Heaven for the homeless may be Hawaii. Every morning there is buffet in a bucket. Grimy hands push the trash around finding coke in a cup, a partially eaten piece of pizza in a cardboard box, and two bites of a fish taco wrapped in a greasy paper. Some church folk in Waikiki set up a lunch line in a park several days a week. You can sleep on the beach or in a park. There are even tents allowed in some parks. The weather is mild so your shopping cart does not require a large wardrobe selection. Why, you can even put up a cardboard box on a sidewalk across from a fashionable store and sell whatever it is you make. I was surprised by the casualness and closeness of the homeless to the tourists and residents in Honolulu.
A problem is coming. Honolulu is hosting an international meeting of some really BIG, IMPORTANT PEOPLE. It just will not do for some to have these folks so close to the homeless. What to do? Aside from some 'gentle' encouragement by law enforcement to move on you just can't pack them up. However you can coincidentally schedule sidewalk, beach, and park improvements around the same time as your guests arrive. It is understandable then if you must move the homeless.
I am not suggesting the folks in Hawaii are any different then the folks in Lafayette or me. We all can live with homelessness as long as it is not an embarrassment or causes too many safety concerns. And maybe that is what unsettled me-I can live with it. Two bible verses roll around in my head: "you will always have the poor with you" and "if you have done it to the least of these you have done it to me." I don't know yet how I will respond to this reminder of people in need but I can't ignore it. Whether it is here or in Hawaii there is no heaven for the homeless.
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