Last week in Aberdeen, Washington over 100 people living along the Chehalis River were pushed from their encampment with no place to go. Many were unable to carry their belongings which were bulldozed and trashed. The Rev. Sarah Monroe of Chaplains on the Harbor joined the leadership from within the camp and standing up to resist the displacement. Realizing there was little media present to witness the eviction, campers posted their own livestream as the police arrived to enforce the eviction, breaking the isolation and anonymity that so often hides the ways in which right to life and dignity is violated for the poor across our nation.
Rev. Monroe wrote:
Constant trauma and displacement and loss break people in ways that you can’t imagine unless you have been through it. I can’t adequately describe what I am watching people go through. At the same time, I am still in awe of people’s courage and leadership, their ability to hope for a better future. Mother of God, have mercy on your weary children.
That same week, after a year of persistence, the mayor and city officials finally met to discuss more permanent solutions to Aberdeen’s housing and land crisis with Chaplains on the Harbor, the campers who had just lost their homes, residents of another tent city in nearby Hoquiam, nearly homeless, formerly homeless and other community and religious leaders. They have much work to do and are learning to fight together, crossing the boundaries that so often divide the poor from the kind of unity they are finding in Aberdeen. We at the Kairos Center are inspired by and stand with this leadership as they refuse to be casualties in our nation’s escalating war against the homeless.
To follow these developments and learn more about the ways in which the community is standing for their right to life and dignity, follow Chaplains on the Harbor, “a ministry of presence in Grays Harbor County, a developing worshiping congregation, and a faith-based center for rural leadership development in the movement to end poverty”. They are active on Facebook and welcome all forms of solidarity and support.
Banner image: Terri Harber/Daily World