By Rector Phil LaBelle
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"I’m not sure if Tom is the first homeless person to worship at St. Mark’s, but I do know he’s the first who came and was given a microphone to tell his story. I know for certain he’s the first homeless person I’ve had over for a meal at my home even though the Bible is pretty clear I should be doing that regularly. Tom reminded us all that he’s just another human being on this journey of life needing companionship and conversation like any of us.

"I don’t know if I’ll ever see Tom again, or what he’ll be doing tonight when the temperature once again falls below zero. But I do know this: he reminded me of the power found in Joseph Burnett’s words. All of us are God’s children regardless of the ways we label people in our world. All are welcome into God’s loving embrace. And I know that on a snowy Sunday morning for a few hours a group of parishioners got to know an intriguing and caring man who just happened to no longer have a place to call home. He became Tom to us, a beloved child of God."

Read more at: RamblingPriest.com

THE PLIGHT of the city’s homeless population has taken on a new urgency in Boston this Thanksgiving, after the sudden closure of the city’s main emergency shelter on Long Island. Inspections last month revealed that the only bridge reaching the island was unsafe, forcing the city to shut the facility and several other related social-service organizations. That decision, while necessary, has taken a severe toll. Without the beds, other shelters in the city hastily took in hundreds of “Long Island refugees.” Some former residents are now sleeping in hallways and lobbies — or on the streets.

But the crisis has also created an opportunity the city should seize: it’s time to permanently relocate the city’s homeless beds to more convenient locations in the city, closer to welfare agencies, churches, and public transportation, in order to give the residents better access to services, build stronger pathways to permanent housing, and eliminate the possibility of a single freak accident again cutting off the range of services that were housed on the island. The city is in the process of doing that anyway, as it plans a temporary shelter in the South End, and should start studying permanent mainland locations, too.


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