Jeff Cook’s Second Look at Springs Rescue Mission

I’ve learned in my stays at homeless shelters one clear lesson: how hard it is to offer true help. Jeff Cook, chief program officer at Springs Rescue Mission (SRM), wrote this in his dissertation: “When reviewing the reason clients are homeless, it was apparent that they all had some traumatic experiences that caused them to be homeless. This trauma could have begun in many forms: the death of a parent or family member, the victim of a crime, human or drug trafficking, or the loss of a job due to illness.”

Such stressful events shatter senses of security. They leave people feeling endangered by normal life, unstable even when placed in stable housing. A faith in Christ can be a solid rock. Lectures that we should have faith in ourselves are sinking sand. In his dissertation, Cook noted how those who gain jobs and housing but are not internally transformed often became jobless and homeless again within 3-12 months “due to various issues that arise when clients fall back into substance use or lose community connections to help through difficulties that occur in life. These individuals find themselves isolated, unable to cope with basic trials and struggles.”

Cook offered case studies:

After leaving college, one of our clients remembers being optimistic about the future. It seemed he always managed to secure good jobs. He met someone and got married. Life was looking promising. After four years of marriage, things started to fall apart. His wife asked for a divorce, which caused him to take a long look at himself. He realized that he had become an angry and negative person. This made him realize he had contributed to the breakdown of his marriage.

The statistics I offered on January 31 from SRM security head Jose Colon included suspension of those who are disorderly or have drugs, alcohol, or drug paraphernalia. The willingness to suspend is important, because an “anything goes” atmosphere is not kind to those who want their insecurities to get up and go. The client in Cook’s case study was “struggling with depression” but was able to relax in a fenced-in area where he did not feel threatened: “He remembers feeling peace when he arrived at the campus and thinking this was a place where he could get help.…He feels like the mission has his back.”

Anyone who thinks it’s easy for a rescue mission to generate that feeling doesn’t understand what it takes. Long-term homeless individuals, like others who have been traumatized, need lots of help and lots of patience. A church may feel called to start a program within which members, without much experience, offer one-to-one help to homeless men who have been on the streets for years. Sometimes what seems like a godly call is not — it’s a wrong number. It may be better to start by helping children desperate for some adult attention and love. Working with the long-term homeless is very hard.

Some people want to get closer to God by engaging in some special discipline, such as fasting or engaging in some form of self-flagellation. But I’ve seen in my reporting what John Calvin wrote: God does not ask for such celebrations of discipline, especially when it takes productive discipline for Christians and others to earn their daily bread and help those in great need. Requiring “hard practice” beyond the hardness of life itself can lead to harmful pride and a wasting of time and talent. That’s why the leaders and staff members at SRM and other places I’ve profiled in this series of columns since June 2022 have so impressed me: They work hard and productively. They practice effective compassion.

I once watched Shingon Buddhist monks in Japan sitting for hours in the lotus position without moving, so their legs cramped up and they could hardly walk. I remember one 40-year-old woman with a two-year-old engaged in such “hard practice.” She had lived a hard life with abandonment by her parents and then her husband. She had one child. When he was a toddler, she began going to a temple on Mount Koya-san and engaging in “hard practice” by immersing herself in a freezing mountain stream. It struck me that taking care of a two-year-old was hard practice in itself. Helping to change the life of a homeless person is even harder.