By Rev. Maggie Breen,
Executive director, REACH

I am grateful for the Renton Reporter’s coverage of the conversation on “chronic homelessness” in Renton (Oct. 9, page 1). REACH (Renton Ecumenical Association of Churches) has been working on the ground with our neighbors who are on the streets for a few years now.

We operate a meal program three days a week, a breakfast five mornings a week and a family center that offers daytime resources and night-time shelter. It is our mission to provide skilled trained staff on site to build the type of support that it takes to help people move towards stability.

In the past two years we have moved 68 families into transitional housing and have been with hundreds of folks as they overcome their barriers to stability. Based on our experience and vision we want to add to the conversation on chronic homelessness.

Homelessness, chronic or otherwise, is complex. The reasons for folks being on the street are as varied and real as the reasons they cannot easily find a way off. They have been met with trauma, lack of places to find help when they have most needed it, stigma and barriers that include mental and physical illness, layoffs, abusive relationships and loss of family.

All of these are struggles that those with homes and other resources also face but when a person doesn’t have safe place to be these barriers are unimaginably difficult to surmount. It takes patient relationship and trust building to get a person to where they can start to think about overcoming the barriers that are in their way.

The police are partners in this work but it is unfair to them and to our community to rely so heavily on law enforcement to solve this issue. We must have trained well-resourced professionals (and the volunteers they train) on the ground doing the work it takes to help people who could not find help when they needed it most get back to the life they so desperately want and need.

The solutions to homelessness must be creative and varied. We need support on the ground but we also need affordable accessible housing, jobs that pay a living wage, understanding and relationship with those who are outside, and serious well-funded services.

I have spent much time with the folks on our streets in Renton. As with any community, there can be some problematic behavior but the community as a whole is not unsafe. We must not conflate criminal behavior and homelessness.

If we will reach out and get to know these human beings that are suffering, we will see this issue differently. These are human beings just like those of us who are housed. They have complex, rich, and often difficult stories and those of us with resources will only find what we need – a community where everyone can feel safely at home – if we get to know them and provide services that will do the long, difficult, but extremely rewarding work of walking with those without homes until they find what they need.

I am looking forward to continued discussion on this issue.

Rev. Maggie Breen is executive director of REACH. She can be contacted at maggie@rentonreach.org.