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Forty years ago, in 1956 as a first-year student at the Moody Bible Institute,
I was given my first Chicago ministry assignment--to lead a gospel team to the
Pacific Garden Mission every Tuesday night. We sang, testified, preached
occasionally and prayed with many of the hundreds who gathered each evening.
These memories of rescue are etched in my mind.
| WHO IS SERVED BY RESCUE MISSIONS?
79% under 45 years old
71% local community residents
40% women and women with children
Less than 5% middle-aged, alcoholic white males
IUGM Statistics
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The street scene in the United
States has changed during these years. The profile of the homeless shifted
overnight when we changed our mental health philosophy. We moved from the
skid rows of the 60s--typically 58-year-old, white winos-- and dumped
thousands of psychologically and socially damaged people onto the streets,
into community shelters and half-way houses. Then in the early 80s we saw
the emergence of the "bag ladies," a huge population of aging
women who had outlived their relatives and sometimes other social benefits.
In the mid 80s, the kalideoscopic street scene changed again. Jonathan
Kozol's book, Rachel and Her Children, dealt with the numbers
of women and children now living in single room occupancy hotels (SROs).
That's when we learned that the fastest growing group on the streets are the
children of the homeless.
Five new things hit us in the past decade: AIDS, crack-cocaine, assault
weapons (and the escalation of teen violence), the acceleration in numbers
of runaway street kids and tensions resulting from the changing racial
profile that TIME magazine has called "The Browning of America"
(which has brought race, religion, culture and class into the mix). Humanly
speaking, the picture looks very bleak.
In 1994, Baum and Burns published their little blockbuster book, A Nation in Denial: The Truth About Homelessness,
(a compilation of 107 different studies) and concluded that 85 percent of
all street people are so addicted or damaged that only 15 percent can be
reached by traditional "soup, soap and salvation" strategies of
shelter and transitional hospitality.
Much more will be required.
That's the context. While I've described U.S. cities, the world cities
phenomenon isn't that different. America doesn't yet have huge,
plastic-house "street" populations like Addis Ababa, Calcutta or
Bombay, but some of us could see that as a possible future scenario in the
United States if trends continue-- particularly if middle-class churches
continue to withdraw from direct engagement with the issues that lead to
homelessness. Like gangs, homelessness is not the real problem, but a
symptom of much deeper problems.
The rescue mission movement began in Glasgow, Scotland, with David Nasmith
in 1826 and spread to most major cities before 1900. The streets have
changed, and so have rescue missions.
Rescue missions have always
met a "full plate" of needs. But never before have society's
homeless presented city missions with such large and complicated challenges.
The fastest-growing group in the homeless population is families with
children. Homelessness is a devastating experience for parents and children
alike. A recent survey of 30 U.S. cities found that families with children
account for 39% of the homeless population. The same study found that
children alone account for just over one-fourth of the homeless. In
addition, 75% of cities surveyed are particularly lacking in shelters and
other needed services for families with children.
The good news is this: From New York to Sydney, God is at work through many
"new look" rescue missions, healing homeless families by the power
of Christ's gospel. Amen!
From the Summer 1995 issue of City Voices.
Used by permission of International Urban Associates
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