It's A Long Walk From The Street
A journey with a guy named "Joe" - Part 4

We made a date for that Monday. I would meet him at the church and take him to wherever we needed to go to get him on his feet. Chris expresses his pessimism about my offer. “Don’t be like everybody else,” he said, telling me about the several times people offered to help him and didn’t show up. I assured him that I would be there when I promised.

Monday:
I arrived at the church early because I really didn’t know what to do. I knew that my pastor’s wife – Sister Houston (yeah… I’m Pentecostal. You know we call everyone without an official ecclesiastical title “brother” or “sister”) had recently worked with a gentleman that needed assistance and may have some advice. She recommended a city agency called Second Chances. This organization is designed to give a new opportunity to people that have been incarcerated or have somehow fallen through the cracks of society. Homeless persons like Joe qualified for their assistance. We started there.

When we arrived at the City Hall Building where their office is located, we were told by the security officers that Joe and I would have to wait downstairs until someone from Second Chances’ office came down and escorted us upstairs. You see… you cannot even go upstairs to a city office without an ID card – and Joe didn’t have ID.

A nice gentleman came and escorted us to their office. When we entered, I ran into “Julie.” She and I served together in music ministry some years ago and had a good friendship. She is a great Christian who loved helping people. I didn’t realize that she worked for this city agency. And, sure enough, she was the person that took Joe’s case.

We sat in her small office and Joe began answering the interview questions. I started noticing something that I hadn’t paid attention to before. Joe was pretty sharp. I mean… when I thought of homeless people I often thought of someone of lesser intelligence; someone who wouldn’t be able to do quick math in their head; someone who wouldn’t remember a lot of details. But Joe! This dude was on in! At first Julie was asking the questions and kinda’ leaning to me for the answers. Soon we both realized that Joe had it. He remembered dates of incidences that I would’ve probably forgotten. He was doing quick math and calculating time. I started seeing a glimpse of who this man must have been before his life took the turns that it took.

Julie made some calls and connected with some other agencies. Soon, she gave us some instruction. She told us places to go and people to ask for who would give us the things we needed. Joe needed food, clothes and shelter. He also needed some way of sustaining his life. But, most importantly, he needed some ID. Julie put us on the track. It was late morning by the time we left but we felt like it was time well spent.