SAN JOSE, Calif. — Last month saw the second annual memorial to people who had died homeless in this city, located 42mi southeast of San Francisco. Among the participants in this interfaith event was Rowan Fairgrove from Covenant of the Goddess. She agreed to share more about the event and her work in this area with The Wild Hunt.
[Image credit: Steve Herrera]
While those numbers are high, the trends do show a decline in the total number of unhoused, which is the term Fairgrove prefers. However, Fairgrove said that the official figure “leaves off people doubling up or couch surfing and thus undercounts families by a lot.” Her own work to support the unhoused comes both from her religious beliefs and her own experience. She said:
I believe, deeply, in the interconnectedness of all life. And in our ability to make the world a better place, for humans and for all living things and the earth. But my specific desire to help the unhoused came from having a woman decide that my porch, sheltered by a wisteria, was a safe place to sleep occasionally. I had many conversations with her and tried to work with the city to get her help without much success.
The impacts of homelessness, and the impacts of how the problem is addressed, can be complicated. Fairgrove recounted how she supported the closure of a homeless camp in San Jose, because its presence put a local watershed — one she’d worked to protect — at risk. In November, she attended a screening of a movie about that closure called Exodus from the Jungle (2015), and this led to her re-ordering her priorities.
“I hadn’t realized how much impact the closing of the Jungle had on the ability of service providers (such as the medical bus from a local hospital) to reach the unhoused population,” she explained, “nor had I realized that our city and county have been spending thousands of dollars a month to ‘move along’ any groups that start to camp together. This makes it even harder for service providers to find people who need help. With the coming El Nino conditions in Northern California we are expecting unusual amounts of rain and cold and the situation for the unhoused is predicted to be quite dire.”
Those without shelter are subject to exposure to these harsh elements, but there are some among the unhoused who prefer that risk to the rules and dangers associated with homeless shelters. According to the 2015 survey, there are 4,627 people living without shelter, which is over 70% of the total unhoused population of Santa Clara County.
For 61 of them, “quite dire” meant death this year. Their names were read during the service. Several religious leaders offered thoughts and prayers, including this from Fairgrove:
Prayer of Remembrance for the Homeless Who Died this Year
Your life has flown, all care is gone,
Yet still we wish the best for you
Though you left this world without a home
You are going home now to the Isle of Apples.
To the restful haven of the waveless sea.
You are finally home this night,
To your lasting home, your eternal homeDeep peace of seven lights to you
Deep peace of seven joys to you
Deep peace of the running wave to you
Deep peace of the flowing air to you
Deep peace of the quiet earth to you
Deep peace of the silver moon to youNow is your time of rest, of parting
Rest now on the breast of the Mother of Blessings,
Rest now in the arms of the Father of Life.
We hold you in memory
We hold you in mourning
We hold you in honourDeep peace of seven graces to you
Deep peace of seven loves to you
Deep peace of the red wind of the east to you
Deep peace of the grey wind of the west to you
Deep peace of the dark wind of the north to you
Deep peace of the blue wind of the south to youWe will remember the tragedy of homelessness
We will not forget your Life
We will not cease our work
Until all are finally home in this Life
Until all have warmth and plenty
Until all have comfort and protectionLet us join together to send healing for the hurts of homelessness
Let us send hope and growth, to replace cold and fear.
Let us send respect and inspiration, to replace despair and sorrow
Let us create a circle of protection.
Let us create a circle of healing.
Let us create a circle of justice.
Let us create a circle of renewal.
And let us envision these circles as a spiral, see them repeat, spreading out until through all the world may peace prevail and all be home
In the Names of the Mighty Ones and the Beloved Dead
Biodh sé mar sin — So Mote It Be!
Beyond participating in this memorial, Fairgrove serves breakfast at a local church shelter, and has encouraged the Silicon Valley Interreligious Council, a local interfaith group, to hold a leadership forum on the topic. “From various showings of Exodus from the Jungle, a group came together which is now called The Winter Faith Collaborative. Over the past two months we have gathered together about 40 congregations who plan to shelter, warm, feed or otherwise help the homeless,” she explained.
This is not the only memorial for the homeless dead in the region; the Marin Interfaith Council also conducts such a service in July.
The Wild Hunt is not responsible for links to external content.
To join a conversation on this post:
Visit our The Wild Hunt subreddit! Point your favorite browser to https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Wild_Hunt_News/, then click “JOIN”. Make sure to click the bell, too, to be notified of new articles posted to our subreddit.
I’m sorry, I understand the remembrance but I don’t understand the honor.
I can only speak for me, but honor has a completely different meaning. It doesn’t have anything to do with being “unhoused.”
go on then, tell us what you understand by ‘honouring’ someone.
Fair question.
I use two main questions before I honor someone who has passed. First, did I know them? Second, did they make the world a little better than when they found it? There are other questions that I use occasionally, but those are the two main ones.
If I didn’t know them and I didn’t know how they made the world better, I’d be going through the motions without putting myself into it. I would be giving the appearance rather than the actuality. I might as well be one of those old style Catholics blindly reciting from the lists of officially designated martyrs.
Honor must be a personal choice if it is to have any meaning.
Fair enough, though to my mind that is a very narrow way of looking at it.
I don’t feel I need to have known a person to honour them in me way – I can do it all the time for dead ancestors who died 10 50 or 100 years before I was born. taking the time to learn about these people is a way of honouring them in itself; preserving memory, showing respect.
To honour someone – living or dead- is simply to show them respect, to treat them proper etc. For those who have died homeless, I think it is something that should be done because it is often that society has failed some of these people in life.
I should have worked an “or” in there. Neither question really excludes the other.
I honor my Befores every year, most of it stays in my journal but some is online.
I can support remembering people that society has failed, but I don’t think they should be honored just for that.
“Over the years, I’ve tinkered with the idea. It’s not ancestor worship by any means, some of my ancestors aren’t worth much anyway. Now for me, the idea is closer to “revered ancestor who I choose to honor by living their example.” Well, actually more than that, but that will do for a start. I’ve expanded the idea too, so it is no longer limited to my blood ancestors. Yes, I have Befores of bone, those in my family line. But I also have adoptive Befores, those who inspire me in other ways.”
— Before me
Thanks for reporting on this, and thanks to Rowan for her excellent work!
Just need to mention that I have been participating in memorials for those who’ve died homeless in Marin County since 2007. The memorial has been performed annually since before then, but that’s the first one for which they requested a Pagan participant. Details at http://besom.blogspot.com/2007/07/remembering-marins-homeless.html, http://besom.blogspot.com/2010/07/interfaith-memorial.html, and http://besom.blogspot.com/2011/07/memorial-procession.html (I don’t write a blog every year.) This year I managed to bring up the very rear of the march, about a half block behind it, because I was hobbling along with a cane after having had a stroke about a month earlier. I didn’t report on it because post-stroke typing has been slow, laborious, and frustrating.
We (Marin Interfaith Council and the Marin Interfaith Street Chaplaincy http://www.homelesschaplaincy.org/) also hold an annual interfaith service on Thanksgiving Eve where new sleeping bags and socks are gathered for the coming cold months. See http://besom.blogspot.com/2015/12/thanksgiving-with-our-homeless.html
Marin where I am and San Jose where Rowan is are at the northern and southern edges of the SF Bay Area, the latter being much, much more populous than the former. I hope other Pagans in interfaith consider sponsoring or participating in similar activities. After all, some of the homeless, as I’ve discovered, are among the homeless, and are encouraged and fortified to see a Pagan presence among religions who participate.
Take care of yourself, Macha.
All life is to be honored. If everyone thought about this when “dealing” with the homeless, we might have more positive solutions and support. They aren’t just dirty, grungy, lazy, etc. Some are our Vets, some are families, some have mental health issues and some have simply checked out on life.
We need to reopen more mental health facilities that Reagan closed in the 80’s and create better physical and mental health care. We need more shelters and have them provide programs that put able bodied people back to work, even if that means training or childcare assistance.
They’re all human beings, just like the rest of us. For that, they are honored.
Due to the insane increase in housing costs in the Bay Area, working people increasingly have found themselves living in their cars, couch surfing, outright homeless or living in motels. The longer they remain unhoused, the worse their chances are for finding a place that they can afford.