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Building relationships with the homeless
Volunteers distribute hygiene products, coats, and blankets but most importantly they go to build relationships with the individuals they serve...
Pastor DeAnza Spaulding has always had a passion for reaching out to the homeless population. Before becoming the Compassion and Justice Pastor at Quest, a multiethnic church in Seattle, Wash., DeAnza worked with transitional housing and caseworkers for people who are homeless. She has carried that passion with her to her position as a pastor and director of the Q Café in Seattle, and continues to bring the needs and lives of Seattle’s homeless population to the hearts and minds of Quest church members.
“One of the things that has been disheartening is that so many times the homeless community just becomes numbers and statistics,” DeAnza said. “Somehow in that process they kind of lose their stories, faces and experiences.”
When Quest started the Q Café almost five years ago, drop-in times were set aside each week for people to come in to find what resources are available to them. However, DeAnza said she and others decided they were not reaching everyone they could by staying within the café walls.
“The whole idea of sitting back and waiting for people to trickle in the door wasn’t working,” she said. That is when they decided to follow Jesus’ words to “go out” and be missional.
Soon “To the Streets” was created to bringing their ministry to the people where they were. Now every first Saturday of the month from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m., volunteers from Quest distribute hygiene products, coats, and blankets--but most importantly they go to build relationships with the individuals they serve.
“The bottom line of what this is about is me being in your life and me having a relationship with you and building up a friendship with you and hearing what your day is like,” DeAnza said. “Some of the people we work with are very isolated from the community, from their families and from friendship, and so it gives us that opportunity to be able to move into that space and provide a face of grace, of care, and of love.”
To her knowledge, DeAnza said, no other services offer this kind of care to people who are homeless in Seattle. She said it is critical for “To the Streets” to be a casual service for the people who are homeless. To keep things casual, DeAnza said they don’t ask people for a driver’s license or a social security card to receive service.
“We wanted to cut out any barriers that would create, for some people, a sense of discomfort,” she said. “We wanted to cut out some of that stuff and just say ‘we’re here.’”
While the focus of “To the Streets” is to reach out to people who are homeless, DeAnza also uses the ministry as an opportunity to educate Quest church members about homelessness. In an effort to minimize the stigmas that often surround being homeless, she created the “To the Streets Homelessness Depth Class,” which teaches not only the realities of homelessness, but opportunities for advocacy as well.
“We spend a lot of time dissecting stereotypes and stigmas of what we think it is to be homeless and who the homeless are,” she said. “That is a very educational process and very much a self awareness process for people because it makes people really confront stigmas and those things that they’ve been told about the homeless that aren’t necessarily true.”
DeAnza said on the Saturdays that they minister on the streets to between 35 and 70 people. As word continues to spread about “To the Streets,” though, DeAnza said she can see the people they serve easily exceeding 70 on a regular basis, and she is preparing Quest for that growth.
“I’m challenging the church to be more committed to this work,” she said. “We’re not doing ‘To the Streets’ just as a novelty… we want to be serious about it and there is a lot more work that can be done.”
Though what will come next for “To the Streets” in regards to volunteers and service opportunities is not certain, DeAnza said she will continue to work at putting the concerns of people who are homeless forth in the church.
“To the streets is an opportunity for people to take what they are learning in class and church and to serve and a good chance for us to see that people are just people,” she said. “They are lonely and they are longing and desiring relationships and connections with other human beings and this is an opportunity that we have to be that bridge.”
Church Information:
Quest
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