Associated Ministries announcement.
TACOMA, WA – A local gathering will be held on National Homeless Persons’ Memorial Day in 2022. The public is invited to Tacoma’s Shiloh Baptist Church, 1211 S. I Street, for an in-person gathering at 6:00 pm on Wednesday, Dec. 21. The service is also being streamed online at the Facebook page titled Pierce County Homeless Memorials.
December 21 is winter solstice, the longest night of the year; therefore it is the appropriate time to remember and honor the Pierce County residents who died unsheltered during the past year. National Homeless Memorial Day is observed annually on winter solstice in hundreds of cities in 30 states.
The Tacoma City Council will issue a proclamation to officially declare December 21 as National Homeless Person’s Memorial Day in Tacoma.
Despite their status as having been unhoused, Chaplain Ed Jacobs and other event organizers, are committed that the passing of our houseless neighbors not go unnoticed by the wider community. Everyone is welcome and encouraged to attend regardless of faith tradition or lack thereof. The memorial will last approximately one hour.
- WHAT: National Homeless Memorial Day, Pierce County Observance
- WHEN: Wednesday, December 21, 6:00-7:00 pm
- WHERE: Shiloh Baptist Church, 1211 S. I Street, Tacoma, and on Facebook
- WHO: The public is invited
For more information, contact Ed Jacobs at 206-369-0297 or Chaplain.edj@gmail.com
I truly appreciate and respect any ministry that delivers the word of hope and God’s grace to the down-trodden, whether circumstance be by choice or unpreventable misfortune.
As for city government however, they have made every day “homeless awareness day” as the tarps and garbage and all that goes along with such things, creeps more and more into our taComa experience.
When will the arbitrary laws of code enforcement be applied to all who violate them?
taComa government speaks so boldly of equity and fairness, yet puts forth the most egregious double standards I have ever witnessed.
I am being sued by taComa for code violations of a loading dock that has been in place for 104 years and an entrance that was permitted by them in 1994.
On this one property, I have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to local government in property taxes over the years, plus all the other taxes of maintaining property.
How does this apply to the story above?
I just want y’all to know that while taComa government pretends to take the moral high ground, they are really taking the Constitutional rights of we the people who are holding it all together.
Faith-based ministries, God bless em, are often used as an excuse by government to not implement better governance.
When you more-identify with a problem than a solution, you are the problem.
Every time a homeless person is given grace, they must also be given the advice, “You have to make better choices, because this one isn’t working for any of us”.
God help us.
Brian makes a great points and i would like yo make another;
The homeless problem in Tacoma, is like the homeless problem in every other major city, its not going anywhere and will never be solved under any circumstances.
The reason for this is simple, homeless like every other problem requires problem solvers. The problem solvers that we have hired are government workers/officials and administrators. These workers have very high paying jobs in many cases, with great benefits and pensions. Without problems to solve, these jobs aren’t needed.
Lets say i have a giant pile of dirt that i need to be moved into the back of a dump truck and hauled away. So i hire five workers with shovels to move the dirt into the truck.
At the end of the day when i return, the dirt pile is a hundred times larger than it was in the morning and no dirt every made it i to the back of the truck. I also notice that another new dirt pile has is now manifested one block away.
Common sense would lead you to believe i would fire those five workers with shovels, but instead i hire fifty more workers and buy a tractor. The next day its the same, no progress.
This is exactly how the homeless situation works. Unless you have a stated goal to fix the problem with accountability for the result, nothing with ever change.
So if you going to have a day of remembrance, remember this, they have no reason to fix this problem ever under any circumstances.
Erik