Late afternoon yesterday I saw Pastor Daniel Meeter’s blog post about the homeless men who live on the steps of Old First Church.
I know it took a lot of soul searching on Pastor Meeter’s part to get to the point where he could write that piece and I think he did an excellent job.
Pastor Meeter’s careful articulation and his quest to truly figure out the right way to act makes me respect him even more than I already do.
While this matter obviously causes Meeter a great deal of trouble and anger, he writes beautifully that these men “remain human beings, images of God, and they need to be treated with respect.”
As a spiritual leader, there is no denying that Pastor Meeter has a very difficult situation on his hands.
Meeter says that the church could just get a fence but they don’t believe in that. He recognizes that the steps of the church are an important public space in Park Slope.
At a time like this, Jackie Connor comes to mind.
She used to sit on the steps of Old First at the corner of Seventh Avenue and Carroll. Over a year ago, that corner was officially named Jackie Connor’s Corner.
Sometimes called the Mayor of Seventh Avenue, Connor died in the spring of 2006. She used to push a shopping cart up and down the Avenue. Some thought she was a street person but wasn’t that at all.
In her own inimitable way, she was organizing, agitating, fighting for the rights of the little guy, the streets, and the community of Park Slope.
Civic minded doesn’t even begin to describe Connor, who cared deeply about the neighborhood where she was born and raised. Everyone knew her and she knew everybody; she kept the police abreast of what was going on on Seventh Avenue by cell phone. And she had her pet peeves like flyers on lamp posts, which she waged a one-woman campaign to remove.
Connor was on the street in front of Zuzu’s Petals minutes after fire that ravaged that store, Olive Vine and a Korean market. Fonda Sera, owner of Zuzu’s, will never forget Connor’s unswerving support during what was a devestating time for her and her business.
What would Jackie Connor say now?
I am quite certain that Jackie Connor would not tolerate this situation. I’m sure she had an opinion about people sleeping on the steps of the church. During her time on those steps, the men didn’t sleep there. I may be wrong about that. I’d love to hear Pastor Meeter’s memories of this.
Personally, it disturbs me that these men are making such a nuisance of themselves almost as much as it horrifies me to see them looking so very ill. I’ve observed these men for many years and I’ve seen the ebb and flow of their mental condition. In the last year, they have really deteriorated. Meeter concurs:
I used to talk to them and pray with them. I used to be able to reason with them. That’s no longer possible. They’re drinking 24/7 lately. They are nasty to me too. How long this will go on I do not know. In the short term, it’s people giving them money that keeps it going. In the long term, they are killing themselves. If they manage to get arrested, they will get cleaned up at Rikers, and we’ll have them back in February!
“Before Robert had descended to his current condition, and when he had sober moments, he used to pray very moving prayers for certain people in the area. for poor children, for illiterates (such as himself), for soldiers, for forgiveness of his sins. I hate what has become of him. I always knew it would be coming.This is something, I am guessing, that Jackie Connor would never have tolerated.
The situation is forcing Pastor Meeter and this community to look deeply within to figure out what is the right thing to do.
Already many people have written in to OTBKB to express their views: “People who are actually poor because they may have lost their jobs or suffered some other personal catastrophe don’t end up urinating on themselves and ranting obsenities on street corners. Only the seriously untreated mentally ill do that,” writes Peter Loffredo, a social worker and a psychotherapist.
“While I know that this doesn’t alleviate Pastor Meeter’s frustration with the situation on his church steps, a place to begin must always be to accurately understand the problem. The men are not the “poor” described in the New Testament. Robert, Will and Franklin don’t need money. They need psychiatric treatment in a facility that can also provide structure and teach basic self-maintenance to them. I have seen men like these become functional in such a facility. And I saw the places where such healing took place dismantled a long time ago.”
Three men on the steps of a church. The issues are huge. Are they mentally ill or homeless. Or both. Can they be helped? How and where?
For the time being, we have Pastor Meeter, a deep thinking community and religious leader, who is taking the time to present this complex situation to the community. He is, in a sense, going public with this moral civic conumdrum and seeing what the public has to say. As he writes:
It’s a grief, and we’re at our wits end. We have been unable to find any solution. In a strange way, the three of them are in control. Robert, Will, and Franklin.
They have names. They have souls. They belong to our community. They tell us something about ourselves.
I live right on Carroll St. between 6th and 7th. I see — and smell — these guys every single day of the spring, summer and fall. If I’m reading between the lines correctly, what Rev. Meeter may be suggesting is that people stop giving them money. As harsh as that sounds, if the money dries up, they’ll move somewhere else where people are willing to give them money. That’s one potential solution…
Dear OTBKB, you have put it very well,and thank you for your kind understanding; I hope we can be worthy of it. Thank you for helping to develop a “moral community” with your posting here.
And you are right on about Jackie. It was Jackie who by her vigilance used to keep those guys at bay. Jackie was the one who would call the cops regularly, and she had the time to sit there on the wall until the cops came. And it didn’t matter to her how many times she had to call them. And the men were afraid of her. Jackie even had a direct line to the NYC Commissioner of Transportation!
Let me add that we used to have a Community Policing officer (the tall guy with the earring in the Cushman) who took a real interest in the neighborhood, who was willing to cooperate with Jackie, and could be counted on. We don’t seem to have that any more.
For a neighborhood to work (think “It Takes a Village”) there have to be people like Jackie who are the watchers, vigilant, tenacious, and not afraid.
I value Mr. Lofredo’s comments, but he’s right, they don’t alleviate the situation. (Though I would not so confidently exclude these guys from what the gospel says about the poor.) Undoubtedly, the problem with Robert, Will, and Frank is not their poverty but their drunkenness, their rudeness, and their potential violence. And it’s true that our society no longer has the institutions to deal with such men.
What Park Slope is able to give these guys is money. What Park Slope is not able to give these guys is housing, shelter, healing, or hope. Old First does not give these guys money. And neither do we give them housing, shelter, healing, or hope. All we give them is some minimal sanctuary. (Which churches have done since the Magna Carta.) They feel safer next to our walls than anywhere else. Is that the best we can do?
I wish I could work miracles.