The East Bay’s homeless residents rolled out sleeping baggage throughout the hardwood gymnasium flooring on the Castro Valley shelter of First Presbyterian Church of Hayward Monday evening — a refuge for many who don’t have a proverbial place on the inn.
First Presbyterian’s effort to shelter the East Bay’s homeless inhabitants throughout Christmas goes to the guts of the Christmas season for Pastor Aaron Horner, the outreach director overseeing the church’s homeless program. He tied the church’s effort to shelter the unhoused to the Christian story of Christmas, during which Mary and Joseph are turned away from shelter attributable to “no room at the inn,” and Jesus is born in a secure as an alternative.
“As a Christian, as a pastor, as a father, I believe that we’re called to support people that are in need,” Horner stated. “In the current day, I can’t think of folks who are in more need and more cast out of our society than folks who are unhoused.”
Since 2019, the First Presbyterian Church of Hayward has welcomed shelter-seeking residents inside its doorways in a time-honored custom of giving to the much less lucky in the course of the darkest, coldest days of the yr. In Alameda County, one other church providing homeless companies on Christmas is Trinity Lutheran Church at 1323 Central Avenue within the metropolis of Alameda (by means of Jan. 4). In Contra Costa County, Metropolis Life Church has partnered with Love-A-Baby Missions Homeless Restoration Heart at 2279 Willow Go Street, Bay Level. Catholic Employee Hospitality Home in San Mateo County is internet hosting shelter companies at St. Bruno’s Catholic Church at 555 San Bruno Ave W, San Bruno. Santa Clara County’s Workplace of Supportive Housing was unable to establish church buildings within the county providing homeless shelter companies.
At First Presbyterian, greater than 70 unhoused individuals spend every evening within the parish’s two shelters at 2490 Grove Means in Castro Valley and 27287 Patrick Avenue in Hayward. These shoppers embody Tanya Jackson, 73, who has come to Grove Means for 18 months to flee the wintry in a single day temperatures for each herself and her canine, Mimi and Blue.
“I love Christmas,” Jackson stated however added that she wouldn’t be together with her sisters and brothers this yr due to their poor well being. “So it’s still been kind of tough this year.”
About half of First Presbyterian’s shoppers are chronically homeless, which means they’ve been homeless for a minimum of 12 months, Horner stated. The opposite half of shoppers are a mixture of individuals experiencing episodic homelessness, thought-about a short-term but usually repeated expertise, and transitional homelessness — a standing that usually follows a catastrophic life occasion similar to job loss or fleeing home violence.
On this means, First Presbyterian Church is sort of a modern-day manger for the East Bay’s homeless inhabitants. Residents huddled in lots round a TV taking part in “Godzilla vs. Kong” whereas others wrapped themselves in blankets on the ground. Muffled barks echoed within the gymnasium as Jackson picked up a plate of pasta from the kitchen and shuffled out to the courtyard, adopted intently by Blue and Mimi. First Presbyterian is without doubt one of the few shelters that enables shoppers to stay with their pets.
“They don’t turn people away,” Jackson stated, “unless they start acting up.”
Jackson stated she hasn’t felt near her religion lately — over a yr of being homeless “makes you mean,” she stated. However this time of yr, she stated she desires to reconnect to her religion and unfold it to others.
However conversion is just not one among Horner’s objectives. He stated he views the shelter’s mission as giving dignity to those that’ve been mistreated, misjudged and blamed for his or her homelessness, which he attributes to a bigger societal drawback. Horner stated his “proximity” to the people who find themselves hurting– like most of the shelter’s shoppers have been — has modified him to be extra compassionate and name on others to assist marginalized communities just like the in a single day congregation at First Presbyterian.
“Seeing how our system can mistreat people, to me, I feel like that’s our calling as people of faith to right those wrongs by going out to the margins,” Horner stated. “Like (founder of Homeboy Industries) Father Greg Boyle says, ‘Stand at the margins until the margins no longer exist.’”
Initially Revealed:
