Our congregation was invited to Center Church in Hartford (a fellow United Church of Christ congregation) to hear about the good work Hartford Police Officer Jim Barrett is doing to help the homeless population of Hartford.  I was pleased that we had representatives from Diaconate, our Ministry of Mission & Witness, our Ministry of Christian Education, our Ministry of Stewardship, and My Brother’s Keeper.  Thank you so much to all who were able to attend and represent Colchester Federated Church!

Officer Barrett was kind enough to take time out of his day to tell us about the reality he sees in the capital city as Hartford’s sole homeless outreach officer.  We also heard from Tony, a formerly homeless resident of Hartford, who shared some of his story with us.  Tony often helps Officer Barrett with community outreach events.  It was wonderful to hear ways for our congregation to help the homeless population in the future.  Stay tuned!  

There were several moments from this meeting that were striking for me, and, if you ask anyone who attended, we all might have different takeaways.  One of my takeaways was how many people come to Hartford from neighboring communities (including Colchester) because of the availability of services and the relatively small size of Hartford, geographically speaking.  However, the issue of homelessness is not a Hartford problem, it’s a regional problem. 

Officer Barrett also gave the advice (which I promised to bring back to our congregation) that if we see folks panhandling, it’s better to give gift cards for food or food itself as opposed to money.  If someone may be struggling with addiction, this is perhaps the kinder way to help that person in the long run.  Officer Barrett always carries bus passes and $5 gift cards to Dunkin and Burger King to hand out to people he encounters on his beat. 

Finally, there are an alarming amount of veterans who are homeless and women who are homeless are especially vulnerable to sexual violence.  We also learned that there are people who are working and seem fine on a surface level, but those folks may be sleeping in their cars and eating hot meals at the Houses of Worship throughout Hartford to get by. 

Our church group ended up spending nearly 2.5 hours with Tony and Officer Barrett hearing their incredibly important message.  And this week, I wanted to share it for our whole congregation to hear.

Love,
Pastor Lauren

Photo by Rich Hosford.

Thursday Thoughts 11/2/23