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Out of the blue, Father Ron Thomas, my Episcopal priest, asked me if I would like to attend a memorial service for a homeless person. “Can I tape it? I asked. “What on earth for?” he countered. “I’ll tell you later.” Ron was to be picked up immediately after the morning prayer service that was just beginning. Since I wanted to get my tape recorder and had walked to church that morning, I literally ran home after the service. “I’m writing a book about the homeless,” I hollered back to Ron, standing in the church doorway. “Pick me up at my apartment.” When the red Chevy mini-van arrived, I was pulling a long black skirt over my wool tights and threw a light parka over my shoulders. I got out to the van and found the three new people inside all recognized me and I them. I had met the driver, Ed Snoddy, at Volunteers of America, when I was there for a job interview, a few weeks earlier. While waiting to be seen by his boss, I chatted with Ed about the homeless population. He does Homeless Outreach for V.O.A, cruising Salt Lake County’s streets looking for homeless people who might need his help. Next to me, on the seat behind Ed, was Pamela Atkinson, a British woman who’s practically a living legend in Salt Lake City. She has worked tirelessly for the homeless for years and is vice-president of Intermountain Health Care's Mission Services. Today, however, she was dressed in jeans and a sweater. The man in the far back seat, whose name escapes me, was an alumnus of a workshop I had given on spirituality the previous summer. I recognized him, when we got out of the van. Father Ron sat in the front seat next to Ed. On the thirty-minute drive to the funeral location, Pamela, excited to inform a newcomer on the plight of the homeless, first talked about the deceased, Chuck. “He had a dog, called Lucy,” she began. “He loved the outdoors, so, he camped down by the Jordan River. Chuck got sick, and then he got sicker and sicker.” She recounted her difficulties in persuading him to be seen at a free clinic and then at the hospital, where they did surgery and discovered metastasized cancer. “They treated Chuck with dignity,” claimed Pamela. “They actually kept him for three or four weeks longer than they should have done, ‘til we could find a place for him.” The hospital has a policy that forbids discharging a patient without a safe place to go. “He could swear with the best of them,” related Pamela, “But somehow or other you never got offended. He was a good man.” “Loved to tell stories,” Ed commented over his shoulder. “He also loved his biscuits [cookies]. We had to take cookies out for him,” continued Pamela. “But his greatest love was for his dog, Lucy, who slept in the sleeping bag with him.” Pamela digressed to speak about the needs of the homeless, some of whom stay out in the cold all winter. The outreach workers just make sure they have extra sleeping bags. “When it is very cold our numbers go up in the winter shelter,” she said. “But some of them will never, ever come inside. We just make sure they keep warm, that they don’t freeze.” The ones who are in danger of freezing, the alcoholics like Chuck, are the most vulnerable population. “And particularly if they hide,” said Pamela with dismay. Most, like Chuck, stay out camping as long as they can. It was the cancer that got Chuck and the people at his memorial service were all near and dear to him and had cared for him at the end, as well as others who were homeless workers. Excerpted from Street People: Case Histories of the Homeless, www.gratitudepress.com
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Leslie Reynolds-Benns, PhD, author, most recently of Confession is Good for More than the Soul. "Confession is like a damp cloth for the chalkboard of our psyche." Speaker, trainer, workshop leader, community activist and wedding officiant. www.lesliereynoldsbenns.com
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