April 9th, 2014

Dear Sir,

I read with shock in The Royal Gazette Newspaper on April 9th, 2014 that there are 300 homeless people in Bermuda. In this modern day and time for so many to be unsheltered is a disgrace and is totally unacceptable. I am a Bermudian living between Bermuda and the United States and a retired Master of Social work of 15 years both in Bermuda and the US and there is no reason that so many people should be homeless in Bermuda with so many churches on the Island. There is roughly more than one church in every parish and on just about every street. Many of these churches are very large.

I am currently working with the Interfaith Shelter Network Program in San Diego, California and I will share with you and Bermuda this well run, efficient, and noteworthy programme. I hope this information will be viewed by the church in Bermuda with compassion, commitment, and united collaboration instilling an immediate rise to action to alleviate this appalling homeless situation in Bermuda.

The Interfaith Shelter Network in San Diego “is a collaborative effort by local congregations, human service agencies and government entities to provide shelter, services, and resources to homeless San Diegans throughout the region” (see Interfaith Shelter Network San Diego, California website). The programme represents the work of more than 100 congregations, and 3,500 volunteers who have successfully sheltered more than 8,000 homeless people for more than 200,000 bed nights since 1986. Many of the homeless have left the shelter programme for permanent housing due to the professional guidance they received from case management agencies and the personal attention they received from volunteers.

The professional guidance the homeless received while housed in the shelter programme consisted substance abuse counselling, therapy, job skills training, job search, housing search,

Vocational and academic school application. With this help, the homeless leave the programme for their own permanent affordable housing and with increased income and additional career related skills. Adding to the success of the ISN is the cooperation of the participating congregations to “own up” their spiritual and religious teachings to respect the dignity of the homeless as children of God, not to discriminate due to race, colour, religion, gender, national origin, age, or disabilities in the provision of services.

I challenge the congregations of Bermuda to immediately step-up and put into place a sincere committed God driven fellowship of the ISN to help these homeless Bermudians. Otherwise, the congregation of Bermuda should close their doors as they will have clearly demonstrated they “do not practice what they preach”. It is my pleasure to now share the operational structure of the ISN with the congregations of Bermuda:

A rotational shelter programme, the larger churches and congregations host the programme in their facilities for two or four weeks a year while the remaining small churches and congregations serve in vital support roles, providing volunteers for meals, overnight hosting/monitoring, transportation and donations.

Hosting consists of beds, beddings, liaisons between the facility and community resources and services for the self-help activities to the homeless to help get them back into the community as healthy functioning working citizens. The supplies such as sheets, blankets, towels, and pillows are inventoried, cleaned and sent from one hosting congregation to the next after the two or four weeks.

The homeless — they are called “guests” — are only sent to the congregations’ after careful screening by the participating social services agencies to assure there will be no active drug, alcohol or mental health problems. Guests sent to the facilities must be willing to sincerely work closely with the referring social service agencies to resolve the problems leading to their homelessness and sincerely work with the services and resources in the community to help them successfully matriculate back into society. This is an approach to Bermuda’s appalling homelessness situation that is both economical productive and God-pleasing and humane. I hope and pray those who profess to worship and serve God are listening.

JOYA NELSON-KEZAS, BS, MSW