To Each Their Own Yellow Line
By: Hannah Sox
Tags: Mental Health, Homeless, Austin, Community Engagement, Homelessness

How I found God, Dignity, & Peach Cobbler at the “Weirdest Little Church in Texas”

Sunrise Community Church Austin, TX

By noon the food and clothing line had wrapped around the block towards a pair of twin dumpsters landscaped by the I-35 over pass which currently houses approximately 30% of the population of humans receiving multi-faceted aid from Sunrise Community Church in Austin, Texas. These humans are made up folks of all ages, and states of being from a sweet grandpa looking fellow perched under a tree on cinderblocks to a 6 year old in her best purple dress, struggling to press the button with her tiny fingers to dispense water from the orange gatorade jug into a tiny styrofoam cup. As I passed to grab my first hot meal in 24 hours read: peach cobbler and pigs in a blanket, I complimented her dress to which she beamed, perhaps still blessedly naive to our shared plight. This was my first day at the Sunrise Community Navigation Center hosted daily from 9am-1pm at a small church that advertises on its signs as “the weirdest little Church in Texas!”

I was first referred to Sunrise CC at the ER by Avril Hunter, a social worker for Ascension Seton who talks with folks like myself that have found themselves both mentally ill and without resources to treat themselves even further still without a roof over their heads. My story started with a horrifying series of experiences in Washington state including a night in the UW Bellevue ER where instead of receiving a single moment of care for my recent Bipolar Disorder Diagnosis, I was ushered away with homeless shelter brochures as Avril’s counterpart suggested “they don’t provide this service”. What exactly this service was still remains a mystery to me. What I do know is that I was in dire straits. My money for nothing and my chicks for free Dire Straits. I was absolutely homeless when I boarded an Amtrak train from Seattle to Los Angeles. I’d always wanted to do this and became overwhelmed with the understanding the experience offered of modern Americana I thought only existed in my dreams for a better country. I took many photos of the people I met who formed a sort of microcosm of support as we bore those 35 hours on the rails.

Sunrise Community Church is very much the same way. Even in this long “pigs in a blanket” bread line, we were beginning to engage in tiny conversations about resources we each had to offer our fellow humans sharing the streets at night with us and the immense fears therein. My first chat was with a sweet girl named Rebecca who explained that the yellow lines on the sidewalk denoted where we were to stand in queue to observe social distancing during the pandemic, and that the staff would be supplying multiple meals (we could take as much food as we wanted and were encouraged to do so), clothing, personal hygiene kits, housing assistance, food stamps, and MAP cards which cover prescriptions, ER visits and any out patient treatment a person may need but not have the funds for. I was in shock when I saw the stacks of “space” meals, wrapped in cellophane and the endless amount of dignity restored in the line alone as I learned that the fears I had were completely shared by so so many good people around me. I became distraught at the sheer volume of us: we were quite simply an army of lost souls, but who had lost us?

I’m writing all of this because I feel this sort of commitment to a cause by a spiritual organization is often unseen and unspoken in the larger community of our city and the country. I believe this sort of support could and is being done in other towns but also that this type of help can easily become patronizing. This was resoundingly not the case at Sunrise. The woman who was covering the culinary station proudly shared my choices and offered me a hot coffee and one of many sandwiches, burritos and pigs in a blanket laid out on her table. I felt like she really wanted me to enjoy this meal. Easily this could have been an Oliver Twist “please sir I want s’more” situation with a different person running this station. It was remarkable to me that I was being spoken to with so much respect. This should tell you how forgotten I had felt in the world. Now multiple that by all the lives around me. Seeking improvement, seeking dignity, seeking to be loved again.

The shock of being homeless is a slow one in my case. At first there’s denial and crashing on friends sofas, then theres the back pain and shame associated with carrying all of one’s belongings around because you know you aren’t permanently comfortable or welcome anywhere safe enough to store your valuable possessions. My first night had been riddled with exasperation, looking for an exterior outlet to charge my cell phone in order to text my local safe person and talk through my paranoia about being a small woman alone in a strange city with two bags of her belongings. I hadn’t any specific reason to be afraid, I had zero interactions with anyone beyond one man on a scooter who rolled up and I believe was just looking for directions. Nevertheless I decided not to engage and instead simply said “I don’t want to talk right now.”

I’ve decided as a result of all of these immense experiences to compose a

Code of Safety & DIgnity and continue building on that as I speak with those who have more seniority than I and can better attest to what practices keep them safe and feeling at home on the streets. I realize doing that, as I am writing this late at night perched in my safe spot — is the best possible use of my anxiety. It’s an act of honoring my fear and giving out to my community with pro tips for survival at this transient juncture of our collective lives. i’m especially inspired by something Sara with the Sunrise Staff said to me as I cried quietly muffled by my mask about this cold hard truth that I too was one of the “bridge people” as I’d spent the last leg of my first night under the well lit area under the i-35 which is a Park and Ride transit center for Austin Metro. I asked Sara where she would recommend I go at night to be safe and she responded by encouraging that any instincts I felt about anyone or anything I trust 100%. Little did Sara know she was boosting my confidence which would ultimately protect my life. I told my safe person tonight as he drove me to my safe spot, “My self awareness is my super power.” This is true of all of us who bear these nights alone. Every single person in these lines has great awareness learned through these experiences. I hope I can share them with those who do have deeds to homes in an effort to garner more understanding and actual support to continue this great project run by the best of Austin folk. Thank you to this incredible team those seen and unseen. Thank you especially to the woman who personally baked the cobbler served in styrofoam cups with a spoon. As soon as that oat-y cinnamon topping hit my tastebuds, I felt instantly better about something that I never thought would happen to me. No one is immune to hardship no matter how insulated your walls may currently feel, please know reader that you are never immune but with the proper resources, you too will survive and later consider this a mere season of your journey on earth.