Solidarity with Our Unhoused Neighbors

Quaker Ministries for the Homeless

Friends from a range of theological perspectives have a common interest in assisting people facing homelessness in the United States. Quakers involved in service, solidarity, and advocacy cite various sources of their motivation, such as New Testament teachings, Quaker testimonies of community and equality, or agnostic commitments to care for other people.

The federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) estimates that 770,000 people in the United States experienced homelessness on at least one night in January 2024. Those who were counted included people staying in shelters, those occupying temporary housing, and people sleeping outdoors. The point-in-time count represented an 18 percent increase over the estimate of people lacking housing on a single night in January 2023. Some advocates say the estimate doesn’t take into account all those who are facing homelessness.

The impact of state and local laws that ban public camping has varied for those facing homelessness in the United States. Friends who advocate for and assist unhoused people report that in some cases, officials have not aggressively enforced the anti-camping ordinances. In other instances, authorities have caused significant disruption to the lives of unhoused people camping in public places. Friends who assist people facing homelessness discussed how camping bans affect those they serve, as well as the Quaker values that motivate them and the spiritual practices that sustain their work.

In June 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that municipalities can criminalize camping in public places. The ruling immediately applied to cities in Alaska, Arizona, California, Guam, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Northern Mariana Islands, Oregon, and the state of Washington. The states and territories the ruling covers are part of the Ninth Circuit. Ninth Circuit judges had determined in 2018 that punishing people without access to shelter for sleeping outdoors violated the Eighth Amendment because it was cruel and unusual punishment. The ruling excluded those who had money for shelter or access to free housing but chose not to use those options. It also allowed municipalities to criminalize sleeping outdoors at particular times and in specific places.

California’s ban on public camping promotes hiding and isolation, explained Ludmilla Bade, an attender at Redwood Forest Meeting in Santa Rosa, California, and the meeting’s American Friends Service Committee liaison. Bade is on the Lived Experience Advisory Board of the University of California San Francisco Benioff Study of Homelessness in California. She experienced homelessness for about three years because she could not find affordable housing: she lived in a tiny trailer and parked on streets and country roads. For nearly six months, she parked in a trailer community called “Little Town Monte Rio,” which was dispersed by local code enforcement authorities after neighbors organized opposition on Nextdoor, a hyperlocal social networking site.

Asked to respond to the argument that camping bans increase the likelihood of unhoused people entering shelters, Bade said, “Being separated from one’s possessions, one’s companions, one’s vehicle, [and] one’s pet is not the same as finding a home.”

Enforcement officials usually target groups of five or more campers, according to Bade. She noted that when authorities disperse camps, unhoused people lose community and opportunities for collective self-advocacy. For example, Bade and her unhoused friend were advocating for the needs of an organized camp of more than 60 people and had contacted charities about providing portable toilets for the community. Bade had begun to help campers enroll in adult education programs offered by nearby Santa Rosa Junior College. Police “swept” the camp, scattering the residents. Officers swept residents from separate camp sites more than 20 times. Bade’s friend tried to enroll in classes at Santa Rosa Junior College but found the sweeps too traumatizing and disruptive to continue her education.

In 1997, Tempe, Arizona, passed an urban camping ban, noted Dave Wells. Wells is a member of Tempe Meeting. He hosts a weekly private food-sharing event in a city park that assists people who face homelessness. According to Wells, Proposition 312 is a statewide provision that states if private property owners have to remediate such things as litter or urination on their properties, due to lack of camping ban enforcement, they can deduct the cost of doing so from their property taxes. Proposition 312 went into effect in January 2025.

Most unhoused people in Tempe are not arrested for urban camping, Wells explained. The first time police officers contact people camping in the city, they are given an official warning. A couple of people have been charged with violating the ban on urban camping, but in one case, the charges were dropped.

Officers in San Francisco also do not aggressively enforce public camping bans at all times, according to Bruce Folsom. Folsom is a member of San Francisco Meeting who stands outside the meetinghouse twice a week to converse with unhoused people and offer them clothing and first-aid supplies. In one instance, the police cleared an encampment because it was part of the scene of a crime that was unrelated to the people camping there, Folsom explained. After they investigated the crime scene, officers escorted the unhoused people back to the encampment, according to Folsom.

Sometimes San Francisco does neighborhood sweeps in which they remove unhoused people from particular areas, Folsom explained. Sweeps occur when the mayor wants to address the concerns of merchants who do not want unhoused people outside their businesses or to respond to drug sales. Sweeps can lead to some people entering shelters, but many simply move to a different area if their campsites are dismantled. More people come to the meetinghouse after sweeps.

One business near the San Francisco Meetinghouse asked homeless people not to camp in front of their building, and cacti were planted in front of the business. As a result of the request not to camp in front of the business, the unhoused campers moved a couple of doors down, according to Folsom. Having unhoused people move from one place to another does not solve the problem of people lacking shelter, Folsom observed.

Quakers have always been on the margins of what is socially acceptable and have answered a higher call to meet human needs.

Redwood Forest Meeting in Santa Rosa previously hosted a safe parking area for unhoused people who sleep in their cars. From 2020 to 2024, up to a dozen people facing homelessness parked in the meetinghouse parking lot overnight, according to Gary Melrose, an attender at Redwood Forest Meeting and member of its Property Committee. The parking lot is on private property, so it was not impacted by Santa Rosa’s camping ban, noted the meeting’s resident Friend Melanie Cantu.

Melrose has been involved in helping unsheltered people for many years, and he was the one to suggest the idea that the meeting offer a safe parking lot for those facing homelessness. It took eight or nine months for meeting members and attenders to agree to a minute supporting the project. The meeting’s insurance company said they would discontinue coverage if the meeting continued to allow unhoused people to park overnight in the parking lot. A dozen other insurance agencies denied requests for coverage without offering a rationale, according to Melrose. The insurance company’s refusal to cover the parking lot led to the project ending in 2024.

A few members and attenders at Redwood Forest Meeting thought of the people who parked in the lot as members of the community, according to Cantu. Friends acting on the equality testimony sought to offer solidarity rather than charity, Cantu explained. They wanted to avoid “othering” the people facing homelessness.

“The value of the community was the most important to us,” Cantu said.

Quakers have always been on the margins of what is socially acceptable and have answered a higher call to meet human needs, according to Tempe Meeting member Wells. Quakers visibly involving themselves in social justice struggles can attract people wishing to oppose injustice and inequality, according to Ruth Kearns, a member of Tempe Meeting who got arrested for opposing the Iraq War. Kearns organizes the meeting’s monthly dinner that serves unhoused people. The meeting also works at a local church, in partnership with the Interfaith Homeless Emergency Lodging Program (I-HELP), to host overnight guests who are homeless.

San Francisco Meeting member Folsom’s motive for assisting homeless people is the New Testament passage Matthew 25:35–36, in which Jesus said that followers are feeding him when they feed hungry people, quenching his thirst when they give thirsty people water, and clothing him when they provide clothes to those who need something to wear.

Zae Illo, another member of the meeting, encouraged members and attenders of San Francisco Meeting to pay attention to people enduring injustice and to act in solidarity with them. Folsom found Illo’s words inspiring and realized that he had long been missing opportunities to connect with people facing homelessness.

“For 25 years, I’ve been walking to the meetinghouse; I had been walking to the meetinghouse without noticing the people on the street,” Folsom said.

For the first time in March, San Francisco Meeting participated in an interfaith shelter program in which faith communities host unhoused people overnight in their houses of worship.

Folsom is a retired social worker who previously worked in a mental health clinic. As a social worker, he was ethically and legally prohibited from touching clients. As an informal assistant to people facing homelessness, he appreciates the opportunity to provide that kind of supportive touch if a person requests it. Folsom drew on first-aid training that he had acquired as a Boy Scout. One time a man who was homeless scraped his knuckles, and Folsom took the man’s hands in both of his own hands and offered first aid.

“It was moving for us both,” Folsom said of the gesture. The gesture of holding the man’s scraped hands deepened their relationship.

When he started the project, he had no supplies or resources and had to scramble for items every time an unhoused person asked for help with practical needs. Now he stores first-aid supplies and clothing in the meetinghouse basement and distributes the items when unhoused people request them.

Yolanda, an unhoused woman, was the first person facing homelessness to speak in a conversational manner with Folsom. Yolanda introduced Folsom to other people who lived on the street, and that enabled them to trust him. Yolanda and her partner lived in a tent on the street. They both died of a fentanyl overdose on December 27, 2023.

“Yolanda was very important to me. I learned lots of things from her,” Folsom said.

The meeting had a memorial meeting for Yolanda. The memorial gathering was the first one the meeting had held for someone who was not a member or an attender. Yolanda’s mother and sister came to the memorial meeting.

“To do this work, you have to let your heart be broken over and over again,” said Folsom, who relies on deep prayer and daily plainchant to sustain his efforts.

San Francisco Meeting member Gail Cornwall-Feeley volunteers with her children and other Friends at an overnight shelter in the gym of Buena Vista Horace Mann K–8 Community School in the city. Friends helped the shelter operators extend the program to welcome guests during the day on Saturdays during the school year. The volunteers approach shelter guests with curiosity and seek to learn from them. Volunteers engage with the children using crafts, games, Legos, clay, and more. The activities offer parents sleeping at the shelter time to relax and converse with other adults. Some shelter guests use the time to practice English.

Cornwall-Feeley also occasionally volunteers at a food sharing event on Fridays in which participants make sandwiches and then distribute them, along with whatever else the team has on hand, such as bottles of water, socks, hand sanitizer, and masks.

Spiritual practices that sustain Cornwall-Feeley’s work with unhoused people include attending meeting for worship and fostering relationships with Quaker elders. Retired people can help prevent burnout in younger Friends. Many people of her generation have gotten caught up in productivity culture and the demands of raising young children, so it can be challenging for them to breathe and reflect often enough, Cornwall-Feeley noted. Cornwall-Feeley’s children, who now range in age from 10 to 21, also take part in the food share.

When she was asked what motivates her to participate, Cornwall-Feeley said, “Inculcating Quaker values and living them and letting my life speak and encouraging my children to let their lives speak.”

Correction: the times for the extension of the shelter program hours in San Francisco has been clarified.