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The Impacts of Indiana’s Ban on Sleeping Outside
When talking about the “homeless problem,” most people think it refers to people living without a home.But for some others, the homeless problem means homeless people.Whenever we discuss the issue of homelessness, it’s important to pay attention to these separate perspectives because they often lead to very different answers to the problem. The recent law passed in Indiana (SB125) is an example of…
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What Is Your Foundation?
It feels to me like cruelty is very popular these days. We seem to be rewarding people the more ferocious they are. I keep wondering when this hostile spell will wear off, and we’ll come back to our senses. It feels to me like we need to remind ourselves that we are one people with common goals that we should work to accomplish together. A few hours ago,…
The World Needs More Love
As we come to the end of the year, I see an uncertain future for the people we seek to support like I’ve never witnessed before. I see a rising tide of hostility directed at people experiencing homelessness which is turning into policy violence in the form of cutting housing programs for people with disabilities…
The Care They Need
A guest of our Center, someone I had known for a long time, came up to me the other day and asked if he could pray for me.I said yes and he placed his hand on my shoulder and began to speak.He asked God to bless me, spoke of how long I’ve done the work,…
The Poor You Will Always Have with You?
PLEASE NOTE: My background is as a Unitarian minister, so I sometimes find the best way to understand something is through my religious background. This writing is not meant to inspire you in any particular religious direction, but to serve as a hopefully helpful way to think through some complex problems. Beacon is deeply inspired…
A Crisis of Empathy
A little over two weeks ago, a conversation on homelessness came up on a major television network. The hosts began to talk about people experiencing homelessness who refused services. One of the hosts said, “Either you take the resources that we’re gonna give you, or… you decide… you gotta be locked up in jail.” His co-host responded, “Or…