Serving the homeless a Christian ethos, but others involved, too – Denver Gazette

Feb. 6Christian organizations and affiliated churches operate Colorado Springs' primary emergency shelters, soup kitchens and support programs for people who are homeless or otherwise in need.

Some clients say they appreciate the opportunity to pray or seek spiritual guidance. Others say they'd prefer to encounter no religious overtones while accepting a free meal or an overnight cot.

The old model of preaching to people who are down on their luck but not necessarily looking for proselytizing has given way to optional and voluntary choice for clients to hear Christian messages, say leaders of the city's largest homeless providers.

Though their locations may display crosses, have chaplains or clergy on site and offer worship services and Bible studies, Springs Rescue Mission, the Salvation Army of El Paso County and Catholic Charities of Central Colorado do not require participation in religious activities to receive meals, secure a place to sleep and get help with housing, employment, health care and addiction.

"We are a come-as-you-are, low-barrier shelter and meet everybody at their point of need," said Travis Williams, chief development officer.

The organization runs Colorado Springs' largest homeless campus, with 450 shelter beds, three free meals served daily, a 65-unit apartment building with support staff, employment programs and others.

"There's no witness test for anybody on what their beliefs are," Williams said. "We see in the Bible how Jesus consistently met people where they were at, regardless of their circumstances ... and that's the same philosophy we take."

But a common misperception prevails, he said, that clients are required to profess their faith, attend chapel or listen to sermons.

That was the format when Christians began outreach to the poor centuries ago. "A message and a meal" had been the standard for rescue missions since their inception in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1826, with Pentecostal leanings.

Springs Rescue Mission had used that format, said former President and CEO Larry Yonker, until he took over in 2013.

"I didn't feel like that was the best model for showing compassion for the guests, so I eliminated that," he said.

Yonker retired in 2020, after leading the organization through a $22 million renovation and expansion to build a 14-acre campus. The project started with securing a Community Development Block Grant from the city. Using federal money for a capital project was a relatively new move for a religious organization in Colorado Springs, he said, although such arrangements are becoming more prevalent.

"The state and the city are looking for people with vision to solve major social problems, and it takes a pretty good-sized organization to be able to sustain something like that," Yonker said.

Yonker said he strived to counterbalance city leaders' changing direction to manage the homeless by enacting municipal ordinances on camping, loitering and panhandling. Yonker wanted the city's approach to be tempered with a profusion of services to not warehouse the homeless but help them get off the streets.

"I am in favor of breaking up encampments around waterways because they're dangerous," he said, "but ordinances are just a tool to manage your city."

After visiting a rescue mission in San Antonio, Yonker said eliminating barriers of any kind, such as making room for pets, adding lockers to store belongings, and providing showers and laundry facilities, became a local focus to help the chronically homeless, who often have mental illnesses or substance issues, get re-housed.

Now, 20 to 25 chronically homeless clients of Springs Rescue Mission step up into housing each month, Williams, the chief development officer, said.

"In the past, we'd have 20 to 25 a year," he said.

One program at Springs Rescue Mission is Christian-based, a one-year residential addiction recovery course.

But planting seeds of the Christian faith is more likely to look like a volunteer sitting down at a table and eating a meal with diners, Williams said.

"If we're going to share our faith it's not typically from any pulpit," he said. "It's by doing the work, forming relationships and getting to know the people."

'We serve anyone'

The Salvation Army in El Paso County, which runs a 232-bed shelter for men, women and families and provides meals, senior housing, afterschool care and other programs, also has dealt with inaccurate perceptions, said Capt. Doug Hanson, who oversees local operations.

"Rumors have shrouded us the last handful of years that we don't serve everyone, and that's not true," he said. "We serve anyone and everyone that's the heart of why faith-based groups do this work."

Since the first day the Salvation Army opened soup kitchens in London, England in 1865, Hanson said the organization has been serving the poor, needy and destitute.

"While they ate, they heard the Gospel message," Hanson said.

Early organizers had "no intention of being a church, but rather a Christian movement that organized many churches to serve the homeless," he said. The Salvation Army church grew out of that.

Catholics also have a long history of responding to the Christian call to serve the common good by founding hospitals, schools, soup kitchens and social justice programs, said Rochelle Schlortt, spokeswoman for Catholic Charities of Central Colorado.

The organization is part of a nationwide network founded in 1910 and runs Colorado Springs' oldest soup kitchen, the Marian House, as well as homeless outreach, employment aid, immigration services, and assistance to pregnant moms and babies.

A priest, a spiritual care group and a nurse from Penrose-St. Francis Health Services are available at the Marian House for anyone desiring to pray, talk or have questions answered, she said.

"If people want spiritual guidance, we are more than happy to partner with them to help fulfill that spiritual need," Schlortt said. "But we don't force that on anybody or proselytize or require anybody to do anything to get help."

Seth Martin, a Colorado Springs native who has worked at a carnival, as a truck driver and at fast-food restaurants and has been homeless off and on for 21 years, has used homeless services at all three organizations.

"They don't push religion on you," he said.

Although Martin identifies as a lifelong Christian, he said he likes that there's no hard sell about Jesus when getting help.

The approach is more covert than overt, said Kristen Viers, who lives in the Greenway Flats supportive apartment complex on Springs Rescue Mission's campus.

"They imply just as many people who try to force their will in our society do what makes a good Christian to them and how I don't fit the bill," she said.

"My sentiment is, 'I'm sorry. There are plenty of people on this planet. Go and find one that will play with you then.'"

Compassion to fellow human beings

Working with the homeless population falls under the guiding Christian light that every person is a child of God who has value and should not be discriminated against, said Yonker.

Christians supply the majority of nongovernmental assistance for the homeless nationwide, according to a Baylor University Institute for Studies of Religion survey released in February 2017.

Faith-based organizations provided 58% of emergency shelter beds in 11 sample cities surveyed, including Denver, in addition to related services such as education, job training, health care, education and addiction recovery, according to the study.

As a result, the study estimates faith-based organizations create $9.42 in taxpayer savings for every $1 of government funding for homeless services.

More than 200 churches donate money to Springs Rescue Mission, and also clothing, food and volunteer hours, Williams said.

However, churches contribute less than 5% of the organization's $12 million annual revenue stream, he said. The majority is from individual donations and foundations, with less than 10% from local, state and federal funding.

While churches and faith-based organizations have tenets of belief and proven records of service to the poor behind them, they don't corner the market on charitable acts.

"There's a negative connotation that all these people who help are Christian, but Christians don't have a monopoly on serving and helping people," Schlortt of Catholic Charities said. "People of all backgrounds are compassionate to fellow human beings."

That's why Michelle Popejoy, a member of the Atheist Community of Colorado Springs, is a regular presence in a collective monthly effort to hand out food, clothes and other goods at Dorchester Park, where homeless people congregate.

"I didn't want to do it in a proselytizing environment," she said.

Popejoy started helping the homeless about 30 years ago in Phoenix, when her daughter asked her about volunteering. Popejoy has been connected to the local atheists' group, one of several in town, since she moved to Colorado Springs in 2013.

Popejoy usually wears an atheist T-shirt while manning one of many tables that stretch in a long line in Dorchester Park during the "Spreading Smiles and Sandwiches" event.

Lugging her table with water and food that goes on top, Popejoy joins other event organizers, who are from local churches and other organizations.

"I like being here to represent the non-Christians and destigmatize and normalize atheism," she said at a recent distribution. "We're a community of and for atheists, trying to serve the community."

Homeless people said they appreciate the effort.

"It takes everybody Christians, Jews, Catholics and many organizations," said Tim Davis, a reformed heroin addict who's known on the streets as "Bama."

"There are far more people that have mental issues and don't have the ability to turn their lives around than people who do," he said. "Some have been kicked out of the shelter because they have personality disorders or Tourette's or extra food."

For years, Popejoy has fashioned sleeping mats out of plastic bags for the homeless, participated in parks cleanups, sewn warm hats and scarves, and more recently part of the giveaway.

"I don't like it to be assumed that only Christians do this," said Popejoy, describing herself as never having been religious. "No, not only Christians do this.

"I've just always enjoyed doing stuff like this, and I'm obviously not doing it to fill pews."

'A church with working gloves'

That's not the goal of Christian organizations, either, their leaders say.

In the month of December, Springs Rescue Mission logged 53 attendees at chaplain meetings, 77 people at four weekly chapel services, 246 people at15 Bible studies and 667 people at 44 Bible classes, the agency's statistics show.

Such attendance represents a small percentage of clients; the shelter averages around 325 to 350 people a night in the winter.

Chapel services are provided by an outside church, Williams said, not rescue mission itself.

Christian organizations are more visible than other groups involved in homeless services, said Kayla Farris, co-founder of Because We Choose To, a nonprofit organization she and a friend started in 2015 to give away donated clothing to needy folks.

"Christian-based organizations get a lot of the recognition because they tend to get more funding from churches and government funds, so they're able to help on a larger scale," she said.

"But if you really get out on the streets, you'll you see there are other a lot of groups, too, that do meals and whatever they can every week."

Hanson said big organizations are needed to handle today's demands for the homeless population.

"We need large institutions that can be of one mind when it comes to making decisions, sheltering and taking care of people's needs on a large scale," he said. "In response to pushback on faith communities and the way we serve, I say, 'If Jesus did not walk the earth more than 2,000 years ago, we would not be here serving.'"

The Salvation Army shelter's on-site chapel offers a 20-minute morning devotional, full church services on Wednesdays and Sundays, Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous meetings and a house chaplain.

Of the 220 or so homeless people who spend the night each evening, an average of 30 attend a religious gathering, Hanson said.

"We do this not to make a profit because we don't but it's clearly a faith component," he said. "We believe that everybody has value, and therefore we must take care of other people."

Some homeless people say they don't see workers at organizations subscribing to the Christian principles that leadership says employees and volunteers follow.

A homeless man who gave his name as Michael said staff target disabled people, those with criminal records or homeless who have medically implanted devices with seemingly unfair practices.

"What they do doesn't jive with their Christian morals," he said.

Organizations have rules to "minimize the risks" in an environment that brings together hundreds of people, many of whom might be high on drugs, are known to steal from others or display other negative behavior, Yonker said.

"Most of the complaints are because people generally don't understand the chaos and how quickly things can get out of control if you don't have simple rules," he said.

Having said that, Yonker said he understands how some clients "don't feel like they're quickly given enough grace."

People can be permanently banned from Springs Rescue Mission, primarily for violent acts, which Yonker said was one of his hardest challenges in leading the organization because "there's no safety net below the rescue mission."

The Salvation Army's R.J. Montgomery Center also enforces rules pertaining to behavior but doesn't ban people permanently, Hanson said. People can be kicked out for a day, a week or a month but then can return, he said, even if they've been turned away from other places.

"There has to be recourse and accountability to poor actions," Hanson said. "But we don't want them to die on the streets just because they made a bad life decision that day.

"We're a church with its working gloves on," he said. "It's the role we play in Christendom."

(c)2022 The Gazette (Colorado Springs, Colo.)

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Serving the homeless a Christian ethos, but others involved, too - Denver Gazette