Setting Prisoners Free

As a shelter we spilled forth controlled chaos. We housed women with children, single ladies and invited our homeless and poor neighbors in for a hot meal and food bags four days a week. But then the year 2001 arrived, and announced itself as being a time of new beginnings. I married my beautiful bride. Cornerstone purchased the Sylvia Center and we started housing families. As the year neared its end, we found out the local Harper House was closing, and to our utter surprise, we were asked if we could meet the need and start managing our own Men’s shelter. By faith, a hint of nervous courage and not knowing what to do, we walked through the open door and began housing about a hundred homeless men. Macon ’s Overnight Ministries reached capacity and then exceeded it within a week. The need and desperation was enormous. Nightly, we had to turn away many men into Chicago ’s dangerous and cold hard streets! It quickly consumed ample time and energy as we developed the program....

Part 1: shocking news devastates a community Heads hang as the news echoes through the ears of dozens of the Macon men, and quickly it filters into the Uptown homeless community. “We’re closing ….. Can’t be true ….. Can it? ...... Why us? ...... We can’t believe it!” The reality of our men’s program closing left many, if not all of them, despondent and feeling dejected. Grown, proud, street toughened guys were breaking down in tears. Triggered by fear, others gazed with blank stares. Trauma filled folk somberly prepare to take another blow by suppressing more emotion. Anger begins to slowly erupt as the news sinks in. Already despised, snarled upon and rejected from nearly every facet of society, this news was another brutal kick to a man already down. The “powers that be” had listened to and heard the relentless pleas from a very fearful and merciless exclusive club. This group represented a relatively small number of people determined to promote hatred, fear and deception by painting...