He wanted to be helpful. The lady who was cleaning the church was nearby in the hallway about to go home when I told the young man that I did not need his help to carry in the foodstuff that I had just purchased for passing out the next day to the Washington homeless.  When the cleaning lady asked me if the young man was part of the team that was staying at the church, I told her no.  We both realized at that moment that she had just spent the last hour or so with a complete stranger who should not have been in the church.  While I had been buying foodstuff, the team had gone for ice cream. 

When asked, the trespasser said that his name was Steven, that he was from Houston and that he was homeless.   Even before the team left the church, Steven had been seen by team members.  No one had thought anything about it as the church where we were staying hosts a variety of meetings including some that happen in the evenings.  The church’s doors are left unlocked until the cleaning person goes home.

When he was told that he could not stay in the church, Steven asked if he could get his backpack from where he had left it in one of church’s rooms and if he could get the food that he had left in the kitchen.  It was somewhat disconcerting for the cleaning lady and me when Steven said that he could not remember where he had left his backpack.  After describing a large nearby room, the backpack was found in a side room. Then it was going to the kitchen where Steven had gotten out of the refrigerator some of the team’s leftover spaghetti and had heated it up in the kitchen’s micro wave.  

As I was taking Steven outside, the team returned.  I asked two of the young men on the team to talk with Steven – to hear more of his story.  While they were talking to Steven, the team put additional food and water along with a couple of $5 McDonalds cards in a bag.  One of the women on the team along with one of the young men took Steven to Carpenter’s House – an Alexandria homeless shelter.

Steven’s trespassing put a face and a name to what the team would do the next morning.  200 bags would be handed out to genuinely grateful homeless who were calling Union Station, Franklin Park and nearby area streets home. The team was blessed by the sincere appreciation that was expressed by the men and women who were given bags.

                                                  preparing to pass out bags of food

                                                  to the homeless around Union Station