In her column “Learning To Beg,” Sharis Hsu ’28 recounts the stories of individuals experiencing homelessness she met during an Alternative Spring Break trip to Georgia. Read the previous installment here.

Editor’s note: Names of individuals experiencing homelessness are aliases.  

It’s a mile walk to the Old Savannah City Mission. I hate walking. My ankle throbs incessantly as we walk block after block, my water bottle clanging loudly against my knees.

I know we are getting close when I see people sleeping on the street.

The door to The Mission is glass with a steel frame. We wait outside till someone at the front desk buzzes us in. The interior is surprisingly clean and smells strongly of bleach; the walls are an off-white with photos of smiling faces and warm meals. 

Pastor Larry comes to greet us. He is a tall man with a Southern accent and waxy skin. His hair is white and his eyes are hard. As he introduces himself, I take a slow, steadying breath. If I squint hard enough, I can imagine him teaching at the Christian school I attended growing up. 

“We’re so grateful to have you here,” he says, asking about our majors and calling the girls in our group “cute.”

Pastor Larry tells us about being called by the Lord to this part of Georgia to found a homeless shelter. He informs us that The Mission is a shelter that receives no financial assistance from the government, enabling them to intertwine Christianity into any part of their services for the unhoused. One example is that all individuals coming in for food must attend a church service prior to receiving a meal.

“Are you worried at all about finances then?” one of us asks.

“God always provides,” he tells us with a knowing smile and what might be the start of a wink. “People leave us in their will all the time because they believe what we are doing is life changing.”

I fear I’ve walked into a cult.

Pastor Larry switches the topic smoothly and begins outlining the long-term solutions offered at The Mission. “We allow the men to come here and stay with us for a week. We do all of their laundry, we give them new clothes, we provide all their meals,” he states. “At the end of the week, they either commit to our program, or they return to the street for seven days.”

I narrow my eyes. 

“Our goal is not for this to be a slop house,” Pastor Larry announces. “We want to help people who are ready to be helped, who are willing to change. During our 13-month rehabilitation program, the men live here in a dormitory. They attend life skills coaching, Bible study and hold a job within the facility. The only requirements are willingness to change and sobriety.”

We have a lot of questions about that.

“What about the women?” I ask. 

Pastor Larry pauses. “We want to help the women,” he tells me carefully. “And we are making plans to open a women’s only shelter. But right now, what we know is that men and women become homeless for different reasons. For men, it’s because they themselves make bad choices. For women, it’s because someone did something bad to them.”

I ponder his words. There is something deeply unsettling about this — the idea that women are incapable of poor decisions, that they can only exist as victims and never as agents of their own undoing. I believe this is meant to sound compassionate. I’m not sure it is.

Pastor Larry leads us upstairs into a room lined with dozens of bunk beds, close enough one could reach from one to another and touch a stranger’s hand. He tells us that these are for guests staying for just a week. 

“The first thing we do when someone leaves is wash all their bedding,” he announces. “Everything here is clean.”

The facility is spotless, almost unsettlingly. I silently wonder if they’ve cleaned in preparation for us.

We turn the corner and are brought to an open area. There are a set of long black tables arranged into a square, where life skills coaching and Bible classes take place. Next to it is a small set of gym equipment. 

“When men come in here, they are scrawny and stick thin from drugs,” Pastor Larry states. “We feed them good, we encourage them to work out, and they come out as strong men.”

“Are they forced to convert while they’re here?” Bella asks.

“What do you mean convert?” Pastor Larry questions. 

“Become Christian.”

There’s a long pause. “No.”

We move out of the residence hall immediately after, walking past long-term dormitories that are comparable to Stern. Washing machines line the wall, pounds of detergent stacked beside them. The linoleum floor is so clean I can almost see my reflection in it. 

Pastor Larry introduces us to Mister Jermane. He is a plump middle-aged man, with a deep croaky voice.

“People often ask me how I know this program works,” he begins. “And I tell them to look at me.”

Several decades ago, Mister Jermane was the owner of a successful trucking business with a happy family life. Then, he tried drugs and everything changed. Chasing another high, he spent all his income, sold his truck and watched the life he built fall apart. In an act of desperation, he boarded a Greyhound bus heading to Florida to see his mother. When the bus stopped in Savannah, he got off and spoke to an individual experiencing homelessness trying to figure out where he could get a meal. He was informed that The Mission was serving pizza that night, and that was enough to convince him to walk the few blocks. 

The week he arrived, his heart was changed; he chose to get clean, dove into faith and committed to the 13-month rehabilitation program. He never left after that. Today, he is the program director of The Mission.

I am shellshocked as I stare back at him. It’s almost as if my brain is unable to comprehend a version of this man that is younger, hollowed out and wandering the streets.

“I encourage you to talk to every man in this facility,” He states. “Because they all have stories like mine.”

I am dubious of what this program does — potentially coercing the most vulnerable into believing in religion and becoming dependent on it. But as men of all races and ages come out in blue jeans and a navy top, I can’t help the tears that come to my eyes as they tell their stories.

For the first time since I landed in Georgia, there is hope.