When we see the disheveled woman pushing a shopping cart full of “junk” or that crusty guy with the dog-eared “WILL WORK FOR FOOD” sign, we ignore them as if they don’t exist. We dehumanize them.

They do exist — in staggering numbers. More than 90,000 homeless live on Los Angeles streets. And they are human, with the same needs we have: security, love, a sense of belonging and companionship.

Yet my experience with thousands of homeless has taught me that what these individuals want most is for someone to listen. They want real friends.

I choose to see each homeless person as created in God’s image, and though the layers of defeat, addiction, pain, abuse or suffering may hide it well, that image is there, deep within them.

At River City Ministry in North Little Rock, Ark., where I’ve served as an evangelist for the last two years, we reach out to more than 100 homeless every day. We’ve learned that some cannot acclimate to life in “our world,” finding that our super-high-tech, power-hungry, materialistic world is much less desirable than theirs. And so the challenge is this: In being like Jesus who came to “seek and save the lost,” how do we reach into a street culture far different from our own with the love of God?

We must see with different eyes.

Re-humanizing the homeless changes things for me. When I walk through a crowd of 25 to 30 homeless to reach the front door of our center, I address most by their first names. Once inside, Johnny “schools” me in dominoes. Danny gets a copy of a hymn he wants to sing during lunch worship. Jennifer shares about the day job she got.

Because of our friendships, I can ask most about their spiritual lives. Whatever the response, my call is simply to be available for the moment when God brings each to a point of decision to be restored or immersed. Often a person I haven’t met says, “My friend under the bridge last night told me I could get my life right with God here. Is that true?”

After nearly 25 years of inner-city ministry, I’ve helped provide the homeless with a shower, hot meal, laundry, case management, rehab, life and job skills training and housing. But, I’ve found, they’re looking for much more.

In the movie, The Soloist, a gifted cello player, Nathaniel Anthony Ayers, lives in a dirty, directionless, mentally ill, violent world. As a young man, the voices in his head become too much, and he finds himself living on the streets.

Nearby, Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez, who lives in an obsessively clean, overachieving world, does all within his considerable power to better Nathaniel’s life. But when Steve tries to force changes on him, Nathaniel bristles. “I’m not your boy,” Nathaniel tells Steve.

After all of Steve’s hard work, Nathaniel remains schizophrenic, living in an apartment secured by Steve. And Steve, though frustrated, gains the most in the relationship because he begins to see Nathaniel as a man living life as it has been handed to him.

Efforts to help the homeless often end like Steve’s experience. Though we alter the surroundings, the person may never really change. Change happens from the inside. Street ministers accept that there will always be homeless, but choose to love them — heart, mind, body and soul — as Jesus does.

Some want to get off the streets, but many have found a home in a secluded alley, shelter or wooded camp near the freeway. Whether it’s fear of confinement, non-conformist attitudes, mental illness or irresponsibility, there will always be those who cannot, or will not, fit into “normal” society.

The goal is not to try to change the homeless so I can go home at night cheering, “Hooray, got another one off the street!” Though helping some to do so, I want the rest to know that God, and I, still love them in their homelessness, addictions and inability to overcome. I don’t coerce, manipulate or even beg the homeless to come to Jesus. I respect them too much. It’s not my way, anyway. We talk, think and pray about it, give it time, and then they make the choice.

Such has been the case with Elecia, 45. From the outside, she appears skinny, scantily clad, drug-wasted and wild-eyed. I’ve seen her on street corners trying to “get a date” to help support her drug habit. To the casual observer, she looks like a hopeless case.

But when I sit with Elecia, she softens.

“Brother Anthony, do you know what it feels like to be sold for sex by your mother to grown men to support her crack cocaine habit?”

I have to say, “No, I really don’t.”

She cries. “Well, I didn’t either, until I was 6 years old. That lasted until I left home at 14. It still hurts, really bad.”

The image of God is in there, deep down, somewhere.
 
DR. ANTHONY WOOD, evangelist at River City Ministry in North Little Rock, Ark., has served the poor, homeless and incarcerated since 1985. To find out more about his ministry, contact him at awoodxulon@yahoo.com.