Dear Friend of JOURNEYS,
I spend every working day trying to house and support our neighbors experiencing homelessness and listening to their stories. Too often, those stories are filled with others mistreating, stereotyping, and minimizing their situation and housing problems.
These are our neighbors, these are the people we grew up with, went to school with, played little league with, people we pass in grocery store aisles. They may be the ones bagging your groceries, making your sandwich at your favorite lunch spot, or filling up a delivery truck first thing in the morning so your next-day-delivery packages are never late.
I hear the stereotypes repeated ad nauseum, homeless people are just lazy, all they do is get drunk, or these people can pick themselves up by their bootstraps but they’re choosing to be homeless. Even more egregiously, I often get calls to “come pick up my people” as if kidnapping and human trafficking are acceptable responses to someone sleeping in public.
Behind every stereotype is a human being: a mother working two jobs who still can’t afford rent, a veteran struggling with PTSD, a teenager who aged out of foster care without a safety net. These are not statistics. They are our neighbors, and their stories deserve to be met with compassion and care, not suspicion.
You may have seen my face across social media or in the news lately because some of our local government bodies are trying to pass proposals criminalizing the everyday behaviors of the very people I try to help. These new ordinances would make it a crime to sit, eat, rest, or sleep in public spaces. On its face, it might get pitched like a reasonable policy. But it’s just punishment aimed at the most vulnerable people in our neighborhood. Too many officials hope that criminal threats will encourage homeless people to go away so we don’t have to sit with the discomfort every time we pass by and see them in parks or on public benches.
We need to ask ourselves a very simple question: if someone has no home, no shelter, no safe place to go, where exactly do we expect them to be? These ordinances don’t answer that. They don't solve the housing problem. They don’t reduce poverty. What it does is take the unavoidable fact of being human—eating, sleeping, existing—and makes it a criminal act if you do it without four walls around you.
That’s not policy. That’s cruelty.
Criminalizing homelessness doesn’t reduce it; it entrenches it. A citation turns into a fine. A fine turns into a warrant. A warrant turns into an arrest. And suddenly, someone who already has almost nothing now carries a criminal record that creates even more hurdles to secure housing or employment. It makes our neighbor’s already difficult life situation even worse, not better.
There is another way. We could choose compassion over punishment. We could invest in affordable housing, in outreach, in coordinating experienced and invested community members to respond to these situations instead of expecting our local police and court system to fix the homelessness problem our communities face. We could decide that our measure of our success isn’t how efficiently we push people out of sight, but how honorably we bring them back into community.
At JOURNEYS, we know it works. We see it every day. Give someone stability, a safe place to sleep, a chance to be seen and treated with dignity—and watch how even some of the most tragic stories can turn around into hope-filled ones.
And we want to invite you to be part of the solution!
Our number one need right now is volunteers. People to stand beside us as we stand with the most vulnerable in our communities to offer a hand up.
I spend every working day trying to house and support our neighbors experiencing homelessness and listening to their stories. Too often, those stories are filled with others mistreating, stereotyping, and minimizing their situation and housing problems.
These are our neighbors, these are the people we grew up with, went to school with, played little league with, people we pass in grocery store aisles. They may be the ones bagging your groceries, making your sandwich at your favorite lunch spot, or filling up a delivery truck first thing in the morning so your next-day-delivery packages are never late.
I hear the stereotypes repeated ad nauseum, homeless people are just lazy, all they do is get drunk, or these people can pick themselves up by their bootstraps but they’re choosing to be homeless. Even more egregiously, I often get calls to “come pick up my people” as if kidnapping and human trafficking are acceptable responses to someone sleeping in public.
Behind every stereotype is a human being: a mother working two jobs who still can’t afford rent, a veteran struggling with PTSD, a teenager who aged out of foster care without a safety net. These are not statistics. They are our neighbors, and their stories deserve to be met with compassion and care, not suspicion.
You may have seen my face across social media or in the news lately because some of our local government bodies are trying to pass proposals criminalizing the everyday behaviors of the very people I try to help. These new ordinances would make it a crime to sit, eat, rest, or sleep in public spaces. On its face, it might get pitched like a reasonable policy. But it’s just punishment aimed at the most vulnerable people in our neighborhood. Too many officials hope that criminal threats will encourage homeless people to go away so we don’t have to sit with the discomfort every time we pass by and see them in parks or on public benches.
We need to ask ourselves a very simple question: if someone has no home, no shelter, no safe place to go, where exactly do we expect them to be? These ordinances don’t answer that. They don't solve the housing problem. They don’t reduce poverty. What it does is take the unavoidable fact of being human—eating, sleeping, existing—and makes it a criminal act if you do it without four walls around you.
That’s not policy. That’s cruelty.
Criminalizing homelessness doesn’t reduce it; it entrenches it. A citation turns into a fine. A fine turns into a warrant. A warrant turns into an arrest. And suddenly, someone who already has almost nothing now carries a criminal record that creates even more hurdles to secure housing or employment. It makes our neighbor’s already difficult life situation even worse, not better.
There is another way. We could choose compassion over punishment. We could invest in affordable housing, in outreach, in coordinating experienced and invested community members to respond to these situations instead of expecting our local police and court system to fix the homelessness problem our communities face. We could decide that our measure of our success isn’t how efficiently we push people out of sight, but how honorably we bring them back into community.
At JOURNEYS, we know it works. We see it every day. Give someone stability, a safe place to sleep, a chance to be seen and treated with dignity—and watch how even some of the most tragic stories can turn around into hope-filled ones.
And we want to invite you to be part of the solution!
Our number one need right now is volunteers. People to stand beside us as we stand with the most vulnerable in our communities to offer a hand up.
Will you find some time, even if it's just one hour (though we hope it’s more), and come see how we’re making a difference at JOURNEYS?
JOURNEYS also has open staff positions if you want to make a full-time or part-time career out of working to solve the housing problem in our area.
JOURNEYS also has open staff positions if you want to make a full-time or part-time career out of working to solve the housing problem in our area.
I hope you’ll join us in speaking up, showing up, and standing up for our neighbors experiencing homelessness. Not because it’s easy. Not because it’s comfortable. But because now more than ever we need people willing to take action, not just complain about all the problems around us.
With determination and hope,
With determination and hope,
