Re: the May 31 guest opinion "Center for homeless women a victim of compassion fatigue."
I'm sorry that Stephen Paul was so terrified that vulnerable homeless women would have a safe place in the West University Neighborhood that he and others frightened them into seeking shelter elsewhere. Fear is no fun β just ask them. But his blaming nonprofits and churches as "hypocritical outsiders" won't wash. I live two blocks from WUNA, and have since 1975.
For decades I've belonged to a congregation that is inside WUNA, First Christian Church, at Speedway and Euclid. We've set out cots for homeless men when the Salvation Army was overfilled, and we've regularly cooked for Primavera. We've gathered thousands of pounds of food for the food bank. Everyone is welcome at our communion table. And our congregation welcomed the Sister Jose shelter, not because we are outsiders, but because we are here. Like Paul, we sometimes feel overwhelmed. We have a remedy. When compassion gets fatigued, join the compassion gym, and exercise it back into shape, instead of waxing nostalgic for fictional yesterdays, with respectful homeless "characters" who didn't scare us.
Claudia Ellquist
Downtown
