Finding a place for everyone

Home: a place to be yourself; a place to hang pictures on the wall, to read your favorite books, to listen to music that moves your soul, or your body, when no one is watching. Some homes are huge, others tiny apartments. Some are filled with light, others need the help of a few well placed light bulbs. Some homes are full of love, some not so much.

Imagine life without a home. Picture yourself trying to fall asleep on the streets, or maybe in an alley with the noise of a big city for ambience and streetlights as night lights. If you are “lucky” you may have shelter; the couch in a friend’s apartment or a charitable shelter, sharing your sleeping quarters with strangers. Imagine needing to search nightly for a place to sleep.

Who would chose to give up the sanctuary of “home” for the life of the “homeless”?

Now imagine being homeless and being a woman. It is a societal expectation that women be the “homemaker”. Many women feel judged by how clean they keep their lodgings and how well they can prepare a meal. Women without a place to call home are doubly judged…judged that they have chosen to be homeless and that they cannot live up to expectations, not even their own dreams. Some women are made more vulnerable by histories of physical violence, drug or alcohol abuse or mental illness. For many, all three have played a role in leading to a life without a home.

In Susan Scott’s All Our Sisters: Stories of Homeless Women in Canada, we are privileged to hear the stories of Canadian women, living on the streets or in shelters, with no place to call “home”. Scott spoke with and recorded the stories of women in British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba and Ontario. Along with statistics and background information about homelessness and related issues, we are invited briefly into to lives of these women, to learn their histories, and share their dreams.

Many stories in scripture speak about the poor. The last shall be first in the Kingdom of Heaven. Perhaps in taking a little time to learn more about the homeless, we can be moved into action to bring some Kingdom of Heaven to the homeless on earth.