Part 1 of 3: November is National Homelessness Awareness month. To honor our unhoused neighbors during this month we will be featuring a three-part series on homelessness by DJ Johnsen.  

There’s this thing that happens to me in the late fall; maybe it happens to you, too.  

The daylight hours become sparse. The air – just yesterday rich with warmth and energy and life – turns empty and brisk. And people go inward – both in the spatial and the spiritual sort of way.  

As most people go inward, though, my mind thinks of those who cannot do the same. I have a heightened awareness of the people in my city who live outside, those whom we call “homeless.” Or, a bit more humanely, “unhoused.” 

Even now, as I make simple mention of this, it’s natural to feel some…guilt? Perhaps that’s too strong of a word. But certainly awkwardness.  

It doesn’t (and shouldn’t) sit well with us, after all, that people living in proximity to us don’t have a roof over their heads as rain and snowstorms begin to populate the local weather forecast. That’s my best guess at where that awkwardness comes from.  

You park your car downtown on a frosty morning, muster up the gumption to get up out of your heated seat and, as your breath forms puff clouds just beyond your face, step over a formless pile of tarnished cotton sleeping bags and recycled goodwill blankets.

You park your car downtown on a frosty morning, muster up the gumption to get up out of your heated seat and, as your breath forms puff clouds just beyond your face, step over a formless pile of tarnished cotton sleeping bags and recycled goodwill blankets. Under which, you assume, someone – a human person – must be hiding from the cold. All this on your Tuesday commute to work. This is when the inner voice some of us know so well begins prodding us again, “It shouldn’t be like this!” 

But then what? Well, you can confront the discomfort by asking, “What, really, can I do for this person?” And maybe you hop into Starbucks and quietly lay a hot coffee at the sleeper’s side. Or (as I so often do) you move on, hoping the first batch of emails helps take your mind off things.  

256,000 people lived unhoused and unsheltered, meaning without permanent or temporary housing, in America in 2023.

I’m writing all this, I guess, because homelessness is a problem in our world today – a massive problem. 256,000 people lived unhoused and unsheltered, meaning without permanent or temporary housing, in America in 2023. (If you count unhoused and sheltered people, the total goes up to over 650,000). That increased 12% from the year prior.  

I know someone who was born into an abusive home, was passed around the foster care system until she was 18, and only just recently quit seeking shelter through relationships with violent boyfriends. I know another woman who lost her home in a storm when erosion pried a boulder loose from the cliffside above. She was lucky to be sleeping on the other side of the house when it happened, but her insurance didn’t cover that kind of accident and now she’s faced with the task of building a life back up from ground zero. Yet another lost his father at 13 and then took up his dad’s harmful habit in order to cope with loss, drinking his way in and out of stable housing ever since.   

I don’t know what all their stories are, but I do know that unhoused persons will be living amongst us as the weather turns harsh once again this season. And we will continue to face the dilemma of how best to embrace them as our neighbors. I think a good start would be not to write ourselves a generalized story about why they are homeless.  

In the next couple of installments of the HNP blog, I want to share a personal story of a stranger-turned-friend. Then I want to give you a simple framework for how to take action on behalf of your unhoused neighbor.  

It’s the season of giving thanks and giving back. I hope this little series might stir up some of that in all of us.