Albuquerque Gets A Safe Outdoor Space For Their Homeless People
For my wife…
Homelessness in Akron has surged 300% in two years, but our leaders remain indifferent. I’ve done everything I can to raise awareness, but it feels like no one cares. The suffering is overwhelming—people freezing in the streets, ignored by those in power. Yet, through this darkness, I’ve witnessed incredible acts of kindness, like Georgann Mirgliotta’s tireless efforts to help those in need. This journey has shown me the brutal truth of the world, but also its beauty. Despite the cruelty, I’ve found strength in practicing radical love and acceptance, knowing that even in the worst moments, there’s still light.
This video was posted 11 hours ago:
A pastor is opening an outdoor space for homeless people in Albuquerque.
Albuquerque’s Mayor Tim Keller says this:
I have watched city after city try to do something about their homeless situation while Akron does absolutely nothing.
I think it is fair to say that Akron, under Dan Horrigan and now under Shammas Malik, is doing nothing. Malik doesn’t even talk about it. All while unsheltered homelessness is up 300% in the last 2 years in Akron. What percentage increase does he need before he takes notice?
I don’t know what else I could do to raise awareness about this issue. I think you could agree that I’ve tried many, many things.
It’s obviously not something that seems to matter to anyone in government. I lost my city council run by over 70% to a guy who just ended up quitting 6 months later. Most people don’t care what is happening to these human beings. They have Starbucks to buy.
I started this journey in 2015. That was 10 years ago.
I find it interesting to monitor my feelings about this process. I go from murderous rage to suicidal depression. I don’t do either of those extremes, mostly out of spite. I would be so easy to sideline if they could pigeonhole me as some sort of wacko. I won’t give them the satisfaction.
Anger and spite are often the driving emotions that keep me in the game and sane.
You can say what you want about Darth Vader, but the Death Star needed to be finished, and someone needed to do it. If Anakin Skywalker just became another mopey teenager, I really don’t know who the Emperor would have turned to. Kylo Ren is definitely not up for the job.
But I’ve also been practicing living in sadness. Sadness is the foundational emotion of anger. It’s a dark, dangerous place. You really have to have your head on straight if you want to live in systemic, existential, hopeless sadness.
It’s so cold outside. The suffering is so real.
I watched this video made recently by Georgann Mirgliotta
https://youtube.com/shorts/E861yPhvzlQ?si=ElDlEbFFRPfpdjMQ
“My heart is really heavy,” she says.
I can feel the heaviness and profound weight in her mind and soul. She talks about a man walking around in this freezing cold in sandals. His legs were in the arms of a shirt. He had no pants on.
When that man came to Georgann, the first words he said were, “Do you want me to go get my friends so they can get some food?”
He didn’t ask for anything for himself. He was just thinking about his friends.
These are the people we judge and scorn as a society. People who do nothing other than think of their friends first. Often, people end up homeless because they let their friends live in their apartment, and then everyone gets thrown out because being “doubled up” is against the terms and conditions of all homeless housing service providers.
Who truly deserves the judgment and scorn here?
Georgann asks us to pray for these people. I think that’s about all we can do. No one in charge is coming to their rescue. I am legally not allowed to shelter them. Praying is about all we have left.
It’s all madness: horror and madness.
BUT… I am also deeply honored and grateful for the journey. I have ventured into the darkest recesses of my mind, spirit, and society. Without my homeless friends, I would have lived a largely superficial, ignorant life. I have seen the truth of the world and the universe. It is uglier than you can imagine, and it’s also more beautiful than you can imagine.
It has people like Georgann Mirgliotta in it, after all.
She drives into inner-city Akron from Twinsburg, or someplace like that, every week. She has an open account at a propane filling company, where people can fill their propane tanks on her dime. She makes hundreds of sandwiches and gallons of coffee every single week and drives to some of the deepest, most hidden camps in Akron to help these people. She has done this for years.
Who does something like that? I’ll tell you who:
Someone driven by a force that transcends the mud, the muck, and the disgusting apathy of modern-day humanity. She calls it God. Call it whatever you want. It’s amazing.
The truth is a massive contradiction. We must always see the complete picture. There is this strange balance of light and dark. Maybe it’s necessary for life to exist. I don’t know why it is the way it is. But it definitely is.
This balance brings me peace.
The swirling chaos is a flowing, thick soup that surrounds us all.
I know when I see a new level of human atrocity I will also see a new level of human goodness right around the corner. The worse it gets, the better it gets. That’s the cosmic truth of it all.
I am learning to find comfort in that law of existence. I feel someday I’ll be able to let all my anger go because I’ll always be comforted in the simultaneous experience of horror and beauty.
You can’t have Georgann Mirgliotta, as good as she is, without the nightmares she experiences. She wouldn’t be as good without them, and consequently, all of society would not be as good without them.
Every day, month, and year that the homeless people of Akron are ignored and left tortured on the brutal, cold streets of Akron, the better human I become. I’m not asking for them to be so cruel to these people. But their cruelty makes me and others like me better.
And so, I give thanks to these cold, heartless, terrible, morally bankrupt people leading our city. They are giving me the gift of practicing radical love, acceptance, and forgiveness at higher and higher levels.
I’m sorry. But that’s the terrible, beautiful truth of it all.
I love you,
Sage