Winston-Salem homeless advocates pushed back this week on what they consider unfair and insensitive characterizations of the city’s expanding population of people without housing.
The comments during Monday’s city council meeting were in response to a growing perception that homelessness is increasingly to blame for crime in some areas and a significant contributor to the struggles of downtown businesses, particularly restaurants.
The city’s exploration of an ordinance aimed primarily at preventing homeless people from sitting or lying on sidewalks also drew criticism.
“We share the desire for safe, welcoming neighborhoods,” said Ruth Cole Burcaw, executive director of City With Dwellings, a non-profit that provides services for unhoused people. “Everyone deserves to feel safe wherever they live, but homelessness itself is not the cause of these problems and people experiencing homelessness are not the enemy.”
Because of their lack of shelter and a stigma that often makes them targets of violence, homeless people are far more likely to be victims than perpetrators of crime, she added.
“What we face is not a people problem,” Burcaw insisted. “It’s a housing problem.”
City With Dwellings, at the corner of North Broad and Spring streets, helps people without homes to secure housing, food, health care and other services.
The organization has been based at the edge of the historic West End community for more than a decade.
Over that time, “what has changed is visibility,” Burcaw said. “Street homelessness is rising, and the crisis isn’t new. But it’s harder to ignore.”
‘Crisis of compassion’
Emily Harkins, senior pastor at The Dwelling church, which shares its campus with City With Dwellings, told council members that instead of arguing or presenting statistics, she wanted to invite them to come and spend time with the people her congregation serves.
“When you listen to your neighbors talk about their children, you hear what sounds a lot like the love that you have for your own,” Hawkins said. “And when you laugh at a joke while sitting on a front step, you remember that joy doesn’t need an address to be real.”
Fear, blame and distance often influence conversations about homelessness, she added.
“But fear fades when we learn each other’s names,” Hawkins insisted. “Blame softens when we begin to see faces instead of categories. And distance closes when we dare to share time and space together.”
Brooke DeJong, a deacon at The Dwellings, told council members that the city faces not just a housing crisis, but also a “crisis of compassion.”=
“We are being asked to choose between the comfort of those in homes and caring for our neighbors who are unhoused, (and) between fear and faith,” she said. “Fear is not the same thing as being uncomfortable. Uncomfortable is OK, but it doesn’t mean our neighbors, who we love, are a threat. It means we have stepped close to something that is hard to see -– the pain of others.”
Berkley Feilitzsch, who attends The Dwellings, told council members that she sees homelessness daily as a downtown business owner who often walks center city streets.
“I do not feel unsafe,” she said. “What I do feel is compassion because discomfort is not the same as danger. Seeing poverty like this up close may be unsettling, may feel unsettling, but this does not make our neighbors dangerous. We can’t confuse vulnerability with threat. We need solutions, not scapegoats.”
Dennis Sykes, a member of Knollwood Baptist Church, took issue with the city’s discussions of a potential ordinance that would make it illegal to sit or lie on city sidewalks.
The Journal reported last month that the Winston-Salem Police Department had approached City Manager Pat Pate about enacting restrictions similar to those approved recently in Greensboro.
“Loitering ordinances have a pretty sordid history in our country,” Sykes said. “Arresting people simply for being somewhere allows the authorities to decide who has the right to be in the streets for any purpose, and who does not have the right.”
He added that such restrictions could impact the ability of citizens to peacefully protest.
John Deem covers the Triad for the Winston-Salem Journal and the Greensboro News & Record. Contact him at john.deem@lee.net
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