Homelessness – a call to action

A homeless man froze to death? In my neighborhood? Sitting in my warm house, surrounded by holiday preparations, I was incredulous when I heard the news last December. But the facts remained. A man whom I’d never met, never spoken to and may or may not have ever seen, froze to death underneath a bridge not a mile from where I live.

Tim Wilson was homeless and without resources. People from a service agency had been trying to help him but Tim had been both mentally and physically ill and wasn’t always an easy person to help. And on this frigid night when temperatures had dropped into the low 20’s, Tim was alone, huddled under a bridge and he just didn’t make it through the night.

It was one of those things that you hear and you know you’ll never be the same again. My feeling of incredulity soon slipped into outrage and then sorrow – just overwhelming sadness that I live in a city and in a time when we can’t care for those less fortunate than we are. Many people have a cause or a passion or something that seems to overtake their lives. Mine became Tim.

I wasn’t sure what to do about my feelings but I knew I needed to do something. So I turned to what I do best and took up needle and thread and began to sew. I began to cut and stitch and soon had designed and created a memorial quilt for Tim, stitching in his name and the date that he died. My idea was to take it downtown and hang it some place where those experiencing homelessness would see it and know that someone cared.

When I showed the quilt to Kevin Spears and Chuck Bowen at Central Outreach and Advocacy Center, they suggested that we use an image of the quilt as the basis of a campaign to do two things (1) address immediate needs of those experiencing homelessness by collecting blankets to distribute and (2) build momentum for lasting change by asking people to sign a pledge, promising to see the homeless as fellow citizens and to do what they could to support services for this population. And the Every Life Matters campaign was born.

To say that it has overtaken my life is an understatement. But it’s a task I welcome. There is little more frustrating than feeling sad and mad at the world because of injustice and tragedy and then feeling helpless that you can’t do anything about it. I’m glad that I can do something. And figuring out what other people can do to help is a big part of our campaign. If you want to help, we want to help you find a way to do that.

This campaign has no end. We’ll just keep at it until a bridge is no longer “home” for anyone and until every man, woman and child in our city has enough of a support system to weather the bad times, no matter how bad they get. And, when we’re done in Atlanta, we’ll move on to other communities.

Do you want to help? Then contact a service agency in your city and ask what you can do. Take food to a local food bank. Donate a blanket. Help serve dinner at a shelter. Or, go to our website www.everylifematters.org and sign the pledge, then click on Donate a Blanket and you’ll be directed to a list of agencies that welcome your donations. But do something. Do it for yourself as much as for someone else. It’s ultimately better than doing nothing.

It’s only when we combine our voices to speak out against inequality and injustice, and to speak for those who cannot speak for themselves that true and lasting change will occur in our communities. Every voice matters. Every life matters. Go do something.

Laura Martin, October 20, 2011