Saturday, June 5, 2010

Chicago












We rolled into Chicago yesterday - there's good news for weekend recreationists, because Rollerblading is back in style. According to further research on the Lakefront Trail, so is Biking in Jeans and Sweating Through Collared Shirts. We're staying in Kim's place just outside the city, and David took us out to a great Ethiopian dinner followed by a Taize worship service. We're heading to off to volunteer at Good News Partners, and wanted to leave you with this quote from Neil from National Coalition for the Homeless in DC. More soon!

-jonjamessarah

“So should someone be all better before they get into housing? I think all you have to do is walk up and down the street of your average city and ask yourself the question, ‘Do you think everyone who lives in all these units of housing are ALL BETTER’? And the answer’s probably no. They’re probably pretty typical. Some are wrestling with addiction, some have demons……Our philosophy is that everyone belongs in housing and housing is a human right. Who deserves to go into housing first? And the answer is we all deserve to go into housing. So do the chronically homeless deserve to go into housing before the family with little kids? Does the family with little kids deserve to go before the US military veteran? So you’ve got to ask yourself the question, there’s all these populations and there’s this hierarchy that we as a society have created that says on a compassion scale, the people who have long beards…are kind of pitiful, and the mother with the young child, let’s put them next….So we have this weird dynamic with the unhoused where we assign them a rating on the pity scale but rank them somewhere on this hierarchy of need and the reality is we’re all in need of housing and we ought to flatline that hierarchy. We ought to say everyone is in need of housing and it’s not really for us to say who is more pitiful than another person. Our job is to get people housing. It’s not our job to sit and judge if someone’s deserving of housing or not. I certainly wouldn’t want to be judged on your ranking of how I live my life and I certainly wouldn’t want to do that to someone else either.”

2 comments:

  1. Well, I finally caught up with you guys! You're riding faster than I can read! I feel like I'm right there with you...and wishing I actually was. Katherine Anh is still tracing your journey on a map hanging on our kitchen wall. So, you see, you're not only helping the homeless, you're helping KA learn her US geography! We're all pulling for ya...and so proud of what you're doing. Take care of each other and watch out for those dogs! (BTW, "who let the dogs out??") Love you, Aunt Betty

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  2. We have enjoyed "watching" your progress across country. You all are an inspiration to each of us. For example Hardie Cate says he wants to do something like this.

    We have a question: When on the bikes, on average what speed are you pedaling? Is it ten miles per hour or twenty or what?

    Thanks, Gram and Gramps

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