Our interview with Dave Shearin of Street Life Ministries in Redwood City, California continues. Dave has been Executive Director for 13 years. Street Life is a church that meets on the street four nights per week serving dinner, providing worship music and a message on God's word. They have three locations on the Bay Area Peninsula. The homeless are not clients, they are family. Robin and Rick visited this past Christmas and they performed music and gave their testimonies. It was such a positive experience. Rick and Robin highly endorse and support this ministry.
How does the ministry pay for 50,000 meals per year? As Executive Director, Dave wears two hats, one as pastor and the other as fund raiser. They are always looking for grant money and other ways to fund the ministry. Basic needs include paying for supplies such as paper plates, forks, napkins, and water for the meals. They are also growing and need to hire additional staff. A new expansion in the ministry is to provide a mobile clothing closet that can be relocated for easy access for the homeless. They want to purchase a van from a dry cleaning company who is willing to sell one of their vans at a discounted rate. People can help donate by going to www.streetlifeministries.org. They are a 501(c)(3) company.
What is the process to bring an individual off the streets?” They are partners with City Team, Teen Challenge, and Salvation Army. They try to use only Christian recovery programs. Street Life is not a recovery center. They view themselves as being on the front line. People come to them wounded and they develop the relationship. When a person is willing to admit that they are powerless over their addition and are willing to do whatever it takes to get help, then they activate one of the partners. Street Life continues to visit them in recovery so they know they haven’t forgotten about them. They send 20-30 people a year to recovery. Over half will fail out within 48 hours. One of Street Life’s caveats is that they never judge. The outreach team simply encourages them to try again and there has been more success with that approach on the re-entry and the individual going on to finish.
When the Chinese virus came, they lost all of their normal food donations. Dave checked the freezers and they had enough food to last for two weeks. He sent out an email to the 32 churches and they got an overflow of food. After 30 days of shut down, they started to hear about restaurants hurting. There is a Go-Fund-Me account now where people and click on 'restaurant' and all donations will go toward buying food from restaurants to help the homeless and keep businesses open.
Dave has some good advice when it comes to helping the homeless. First of all, never give cash. A homeless person knows where to pan handle and can make between $150-200 a day trying to feed a habit. Give money instead to a trustworthy organization like Salvation Army, Victory Challenge, or Teen Challenge. If a person gives $50 to Street Life Ministries, they can feed almost 100 people with $50. If you give money to someone in their drug addiction, that $50 will get them high one time and it could cause an overdose and they could die. Instead buy food gift cards to places like a Chipotle or Subway. Dave recommends people go to their website and watch a video on how to make a toiletry kit. Put several in the back seat of your car and if you see a homeless person at a light signal, give the toiletry kit to them instead of cash. They will use it. Here is a reality check: feet are very important because the homeless walk around a lot and socks are vital. We all have plenty of money to give but giving a care package shows you spent time and care. The homeless feel loved by them.
