I don't mind stealing bread
From the mouths of decadents
But I can't feed on the powerless
When my cup's already overfilled.
“Hunger Strike,” Temple of the Dog, 1991
The mouth-watering smell of homemade vegetable soup permeates from the back seat of the white church van I ride in. The soup was prepared exactly a week ago by volunteers at Saint Augustine Catholic Church in Coral Gables and kept frozen until now to remain fresh. I had asked some volunteers if they ever get requests for different types of soup. They said no. Smelling it I can see why there aren’t any complaints.
In the driver’s seat is Jim Sullivan, the ringleader of a band of volunteers whose names and faces may change from week to week but whose mission does not: Do God’s work and feed the homeless. Jim has been doing just that for thirteen years as a volunteer at Saint Augustine, and helps prepare soup and peanut butter & jelly sandwiches once a week for the downtrodden and poor of Miami.
We are driving to Camillus House, a homeless refuge, along NW 8th Street in Miami. To our right we pass the Miami Arena, a massive yet empty stadium, a structure of concrete and glass that the City of Miami has forgotten. While the windows aren’t boarded up and the sign hasn’t been taken down, the building looks all but dead.
The world inside Camillus House is much the same. The bodies are alive, but there are some whose eyes are vacant, dead. They are not bandaged, but the wounds are not on the outside. I cannot count how many homeless people line the benches and aisles inside, but it’s at least 500. Maybe there are 500 more who I do not see. It’s a hot July 3rd, and these are the tired, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free.
Jim heads for the kitchen with two of his volunteers. A line forms through the door. It’s like the lunch bell has rung on pizza day. There is excitement and happiness, far from the despair and malaise I had seen only a few minutes earlier. What seems to brighten the mood is not the vegetable soup or the PB&J, but the people serving.
“What it looks like is that we do food, but what we really do is we give hospitality, we give love,” I am told by Frank Ferrara, the Director of Food Services for Camillus House. Frank tells me Camillus house is trying to end chronic homelessness – being without a home for a year or more. Along with feeding the homeless, Frank tells me that Camillus House has a drug program that helps the homeless beat addiction, afford housing, and eventually save money to be totally autonomous. He goes on to say that the number of homeless people in Miami is down to about 1,400. The latest information I could find posted online on homelessness in Miami estimates that there are about 4,700 men, women, and children living on the street. That’s a drop from around 7,000 a few years ago.
A young man named Mikey sees me speaking with Frank. “What’s your name?” he says.
“I’m Tony. I’m a Street Team reporter for MTV.”
“If you’re a reporter… you gotta come back. See what this place is really like.”
"This isn’t what it’s really like?", I think.
He continues. “You gotta be here in the morning. A thousand people lined up outside. Everybody wants to use the bathroom. But there’s only two bathrooms. All those people for two bathrooms.”
“I appreciate this. Can we do an on-camera interview?”
Mikey shakes his head no. He continues. “You gotta see in this cafeteria. You see this cafeteria? People sleep in here at night. They get out mats and people sleep here.”
“I’d appreciate if you’d tell me this on camera, Mikey.”
Mikey politely disagrees again. He continues. “My cell phone is missing. Somebody stole it. You think I can get up and ask, ‘Hey, anyone seen my cell phone?’ Nobody would know where it’s at.”
I give up trying to get Mikey on camera. I give him my phone number written on the back of a release form. I tell him to call me, that I’ll come back and see what it’s really like. I leave the table, thanking him.
* * * * *
When Jim and his volunteers are done, we head back to the van. After being here, I completely understand why Jim does this. I just don’t know how he does it every week. So I ask him. He references a simple but poignant quote from the Bible: “Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.” (Matthew 25:40, New International Version) “Surely the homeless are the least, at least economically,” he says. “We see this as part of the obligations of our faith.”
If only more people did, I think. How many fewer people might be homeless.
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