LETTER TO THE EDITOR: No room for the INN?

In the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37) we see an example of how God wants us to respond to our neighbour.

Before we look at the three people walking towards this person, I’d like to take a short look at the man who happens to be walking down the road minding his own business. In the parable he gets robbed, beaten and left on the side of the road presumedly to die. In all reality the parable could have been about a homeless person, a drunk, or someone who’s overdosed on drugs. A homeless person is often in that state because of extreme circumstances. The drunk or the addict are there most often because of a decision made sometime ago that ends up altering their life and they find themselves there, unwillingly.

In Romans 7:14-25 Paul himself talks about the challenges he faces, he would like to not be sinning, and yet he sins, would like to stop but seemingly can’t. It’s only because of Jesus that he can overcome this challenge.

Envision the situation where you’re about to do something that can, when done frequently, take control of you, like drugs, alcohol, porn or cutting. Often first it’s a thought, then engaging in the thought, then contemplating the action. Other times it’s a knee jerk reaction to a situation in your life, like a coping mechanism.

In the moments when you’re fighting NOT to engage, you truly don’t want to, and yet you find yourself having engaged. And if you engage long enough, you’ll realize that you feel like you don’t have a way out or you don’t even remember anything until you come to. That’s a tough moment, which many of us might have experienced.

No matter what the circumstances all of those people needed someone else’s help to get better. What I’m saying in most cases the person is there unwillingly, trapped by their own desires.

Going back to Luke 10, there’s three men who are going to walk towards this man. The first two men, both men of faith, walk by, not only walk by, but they avoid the person by walking on the other side of the road. It’s the third person, a Samaritan, an unbeliever, is the one who has compassion on this man and goes out of his way to help him and pays money to help him recover. Why did he help him? The Bible says he had pity on him.

Jesus calls us to love our neighbour, and very clearly in this parable love meant being inconvenienced and helping the person in need, who couldn’t help themselves. We have opportunities every day to “love thy neighbour”. The question is how should we handle those opportunities or WWJD? There are many examples in the Bible that help us understand what we need to do. Here are a few texts for you to review if you’d like; Proverbs 14:21,31, Proverbs 16:19, Proverbs 19:17, Galatians 6:9, Philippines 2:4-5, Luke 3:10-1, Matthew 5:16 & 1John 3:17.

There are people in our community who have been working towards opening a homeless shelter called, The INN. The INN’s primary goal is to strive to end homelessness with a plan to provide support to help people get out of the endless cycles of addictions. Homeless people typically reside downtown. We’ve had homeless people here for years but the last few years it seems to have grown or become more apparent. The INN is experiencing a lot of resistance in creating this needed support.

I find it interesting that over the years the business community has petitioned to have businesses stay or move to the downtown area. Shoppers, SCU, Giant Tiger and most recently the Southeast Events Center are exactly in the downtown where homeless congregate. Now a percentage of the business community is saying that the homeless shelter shouldn’t be in the downtown area because of how it will affect their businesses.

Soups On is close to downtown, as is South East Helping Hands and Youth for Christ. Steinbach Community Outreach recently bought land in the downtown area as well, all to help people in need. So, we’ve moved businesses into the downtown area and now we’re asking the homeless to relocate because they’re a hazard.

According to my sources council has said that they wouldn’t allow this shelter to be built in an area where a variance would be required. The land that The Inn owns, which a local businessman donated, complies with the current requirements except the city is conveniently now trying to add bylaws which would force a variance or a public hearing if a permit is applied for. Their way of slowing the organization down. When asking one councillor, they stated they disliked the location but when pressed to offer an alternative acceptable location they refused to provide that saying that’s the organizations responsibility to apply for a permit to get the location approved. The challenge with that is that it’s approximately $100,000 every time they would apply. Building permit, fees, engineering studies, drawings, etc. all add up very quickly. You can see how the organization would like to have some direction prior to spending that sort of donated money.

Some of the conversations going on are this: “I don’t want them in my back yard”, “They’ll affect my business”, “I’ve offered them a job but they don’t want to work so why should I help them” or “why don’t we build a homeless shelter 30 min from Steinbach and move them there?” Those are the loud voices.

As Christian business leaders in our community, we have an opportunity but also an obligation to demonstrate “love” to the least of these. That doesn’t mean to ignore them, attempt to move them out or belittle their current position. Our call is to help, to set an example to them but also to our fellow business and city leaders, to do the right thing.

Our first question was WWJD?

The second question is WWUD? What Will You Do with the influence God has given you to be a beacon of light for such a time as this?