After spending time with family for Christmas I’m cognizant of all the simple things I’ve been provided and the confidence those things provide me as I daily interact with the world. I know that although my mom has a lot of advice, it comes from a heart that loves me and is committed to me. I know that my sisters, although they support different political positions, would readily provide me a place to stay if the furnace went out in my house. And all our kids, wildly running around have hats and mittens when they go sledding and their sprawling sleeping bodies covering the floor with their cousins have prayers spoken over them each night.

BUT, what if you don’t have anyone? What if the only person to text “Merry Christmas” on Christmas is a case-worker that you hope sees you as something more valuable than just another client. What if your coat and hat ended up missing when you went to the hospital, your feet are wet and you have no one giving you advice from a heart that loves you?

As homeless service providers we struggle to provide enough coats, backpacks, bus tickets to appointments, pants that fit, mats on the floor and we certainly are desperately low on affordable housing even for the gravely disabled. But one thing everyone has, in renewing quantities, is a heart that can care.

You may be reading and thinking, “Why are these people in this situation?” Most of us haven’t burned our bridges and been left isolated, so why should I care about someone who has? My response: you may not see it, it may be totally foreign to you, but there are truly some who had no foundation of support to begin with. Maybe it’s the kid next door or the child across town whose parents were unavailable either because of their own addiction or mental illness or incarceration. These kids had no training and certainly no launch pad and our heart breaks for them until they are about 13 and then we tend to “write them off” as bad stock. Others, have made some bad choices, some, really bad choices. Can you imagine never being able to get past a choice you made? It not only follows you on job interviews and housing applications, but when you turn for hope, love, support, these doors are closed. You are the “under-belly” of society and most of us would prefer you just stay away, unseen...forever.

I have worked with this population for over ten years now and I don’t have any grandiose solutions. In fact, I have a phrase from Mother Teresa hanging in my office, “We might not accomplish great things, but we can do small things with great love.” I think of small things like: looking people in the eye, listening without talking, asking their opinion on things, and maybe even giving a soiled person a hug. It may not be providing for all of their basic needs, but it is a touch to the soul. And maybe, just maybe, it may make someone feel like they are actually a human being.