Pathfinder: promoting Emmaus in the USA
In September 2009, two experienced Emmaus Community leaders set off for the USA on a 3 month mission to inspire the further development of Emmaus projects. Despite the incidence of homelessness and poverty in the country, the Emmaus Movement has not yet developed momentum with only one established Emmaus Community and one fledgling project.
Paul and Jane Bain, who recently stepped down after 17 years as Community Leaders at Emmaus Cambridge, will travel up the Eastern seaboard of the USA between the new White Oak Emmaus project in North Carolina and the Emmaus H.O.M.E Community in Maine. As well as offering mentoring and support to the two existing projects, they will be spreading the word about Emmaus and examining how the Emmaus model could work alongside existing homelessness provision.
Update - 1st September (Week 1)
Paul and Jane arrived safely in North Carolina. Jane writes:
It is a very strange place. It is endless roads of prefabs and shopping malls and looks as though someone from outerspace just came down one night and plonked it here. There is no infrastructure, no town centre, parks or anything. No one walks anywhere at all… Nearly all the local people live in trailers or small prefabs.
Paul and Jane met with the Trustee Board of Emmaus White Oak, a new project founded in 2007 based near Maysville in North Carolina. The project has applied to Emmaus International for trial member status and has been supported by Emmaus Cambridge in the UK. Paul and Jane are trying to help the project establish a wider support base. So far the project has things to sell but not many customers and is only doing occasional pick-ups in a truck bought with a donation from Emmaus Cambridge.
Update - 8 September (Week 2)
The countryside is spectacular. Think Essex saltmarsh and tidal estuary but on a very grand scale and subtropical. So we can walk on the beach with pelicans overhead and butterflies as big as tea plates.
Paul and Jane visited a local ‘thrift’ shop run by a project called ‘Hem of His garment’ which concentrates on selling donated clothes.
This is a large catholic run operation, much like an Emmaus shop but concentrating on clothes. Entirely run by volunteers, mostly from the Church. They pick up in the local area and sell predominantly to poor families… It’s clean and well presented and we were well received. They are not worried about competition as they cannot fufill demand and Emmaus would concentrate in a different area and would not sell clothes.
Plans for the development of the Emmaus Community are now focussed on raising local profile, including an open meeting at the local college, advertised via local radio. This will then be followed by the opening of a small shop on some private land as the project cannot afford to rent a property. Money raised from the shop will be used to help local families living on the breadline, through goods in kind and grants.
There is little evidence of street homelessness in Jacksonville… but thousands living in abject poverty in shacks with no running water or electricity, black and white.
Emmaus White Oak are also committed to playing their part in the international solidarity work of Emmaus and would like to take part in the container programme - filling a container of goods to be shipped out to Emmaus Communities elsewhere in the world that struggle to find donated goods to sell.
Went to Wilmington and had a drink in a coffee bar called the ‘Soapbox’ which combines a bar and a launderette. It is an idea I’m thinking of importing to the UK… Saw a dead alligator on the side of the road on the way home.
Update 14 - September (Week 3)
A week of visits! Paul and Jane visited Onslow Community Ministries who run a nightshelter, feeding centre and soup runs; the Onslow Community Health Improvement Programme, which helps people without health insurance, and the Goodwill Cooperative Foundation - a chain of secondhand clothes stores whose proceeds are used to help disabled or disadvantaged people get back to work.
On to Raleigh, capital of North Carolina. Jane and Penny from Emmaus White Oak visited Raleigh Rescue. Jane writes:
_Raleigh Rescue was founded about 45 years ago and is a member of the Association of Gospel rescue Missions across the USA. It is a seriously impressive project running a nightshelter for men, women and children, food kitchen, medical clinic, health respite centre (for those being discharged from hospital and homeless), children's day nursery and street outreach and all funded by donation or money with 'no strings attached'. They refuse to seek funding from State or elsewhere that compromises how they want to work. It is completely Christian faith led but much about its principles is in common with Emmaus.
Update - 28 September (Weeks 4 and 5)
Up the road (a mere 5 hours up the interstate!) to Richmond Virginia.
The city is surrounded by a sort of looping spaghetti junction, a bit like Birmingham. Every day I am filled with admiration for Paul's fearless approach to the driving here.
Jane and Paul visited the Daily Planet project which runs a 21 bed facility for people discharged from hospital who have nowhere to go, and has an additional 21 beds for people with severe mental health problems._
Jane and Paul met several times with Richmond Rotary. Their president turned up in an Emmaus cap and badge!
Update - 5 Oct (Week 6)
Another busy week. In Washington DC, Jane and Paul met up with the National Homeless Coalition and held a lively, well attended meeting with the Baltimore Rotary Club.
Baltimore is a fascinating city. Only 750,000 people but seems much bigger. More than 70% are African American and poverty levels are very high. There are huge numbers of people on the streets, many with profound mental health problems however the city has a kind of gritty charm that I really liked.
The National Association to end Homelessness in Washington DC is particularly interested in long-term strategies for housing and reintegration: We loved this project. It has its finger on the pulse of Baltimore and delivers non-religious services where it sees need. It’s respectful, respected and innovative. At the top of the building they run an employment academy for homeless men.
Hard to believe that 7 days ago we were at a meeting on Baltimore harbour where it was 85ºF. By this morning there were 6 inches of snow on the ground!
Update - 12 October (Week 7)
On to Philadephia where there are hundreds of entrenched rough sleepers on the streets of Philadelphia. The nightshelter has some 300 beds and there are still an estimated 500 people sleeping out on any one night. Many of them have profound mental health problems and/or dependencies and a significant majority are African/American or Black.
Paul and Jane spent a day with Philadelphia H.O.M.E. (not to be confused with H.O.M.E in Maine) where they met with Karen Subach, their associate director, and Sr. Mary Scullion their founder. Sister Mary is known as the Mother Theresa of Philly and she has made the top 100 list of most influential Americans more than once. H.O.M.E is a massive organisation, providing a first stop for food and so, on but predominantly temporary housing and 'move on'.
The Philadelphia Association to end Homelessness, in the same part of the city as H.O.M.E., is much less mainstream. Paul and Jane met with Phyllis Ryan Lackson, who runs the organisation.
It operates a drop in centre where on average 100 homeless people come each morning to shower, get clothes, use the phone etc. They also do outreach but mainly they broker deals for people between social landlords and potential tenants from the homeless community. This organisation is outspoken and courageous.
Update - 19 October (Week 8)
A visit to the oldest Rescue Mission in the USA, in Chinatown, where they offer a nightshelter, next step support and rehab for some of the estimated 40 000 people in New York City who have nowhere to go at night, was followed by a visit to the Jericho Project in Harlem. This supported housing project for single homeless people has a strong record in returning about 25% of their clients to independent living. Up the road, the Fortune Society works with former prisoners, many having served 25 years or more, who are seeking to transform their lives and re-integrate successfully into the wider community.
At Yale, Jane and Paul met with a small group of committed students who volunteer with local homelessness projects.
Update - 26 October (week 9)
A very different project this week - the Farm on Long Island where workers from various homelessness projects grow produce for homeless people in Boston, for sale to local restaurants and to local markets. At the Rotary Club in the beautiful and wealthy coastal town of Scituate, Jane and Paul learned that there were now an estimated 56 families living below the poverty line. Like most small Massachusetts towns, Scituate operates a Food Pantry supplied from a large central Foodbank in Boston.
It was the turn of the social outreach students at Harvard to hear about Emmaus this week, when they met with Paul and Jane.
Update - 2 November (week 10)
Back to New York for the White Plains Rotary Club meeting, where over 70 people came along to hear about Emmaus, including senior students from the local high school.
White Plains is a strange place. It is about 20 miles from New York city and has a permanent population of about 50,000 but each day another 200,000 commute into work as they cannot afford the property prices in the town.
This week finished with a visit to the Delancy Street project in Brester. Similar in some respect to Emmaus, this organisation makes and sells crafts and offers a removal service. This is their first year of breaking even.
The community is warm, welcoming, informal, and 'lived in'. At Christmas they put up 40,000 fairy lights and people come from miles around to see them!
Update - 9 November (Week 11)
The Emmaus H.O.M.E.Community in Maine is well known to Paul and Jane through their long-standing relationship with Emmaus Cambridge.
It’s noisier here at night than New York! Squirrels in the roof, roosters crowing, coyotes howling. We are surrounded by wildlife, coyotes behind and bob cats in front. Also it's the hunting season so we have strict instructions not to walk anywhere without wearing a day glo orange cap so that we don't get mistaken for a deer....
‘H.O.M.E’ runs a thrift shop, a food pantry, a nightshelter and they have a land covenanting trust on 600 acres of land which builds low cost homes for homeless people and families. Paul and Jane stayed with Sister Marie in her small cabin at the farmhouse down a long, single track dirt road.
And now it's time to return to the Uk and reflect on the project. Paul and Jane have driven about 8000 miles in all, attended about 35 official meetings and had countless unofficial encounters along the way talking to people in coffee shops, restaurants, on buses and trains, at churches etc.
Emmaus UK has already started to receive queries from organisations visited by Paul and Jane on their mission to promote Emmaus in the USA.
Support for the Pathfinder project
The Pathfinder project is possible thanks to donations by a variety of supporters, and particularly as a result of the generosity of the Apax Foundation.
