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Monday, May 07, 2007

The Land Of 10,000 Homeless

Please click onto the title of this post for the story.

5 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

This shows how Bill and his girl friend Annette, try to get though life.
He looked after his father till he died, then Bill was out on the streets.
Two nice people, in the city where people look down at the homeless.
People that drive by Dorothy Day Center, they seem to look at these homeless people like their are worse then dogs.
These are just people that once had everything, now they have nothing
The Listening House, and Dorothy Day Center are located in downtown St.Paul.
Its within 2 blocks of the EXCEL Center, This upcoming 2008 Republican Convention my displace them again.
They are unsure, what will be the out come of security for the area.
A wait, and see.
Bill and Annette eat at different Loaves & Fishes in town, and at the Jesus Delivers truck in Dorothy Day parking lot.
This Jesus Delivers truck, is a dream of Pastor Peter Roadwald
Jesus Delivers a food ministry for the homeless in St. Paul http://www.jesusdelivers.
info/id4.html
People need to eat, to stay healthy .
There is NO affordable housing.
How can these people make it in life, the jobs they get don't pay enough to get apartment.
When moving into a apartment, you need up front -- 1st. and Last months rent and the damage deposit.
So a poor person have to come up with almost $2,000, before they get a place.
Then you ask, why are so many people homeless.
That's why.
Remember-
These people are not hopeless, just homeless.

10:23 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Feeding body and soul in St. Paul
Joe Kimball | Star Tribune Staff Writer,
ines of hungry people found a new dining spot last week in St. Paul, where they enjoyed hot dogs, ham sandwiches, mashed potatoes and peas heaped onto plastic plates.

The free lunches were served from a newly commissioned white panel food truck marked with a sign that says "Jesus Delivers."

It has been parked in some out-of-the-way places: under a bridge just east of downtown, near the railroad tracks behind the Union Gospel Mission and on the street next to the Dorothy Day Center.

And the diners, many of them homeless, sent their compliments to the chefs.

"It's great eating," Bob Lone Bear said as he finished his ham and potatoes. The nearby Dorothy Day Center serves lunch, too, but at the lunch truck "you get seconds and thirds," he said.

"They don't preach to you, either," he said.

The Rev. Peter Rodewald, who runs an evangelical food shelf on St. Paul's West Side, said the truck is his latest effort to bring his ministry closer to the homeless by bringing food to them wherever they stay.

His supporters found a truck body in a junkyard, then over two years transformed it into an inspector-approved, mobile food kitchen with stainless-steel counters and portable generators that power a microwave, cookers, a refrigerator and a hot-dog cooker.

Peter Bolstorff, a business owner who has long supported Rodewald's St. Paul Evangelistic Food Shelf, helped design and develop the truck.

"Our goal is to find partner churches so we can get a roster of volunteers to run the truck from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day," Bolstorff said.

He said the truck is designed both to feed the hungry and to bring them a religious message.

The name, Jesus Delivers, conveys both meanings and reminds people of Simon Delivers, the grocery company, he said.

Rodewald said he enjoys talking about the gospel with visitors, although few actually engage him in theological discussions.

Richard Bennett, who said he sleeps in a homeless shelter, visited the truck but said he didn't want to eat too much because he's on a health kick -- so he took a banana.

Asked if he listens to Rodewald, he said: "Depends on what he's saying."

That led to a lengthy discussion between Bennett and Rodewald about what it means to be saved. Rodewald suggested that being separated from God is another form of homelessness. Then they disagreed about whether hope is more important than faith.

"I don't have too many conversations that complex, but I'd say only about one-fifth of those who come here to eat don't welcome our message," Rodewald said. "They want to reach out. They're looking for more than food. And I've found that homeless people are generally people just down on their luck. They're not bad people, most of them."

The food truck went into service Oct. 25, parking at noon under the 3rd Street bridge near a camp where several homeless people slept and congregated.

For several days, volunteers served hot dogs and beans to the grateful camp members, and each day more appeared when the truck arrived at noon.

Last week, though, the team in the truck found no one waiting under the bridge. They later learned that the camp was cleared because of construction of a nearby wildlife park, so they've temporarily moved the operation to the Dorothy Day Center in the afternoon.

They fed 150 people or more each day last week.

In fact, Friday was hectic, Rodewald said.

"We served 500 submarine sandwiches, and there was a steady stream, people wanted seconds. I spent the whole time asking: tuna or cold cuts?" he said. "I was so busy delivering food that I barely had time to deliver the word of God."

Rodewald's food shelf is at 631 Stryker Av.; he can be reached at 651-292-8893.

Joe Kimball is at 651-298-1553 or joek@startribune.com.

12:56 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

It is wonderful that there are volunteers to bring some hope back into peoples lives. It is also a shame that the city officials can't find it in their heart to reach out with additional help to provide a place they could call home. I can only imagine how terrible the feeling of homelessness must be, and many of the homeless have children that need a stable housing yet the city feels it is more important to bulldoze homes rather than allow people to live in them. I could even of justified the city taking my home (so to speak, I know they can't just take your home, but it would of been better then what they did do) if they would of used it for a couple of families that were homeless.

Nancy

4:08 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The city of St Paul doesn't want those types of people around. It's bad for business, bad for votes and hard on the eyes.

11:19 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

11:19 PM
What if, that was you?
They want better for their lives, too.
walk in their shoes, then talk.
They wont vote, for Thune.

11:36 PM  

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