my own room! I never had it so good. Now I know that God didn’t forget me; He was sending that man to help me until I was ready to come here. -- Bethesda Resident

When we came to Bethesda, the teachers said we’d be meeting people living in the shelter. I never knew that people were this bad off. I think that maybe it was me that was living in a shelter. -- High School Volunteer

I'll tell you what it really means to worship the LORD.
Remove the chains of prisoners who are chained unjustly.
Free those who are abused!

Share your food with everyone who is hungry;
share your home with the poor and homeless.
Give clothes to those in need;
And don't turn away your kin.

No one of you is a believer
until he desires for his neighbor
that which he desires for himself.

Who is wise? The one who learns from all people...

Who is honored? The one who honors other human beings...