This blog typically addresses national issues. I’m not apologizing for that–the Trump administration poses an existential threat to the America most of us want to retain. Its numerous evils are–to use Joe Biden’s characterization–a “BFD.” But the fact that our national structures are under assault doesn’t mean that local issues have disappeared or become unimportant.
And the fact that the American Idea is under assault by a Christian nationalist movement doesn’t mean that we should overlook–or diminish the importance of– the good works of genuine Christians and other people of faith.
Which brings me to Indianapolis, and the laudable work being done by GIMA–the Greater Indianapolis Multifaith Alliance, and its “Streets to Homes” initiative, a multifaith call to end chronic homelessness in Indianapolis.
GIMA began as an interfaith effort to make Indianapolis a more collaborative and inclusive city, to make it a “more just and livable place.” In stark contrast to MAGA’s faux Christianity, the faith leaders who came together in GIMA represent the city’s diverse religious traditions, with the stated intent to form what the organization calls “a sacred friendship,” and to collaborate on civic projects that serve the common good of greater Indianapolis.
I first encountered GIMA when the organization was focused on Indianapolis’ eviction crisis, and was impressed both by its judicious approach to that issue and the breadth of the organization’s religious membership. Representatives of central Indiana’s Black and White churches, synagogues and Mosques exhibited a fellowship and respect that have been glaringly missing from our national conversations– thanks primarily to MAGA’s determined Othering. They identified a civic problem and came together to address it.
The organization describes “Streets to Homes” as follows:
Following the successful community action led by the Black Church Coalition, Indy Action Coalition, and the Validus Movement, The Greater Indianapolis Multifaith Alliance (GIMA) is inviting congregations across Central Indiana to join a multifaith effort to support the Streets to Home Indy Initiative – a community- driven campaign to provide permanent housing and supportive services for individuals experiencing chronic homelessness. This initiative is part of a broader campaign to provide not just shelter, but lasting homes and supportive services for those most in need.
The goal of Streets to Homes is to house 350 currently unsheltered neighbors, and to do so by June of 2026 “through an evidence-based model that includes housing and supportive services.”
As the website explains,
Besides being the right thing to do? 20 years of data demonstrates that providing stability to these neighbors sets them on a path to upward mobility and independence, which ultimately strengthens our community, increases public safety, and reduces the economic impact of homelessness.
We can only do this through a community-wide commitment that includes the business community, philanthropic community, faith community, and civic support.
GIMA is asking faith community partners to contribute $270,000 as its part of the philanthropy community’s commitment of $2.7 million. That commitment “joins with equal pledges from the Housing to Recovery Fund and the city of Indianapolis” in what the organization calls “an unprecedented community-wide coalition.”
Rabbi Aaron Spiegel, the Executive Director of GIMA, tells me that area churches have responded with unprecedented generosity. (What he didn’t say–but I will–is that this diverse, interfaith effort has forced Indianapolis’ city government to become far more focused upon the effort to end homelessness than it had previously been.)
As regular readers of this blog know, I am very critical of the performative “Christians” who disdain both the adherents of other religions and “woke” efforts to ameliorate poverty and hopelessness. GIMA’s efforts are a reminder that there are millions of truly good people in every religious community who focus on the admonitions–common to all religions–to love one’s neighbors and to work for social justice. (MAGA to the contrary, it has been my observation that all genuine religiosity is “woke.”)
I would encourage readers who reside here in central Indiana to visit the linked GIMA and Streets to Homes websites. You need not be a believer, or a member of a congregation, to support this initiative, which is an excellent reminder to those of us who are not religious to avoid painting the folks who are with too broad a brush.
Thankfully, genuine Christians aren’t like Micah Beckwith, genuine Jews aren’t like Bibi Netanyahu, and genuine Muslims abhor jihadists. They’re all pretty “woke”– and the rest of us need to remember that.
Professor-thank you, sincerely, for today’s message.
If the Christ, or any of the figures whose teachings have led to the founding of the worlds religions were here today, the christian nationalists like beckwith and banks and the rest would attack them, throw them in prison, and perhaps nail them to crosses for being “woke.”
Kkenna, that’s a sad statement, but it’s accurate. I’ve never understood taking a word that means enlightenment and making it a derogatory word – something you don’t want to be. Bragging about being an automaton or stuck in emotional reactions to life is what Buddha called “suffering.” The whole purpose of life is to awaken to the fact that we are all interconnected.
I’ve always been impressed with Indy’s Interfaith coalition because they have strong leadership. The ones whom I’ve recognized are servant leaders, which is precisely what this effort is to help the homeless. It’s also a tough assignment, because I’ve worked with homeless populations many times. Many have no desire to give up whatever their “crutch” is that keeps them homeless. Because of that, the Missions can’t even help them because of their rules.
I’ll definitely check out their website and help.
p.s. The American Prospect has a story this morning about the Red State of Tennessee, with its gerrymandered districts, like those in Indiana. Apparently, there is a Democrat on the verge of an upset in a Nashville district carved up by gerrymandering because of her platform to address affordability. She wants to eliminate grocery taxes by shifting the burden to international corporations’ profits. So, there is an example of how it can be done in Indiana. Looking at you, Indiana Democratic Party leadership.
https://prospect.org/2025/11/24/tennessee-aftyn-behn-congress-house-race-nashville/
Finally important progress. Scott Keller, Former Councilor.
While a certain percentage of the homeless can regain real independence and thus a productive life; there is a larger group who will need care and support for the rest of “their lives”. That is the challenge for us all. Are we willing to provide that care and support for the rest of “our lives”?
theres a worker need on farms. the smaller or larger. its laborous and needs to have a general knowlege of right and wrong,(what is functioning on that farm)when looking at the work. many farms/ranch can not afford the living wages,but could pay better than some low wage in town buisnesses.(sometimes paid a bonus a $% when the sales are done and theres food given free) living quarters should be the kicker. a place where the new hire can be on site and have their own domain. mentorship is highly prized. and should be the focal point. summer trips (or nice days)to such places could open doors and minds. many rural churches could afford to look at thier local needs and the people who are directly involved with thier local church. invite some town folk for a look at a operation and see if it clicks. mentoring is the goal. reliability is the must,on both sides. the church could be the office to complaints and smoothing out bumps. we have a living society now that gets a
living wage and a run at life because of their skin or open doors. when doors close they could open to another place to cool off and find something else. theres good and bad in this rural issue. the local church could decide who.
jack smith. I’m wary of the help that comes from local churches when it includes any form of pressure to adopt its religious beliefs. I do support interfaith programs that provide help with no expectation of conformity to religious doctrine. Too often, help comes with the assumption that the only way to be good is through faith.
Yes there will always be a few who can’t be helped, but the vast majority of the homeless are ready for a sense of being home. Imagine having an address to put on your resume or job application. In 2009, the Department of Veterans Affairs did a study that determined that the best way to end homelessness, was “a housing first program.” It has to be followed up with counseling, as GIMA has proposed.
Understand that many of those who are homeless know next to nothing about checking accounts and how to use them. They don’t know how to shop for bargains. In essence, they have to be taught many things that seem evident to the rest of us. They need to be taught to live.
Here’s another thing that relates to those research dollars we looked at a couple of days ago. We need better, more effective drugs for Schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, as well as more effective intervention for addiction. Solving those issues might be the key to the eradication of homelessness.
Because I was raised on it, I think back to the days before the internet, TV, cell phones, and personal computers, and to how my parents spent their time back then. In a word, my memory rests heavily on conversations. Everyone talked and listened to each other all the time, face to face.
I am now a geek, steeped in current and future technology, but I also understand the importance of social institutions, like conversation.
Unfortunately, what is left of conversation faces further degradation under the assault of new technology, artificial intelligence.
The unaddressed issue is mental health, IMO. Having worked with housing in the past, the single most challenging part of moving the homeless to housed will always be mental health issues. For individuals with serious mental health issues, housing is not just a house/apartment to occupy. Relationships with property managers and neighbors become fraught with conflict when the mental health needs are unmet or resisted. Resistance can be continued substance abuse, avoiding medications, avoiding counseling, paranoia, delusion, inhibitions associated with medical diagnosis. For older adults, untreated dementia makes it difficult to communicate and remember agreements.
As the Professor says so frequently, it is complicated. Who decides?
As the population continues to age, more and more people will experience mental challenges. With the loss of access to medical insurance, the populations most affected, the very young, the very old and the vulnerable will be more likely to lose housing and medical support. The outcome is likely incarceration or severe untreated illness and death.
The interfaith groups who are so actively searching for better ways to meet people were they are, need all the support we can offer until the government can assume a fair and non-religious means to administer. Too many religious institutions require conformity. The separation of church and state must be enforced.
The oligarchy wants everything to be monetized to their advantage. By foisting off the needs of the vulnerable to religious groups and charities, they can keep the wealth/power growing upward into the American aristocracy.
IMO, that is what we have now. Wealth, acquired by sociopaths, passed on to their progeny by right of birth, shielded by influence and bribery, smacks of aristocratic cultures worldwide for centuries. We are not any different.
Teresa Bowers, when you say most of those being helped by Streets to Home Indy will need help the rest if their lives, please tell me what data you are basing this on and the source of the data. I have done a lot if research recently and I have not run across any such statistics. As a footnote, more and more working families are going to need supplemental rental assistance the rest if their lives if we don’t fix the housing cost to wages ratio.
Jan, my “data” comes from two years of full time volunteer work experience at a mission for the homeless in Washington DC. At that time there were over 12,000 homeless in that city, the majority of whom were sleeping on the streets. The mission I worked at fed over 1200 people two meals a day 365 days a year. We used empty nun convents to house the homeless elderly, we ran a medical clinic and a dental clinic, all staffed by volunteer doctors and nurses. We built the first SRO in DC and staffed it with a team of Benedictine nuns who watched over and cared for nearly one hundred people who could not live on their own. The mission ran its own drug rehab center and recovery houses where addicts learned skills that would help them get jobs. While our success rate was better than most in these endeavors, less than half made it out of their situation and into what could be called successful lives. The mission was staffed entirely by volunteers of every and all religious faiths and non-believers. What I see on the streets of Indianapolis is quite similar to what I witnessed in DC. How many SROs are here in Indy, and who are the caretakers of those populations?
Theresa speaks a necessary truth; there are those who have been on the streets for years and do not want the responsibilities that come with getting off of the streets which are their homes.
I personally knew three of the homeless in the 1990s; one worked for the city in the Surveyor’s Office. He simply didn’t come to work or call in; I ran into him a few weeks later across the street from the City-County Building begging for change. Had a friendly greeting for me and was honest when I asked what he is doing on the street with his qualifications; he said he was bipolar and didn’t need medication (same reason they all stop taking medication) and he was happy with his life. No idea what happened to Ray after that; didn’t see him on the street or in his office.
The other two had been in my home countless times; both alcoholics, one was a well-known downtown character in his wheelchair, David X. Harrison, big writeup in the Star when he died. David’s excuse was he had bad feet; a close family friend was a minister who was active in the Prison Ministry and took a liking to David’s charming ways and his sense of humor and brought him to meet us. David, prior to taking to the streets, returned to the criminal life but was a failure at that, his alcoholism was evident to all who knew him.
The third one was Pat Evans; who was a spoiled rotten only child of a doting mother and the best dressed street person in the city. My husband at that time had been Pat’s next door neighbor from childhood; after Pat’s mother died, leaving him money and everything she owned so he no longer looked for work and his alcoholism soared. He lived in his childhood home through 1 or 2 winters with no utilities, going downtown to beg for change to buy food and booze. He was a happy person; the last time I saw him he had been sleeping on a low wall by a parking lot on Market Street in his classy alpaca overcoat and had broken his wrist. The last time I gave Pat money I told him I wasn’t going to help him again; the day before payday I only had $2, told him I would share and we could each get one burger at McDonald’s. He said that wasn’t enough, he wanted to eat at Steak & Shake, told him I did too but couldn’t afford it.
I thought it might be interesting to share another side of the street people here before families began appearing and increasing due to the job and economic situation of too many people in this nation. There was a movie starring Meryl Street and Jack Nicholas, “Ironweed”, no greater talents and a too-real story of this nation’s homeless problem which has been ignored as long as it has existed. It failed miserable in the theaters as this nation refuses to acknowledge the problem and the causes.
I miss my long gone funny but sad friends, David X. and Pat.