The answer to the question of quality care for the homeless in my town is not the homeless shelter. The Volunteers of America Sheridan Community Shelter does not offer quality care. Residents are expected to act forever grateful that they are not being kicked out, or they will be kicked out.
Quality care of the homeless and the under-sheltered in my town is dependent upon one person helping another person. It involves one investing oneself into the well-being of another. The selfless and caring attitude and behavior of the Good Samaritan story, as told by Jesus, gives all of us something of a template to follow for the quality care of another.
The Samaritan finds a man who had been beaten, stripped and robbed, left at roadside to die. The wounded man has already been seen and ignored by two other men who found religious and societal reasons to leave him to his fate. The traveling Samaritan sees the man, binds his wounds and puts the fallen man on his mount. Thus, the Samaritan walked his animal to the nearest inn. There, the Samaritan kept watch over the man for a day, and tended to him. Next day, the Samaritan gave the innkeeper two days’ wages and instructions to take care of the fallen man. If the innkeeper spends more on the man than the money given, the Samaritan will return on his way back and make it right with the innkeeper.
There is a great deal of personal involvement, self-forgetfulness, compassion and trust in this brief but powerful example. Recall that, after Jesus told this story, he said to his listeners, “Go and do the same yourself.”
The Volunteers of America national office website says this in its “homeless” section: “Once Volunteers of America engages homeless individuals, youth, and families with children, we stay with them for as long as it takes to return them to self-sufficiency …”
This, of course, is a lie in Sheridan.
I know. I work daily on my own at no cost to help the people the shelter has wadded up and tossed out.
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