PACEM experience

pacem1
Originally uploaded by kimxtom.

We've hosted 40+ homeless men this past week through PACEM and it has been an eye-opening experience for me. I only stayed overnight a couple of nights, but that was enough to shatter many of my stereotypes about the homeless.

The homeless men I met didn’t fit into neat pigeonholes. They were black & white, young & old, sober & drunk, unemployed & employed, talkative & private, clean & dirty, intelligent & confused. They all stayed in our small fellowship hall – very reminiscent of scenes from Katrina. They were kind to each other and very gracious to their hosts. I’m trying to imagine what the mood would be like with 40 middle-class men or women sharing this small space for a week.

I also met Lynn, the activist. She was homeless herself (see story here) and is very clear about the problem in our town. There is no affordable housing. To live indoors here, you need to earn over $20,000 per year and you are not going to earn that with minimum wage. Did you know minimum wage in Virginia is still $5.15 and tied to the Federal Minimum wage last updated in 1997? Did you know that living in poverty in America is currently defined as making under $9,800 (single person)?

Lynn has said that "being poor means having no choices. It means playing by other people's rules in a game that is often unfair and humiliating." I met a group of men this week who are living this with more grace and courtesy than I think I could muster.