Strangers I Can't Ignore

Street outreach. That moment of pulling your car up, parking, getting out, and saying hello to a complete stranger. And it's never just any stranger, it's the stranger that most times no one wants to see or acknowledge. The stranger that might be holding a sign, asking for help. The stranger that might be a little weird or dirty. The stranger that I can no longer ignore.

The other alternative, stopping to talk to someone at a corner or on the street, or hiking through the woods, down worn paths that lead to encampments, someone's home.

Sometimes there are tents, precariously arranged tarps and pieces of wood, a make-shift bathroom that includes a bucket or just a particular area in the camp.

Sometimes there are piles of trash and things collected from dumpsters or things that have been found along the way of their daily journey, wherever that leads.

Sometimes we have encountered outright hoarders and other times, every piece of trash has been burned and rid from the camp.

We have seen anything from lean-tos to elaborate builds with sound structures, posing as tiny homes. I would be amiss if I failed to mention those that lay down a simple piece of cardboard or on the bare ground and sleep there. That's reality as well.

We enter. We encounter. We engage. Introductions made and an awkward moment follows. We try to explain who we are and why we're there. Suspicion abounds. Who talks to people out in the world, randomly, without an agenda, especially them. They assume they must be in trouble. I imagine that's what they must be thinking.

Street outreach for us, is a few people that show up to be kind, acknowledge someone's existence, that most people run from, and to try to help, whatever that looks like. Our hope is a connection. To services? That's definitely a long-term goal. Often times people refuse the help we're offering, especially when we first meet them.

It makes sense. Trust must be built. Alliances must be made. But there are times that people simply don't want the kind of help we're offering. For me, that's okay.

Programs provide very specific paths and in my opinion, some don't offer enough for those in recovery or in dire need of mental health or health services. It also doesn't help that those first two prominent services are voluntary. It makes sense in the way that people have to be involved in their recovery and they must want to get better.

In another sense, it's frustrating that there's no incentive to push people in that direction. I do believe that's why intentional and intensive support and services, working together, is so important to put in place, along with housing. Chronically homeless people, struggling with years of trauma, addiction, declining mental and physical health, need more than basic case management and an apartment in a drug and crime ridden apartment complex.

These are individuals that are critical, that are vulnerable, that are in the darkest valley in their lives, and have been living in that valley for quite sometime. Their lives didn't fall apart in one day and they certainly won't be fixed in one.

Recovery, from anything, from life, takes constant support, encouragement, accountability, and lots of healing. Change is hard. It won't happen if the element of care is not there. That's been proven over and over again. We're angry when people won't do what we think they should do, what we would do, yet we don't consider they only know their way of doing life. We must consider perspective.

If I have reached one person in kindness, with a water bottle or food, I feel like I have made a connection that may encourage them to get through the next hour, the next day, maybe. It's one way to plant seeds that a better life and recovery is possible. It's a way to say we care, we see you.

Continuing to show up, even when first or second encounters go sideways, that shows consistency and commitment, and that is the beginning of trust. Trust is the beginning of a relationship. And a relationship is the beginning of healing and moving forward with another person that is willing to help carry the load. The load has been heavy, paralyzing, and agonizing for far too long. Many can relate.

I used to be the person that diverted their eyes. I didn't want to engage "the beggar", the mentally ill, the addict, stumbling over words and clearly, on another plane at the moment I encountered them. I wanted to run, to get away. That was my only goal and fear was my only friend in those moments.

I was annoyed. I mean, the nerve of someone in need, in pain, trapped in their own minds and addictions, how dare they distract me from my day, my lunch, my shopping trip, or my comfort. It was inconvenient and every time I felt this ache in my stomach that I should have done something or been kinder. It wasn't long before my heart would be changed. My soul was being worked on, and I didn't even know it.

If you know me or if you've ever read things I've written, you will know, I say "love your neighbor" frequently. In the same breath I will say, "use discernment".

When I was 31 years old, I truly began my journey to do both, love my neighbor and use discernment while loving them. When people are in need, when they are desperate, they will tell you just about anything to get whatever it is they're after.

Sometimes helping is NOT giving people what they ask for, but listening and acknowledging. Sometimes helping is giving resources or knowledge. Sometimes helping is doing nothing.

I think we fail to see sometimes when someone is asking us for help, that they are not actually helpless. They have navigated the world for years, decades, and they're still here. I admit, it's not pretty, but it is never our responsibility to take on someone's problems wholly and try to solve them without their input. We help with the load, we don't take it all as our own.

People have the right to self determination and we should encourage that. We should encourage decision making and responsibility. We should have the idea to empower people rather than fix people. I have run myself mad trying to do so many things that someone never asked me to do and in turn, get mad when they don't accept those things and are ungrateful or rude.

I learned very quickly, my disappointment or anger towards them wasn't justified. My goal should have never been to hear someone's burdens, take them fully on my back, and then run away in a feverish frenzy, putting together all the things I think they need.

What do they think they need? What do they want? Where have they been? Where are they going? Those are not questions for me or anyone else to answer. Just like no one can answer those questions for us.

Meeting people on the street has been an experience that has changed me and challenged me in every way possible. My natural instinct is to "fix" things, but that isn't the goal. The goal is to meet people in their space, physically, spiritually, and mentally.

I have met so many people my age or older than me, and they have no skills, no credit, no rental history, no experience with the things I have spent my entire life worrying about. It doesn't make them less. It does define the phrase "meeting people where they are".

We can't be mad about where they are. Their lives were completely different than ours. Their experiences, their family dynamics, their education, their decisions, their level of safety or lack there of, all shaped their perspective, which is different than every other person's perspective on the planet.

We interpret things through our own perspectives, which includes our passions, our pain, and every single moment that we have been breathing. No two people will have the exact same perspective, even those that grow up in the same home. My grandfather once said it's the reason no one will ever truly understand one another fully.

It explains why so many times we have shared our own opinions on things and we've been attacked or misunderstood. And even with that being said, I don't know how many misconceptions I hear about people on the street. Addicts are not just on the street, those that are just happen to have less support, less money, and fewer resources, overall. Humans are hurting and broken with or without a roof over their head.

It is not "those people". We are all those people. It is not "us" and "them". That is never more evident when family comes into the picture after meeting someone.

I have been called by sons looking for mothers, people looking for lost friends, approached by a mother in tears who wanted her son to just be safe and sober and instead, he continues the same patterns over and over that are self destructive, not to mention, painful for him and everyone that might care about him.

One of the worst days I could have ever imagined unfolded early one morning in 2018, when my team and I found the body of a guy we knew, loved, and were checking on just a week after I had visited with him.

He was face down in the creek that ran under the bridge he had been sleeping under. As I was walking my team back up the hill and calling 911, I see a man walking down the trail towards us. In my heart, I knew who he was and in my mind all I could think was not to say anything stupid. He introduced himself to me. He said his name was Willie and his son Jason was sleeping under this bridge and he had come that day to look for him. It had been 4 days since Willie or his daughter, Landa, had heard from Jason. For them, that was a long time to not hear from him.

I remember nodding my head and telling him we had come to find Jason and that we knew his son well. I told him we had found someone but we didn't know for sure if it was Jason.

That moment was just one of many that shook me to my core and reminded me that every single person has somewhere they've come from, a family of some sort. Broken or not, someone is wondering where they are, even when they have burned every bridge they ever had.

There are mothers and fathers and sons and daughters and sisters and brothers, that wake up daily and wonder if this is the day. Is this the day I will get the call that says the person I love isn't coming home? Is this day the last day I get to hope they have found healing and they will walk through the front door? For me, I always leave people and wonder if that will be the last conversation we ever have, the last laugh we share, the last chance in this life, to get it right.

Some people's rock bottom will be death and that has always been and always will be, the hardest thing for me to accept. I have no idea where to begin to reconcile that fact. Those thoughts lead me to my friend Danny.

Lately, Danny has been on my mind. I just grew to love him and my heart hurt for him constantly. Our friendship began with him not trusting me at all. He would cuss and scream in his drunkenness and if I'm honest, I was a little afraid of him in the beginning. By the end, I trusted him with my life.

Over time, over many times of just showing up, Danny changed how he interacted with me and some of the other individuals on the outreach team. He told me so many times he didn't want help or need it. He was always drinking. Always. He never hid his addiction from me until after he was sober 4 months and started again. He tried to hide it, but it was evident what was happening.

This was after landing in the hospital multiple times, only days or weeks apart, him asking for help after years of visits, taking him three and a half hours to a rehab facility, and him ending up in the ICU a week later with people calling to tell me he was in a coma and he didn't have long to live. Crazy enough, he did live, for almost 2 more years.

He woke up from the coma and was walking the halls of the hospital just a week after that doomsday call. He was sent to another rehab in the southern region of Mississippi.

He may have stayed there a few weeks. I got call from a friend asking if Danny was back from rehab. I was confused. He said, "Kim, I'll send you the picture. I saw him."

It was him and immediately, I went to find him.

He looked so healthy and clean and it was so amazing to talk to him as just him. There he was, the guy that had been hiding in there since the day I met him. I'd seen glimpses, but never just him.

It didn't take long before he was drinking again. He was back on the street. The street and addiction go hand-in-hand if you're an addict. There's very little chance of sobriety in that hell.

Housing assistance is never immediate and I guess nothing that he needed was immediate. He needed urgency. He needed all hands on deck and as much as I, and my friend Allen advocated for him, it didn't matter. No one was moved in a triage-type direction. No one approached his case with urgency.

He was another drunk, dirty man in a long line of drunk, dirty men. He was a number with no face, no story and the "bleeding hearts" advocating for him were just naïve "do-gooders" trying to save a "lost cause". That was my interpretation of the lack of action and care given. I would go home to another sleepless night of worry, heartbreak, and overall frustration.

Over the next year and a half, I still visited Danny, a lot, but still not enough. I could feel myself trying to pull away, to disconnect from him, but I couldn't undo how much I already cared for him.

I got a front row seat to his slow suicide with alcohol. It was painful to witness and my insides still knot up just thinking about it. This man that I had laughed with and talked with and had become friends with, was in so much pain and there was no more that I could do. I waited.

I was the one waiting on the call. He also had a sister that had always assumed she would get that call, as well. I'm sure it didn't make it any easier.

That brief window of him seeking help had closed and the "system" had failed him. He may have failed while in the system, if given a real chance at sobriety, but that, I will never know.

During one of our visits during that time, where I sat on a upside down bucket and he, on this incredibly dirty couch he slept on, I learned he and I were born in the same hospital, in the same hometown. We both had that moment of connection once again. That feeling of understanding that only comes with familiarity of growing up in the same place.

We talked about our families and who we both knew, and the places that we had frequented while living there. I tell that story often because it was one that was unexpected and made his fate even harder for me. I'm not sure how to accept someone's impending death that you love, but it was what I had to do. There was no choice about that.

The last time I saw Danny he helped us find some people we were looking for, for housing. They were in the camp where he was sleeping at the time. Not to mention, Danny knew nearly everyone on the street. We swapped stories often. Our gossip sessions about those we knew were some of my favorite moments. He did have a lot of concern for some, and he would ask about them if he hadn't heard from them in a while. Sounds a lot like people that do have a roof over their heads.

We gave him a ride that day from the Walmart parking lot in exchange for the information. Honestly, I would have given him a ride anyway, but the help was always welcomed.

As I was leaving and got in the car, I realized he was walking behind me. He was upset I didn't get the response I was hoping for, and he actually apologized for the way the other people reacted. I smiled and reassured him that it was okay. He held up his end of the deal.

At that moment, my friend Ashley, who I have done many, many of hours of outreach with, asked him again if he wanted to pursue housing. He politely declined, again, and basically said, "You know I can't leave."

I told him to take care of himself and as he had almost turned completely around to walk back to his camp, I said, "I love you, man." I remember shaking my head in frustration and sadness, and trying to hold back tears.

He told me he loved me too, but he always did that. I, on the other hand, had never said that without him saying it first and it was always in a very light, airy way.

Boundaries are hard when you really come to care about people, but I tried to always keep them in place. For some reason, that day was an exception. I needed him to know I loved him, he meant something to me, and his life mattered.

Maybe some part of me knew that was the last time we would ever see each other. I'm not sure. I am sure he knew I loved him, and that will always be something I hold onto.

I miss Danny. I'm so thankful something pushed me to keep showing up, even if the outcome was one I never wanted. I still look for him every time I'm driving around. My brain hasn't yet processed fully that he's gone. Goodbyes will never be easy.

Danny was by no means in the realm of perfect. He often did things that were stupid and honestly, illegal at times. He was no friend of the cops, for sure, yet as I say that, one of the officers I worked with closely told me he had helped them solve several auto burglary cases. Go figure.

He was the most honest, dishonest man I have ever known. He was good. He was bad. And he was one of the strangers that I couldn't ignore, even without the happy ending.

I have been taught over and over again, the journey is not always about the ending, but about all the moments that happen along the way. The joy, the agony, the beauty, the ugliness, and the loss together, explain so much about what this life is.

Thank you God for every stranger put in my path that I now see and acknowledge. The love that has been shared from those bonds has been meaningful and beautiful amongst the mess and the pain.

I no longer see beggars or addicts or bums. I no longer see lost causes. I just see my neighbors who are no longer strangers.

"I'm a little pencil in the hand of a writing God, who is sending a love letter to the world." -Mother Teresa