What a dilemma

On Monday, the largest camp that we know of was told to leave the property that they camp on. About 25 people live in the woods and many are regulars at the Center.

The problem is that all these camps are trespassing and probably violating all kinds of codes. This group was told to leave or they would all be charged with trespassing. Many people already have records and this would only add to their problems.

They got permission from the owner of an adjacent property to spend the night. After that, they don't have many options. Please pray for this group.

Here is the typical order of events that leads to this problem.

First, a few homeless people camp together so they can look out for each other and stay safe. The police usually are aware of the camp, but if no one complains, they look the other way.

Second, the camp grows because they support each other.

Third, stupid people start doing stupid things. Unfortuatly, many of the homeless have addiction issue. The addiction is usually illegal and the different ways to earn money to support the addiction are illegal as well.

Forth, the cops come to send a message to get things to calm down. The cops don't know who is doing what, so everyone gets hassled.

Fifth, the stupid stuff continues and the cops tell everyone to move on.

This ends up hurting everyone, even the ones who are not being stupid. There is one person in particular who has a job, takes care of her husband, does not do the stupid stuff, but now is homeless without a place to camp, now that is homeless. She was so upset, but she listened to me and Anne and I even got to pray for her.

Now the dilemma - how do we help? What can we offer? How do you help them to do what they need to do to get out of the situation?

How can she continue to "do the right thing?" How do you live in a community to protect each other, but a few bad apples are messing it up for everyone?

The hardest part of this whole deal is the helpless feeling you have when you see everything that goes on. The lesson here - God brought us to this point, He must have something up His sleeve. We must continue to do what we can, there is always hope when our God is involved.