On January 1, 2009, Steve Farmer chose to become homeless in order to follow Christ’s teachings.  A year-and-a-half after his leap of faith, he talked about what it’s like to be homeless, and what he gets from volunteering every Saturday at UUMC’s Open Doors Ministry that feeds homeless and underprivileged people.

“It was my choice to become homeless. I had my apartment and all my possessions. I didn’t have a lot of extra money. It was a very cold one morning and I was walking to Walmart, and it was absolutely frigid. It occurred to me that some people are stuck out in this all the time. I think it’s unjust, and that everyone should have a place to exist. I went home and I was reading my Bible, and I read where Jesus was homeless. I’m sure you’re aware of it — the young rich man — where Jesus said it would be perfect to give up all that you have. ‘Sell what you have and give the money to the poor and take up the cross and follow me.’

People say that’s metaphorical. I don’t really think so. I think you have to make a choice between pursuing your material desires and it’s a kind of graduated scale of your level of your commitment. Some people might be partly committed, and they still maintain their home and their cars and all their nice stuff but they still give of themselves to help others.
I’m still homeless. I’m Ok with it, because I chose it. If I hadn’t chosen it, it would probably make me miserable. I walked out on my apartment. My landlord was trying to convince me not to go. My neighbors were coming over and picking over my stuff like I’d died. (laughs)

I’ve learned that by being homeless, whether you call it an exercise of religious freedom or whether it happens because for one reason or another you can’t provide for yourself, that you’re immediately — your very existence — is a criminal act at the point that it becomes necessary for your to sleep.

Particularly here in Austin, they have created a system whereby the act of sleeping, for a homeless person, is a crime. There is no way around it. And that’s mind boggling. If Christ were here today, he’d be deemed a criminal. He would even be arrested at a church for sleeping… pretty ironic.

I could offend a lot of people with what I’m saying. I could say things in a more gentle way. I will have to concede there’s a lot of bad behavior amongst homeless folks. One shouldn’t let the need to be merciful to people cause them to overlook conduct that’s wrong. They’re two different things.
 
It’s kind of an interesting study. Some people among the homeless may seem to have the sense that they’re entitled to things that they haven’t earned, which probably contributes greatly to their circumstances. I won’t say that all homeless people are like that. I’m not shocked anymore when I realize that somebody who’s homeless is thinking they’re owed stuff.  It is common but it’s not 100 per cent either.
 
As a homeless person, you’re stigmatized right off the bat. You have to have the experience of what it’s like to go into Starbuck’s one week as a paying customer and go in the next week and ask for a glass of water, or to use the restroom, with your backpack, being looked at and despised and being told we can’t help you. You have to have that experience to comprehend what that feels like. Do the police stigmatize you too?  Yes, certainly.  Everybody does, pretty much.
I’ve been to worship once at the church and I’m sorry to say I haven’t been more than once.

I don’t consider myself religious so much as Godly. There’s a big difference between those two things. Religion is given to kind of a hierarchy. One of the things that contradict what Christ taught is that— thing in society where we try to keep up with the Joneses – it may even be more pervasive within the church structure, people being a little bit more snobbish, a little more judgemental, which is the complete opposite of what Christ taught and what I think is defined by Godliness.

In God’s army there is no hierarchy, everybody answers directly to the commander in chief. And he speaks to us through our conscience. And I see that a lot at Open Doors. Even though it is a church, the people who are here giving of their time, they’re not doing it because it’s required of them, they’re doing it because they feel compelled by their heart and their compassion and their conscience to do it. I see Godliness in that.

It was impressive to me that people would give of their resources and their time and leave their home, and come to another place like the church, and invest their labor into helping people that needed help. When I first started out, one of the things was that I expected to discover is that homeless people are being shunned as outcasts. And I have seen that in some ways. But one of the greater discoveries is the goodness in some people to reach out and try to help.

Being homeless has brought me closer to God.  I’ll never look at things the same. You have different values. Some of the good folks I’ve come to know through this experience – some homeless people and some not – some have given me the opportunity to earn money. And I find myself spending money on people. I bought a couple of tents and a couple of fans for people that are not out drinking or drugging. There’s one, she can’t really fend for herself and the other, she’s a radical Christian type herself. I don’t think she gave up her home voluntarily. I think she pursued helping others to the point that it cost her her ability to have a home.

I’ve missed only a couple of Saturdays in the past year, so I’ve been coming pretty regularly. These are people that are doing to one degree or another doing what Christ taught and that’s certainly been an inspiration to me, to the point that I want to become involved. I don’t come for the food any more. A lot of times I don’t eat until after I leave.
It’s just part of the grand tour of the world that the good Lord has led me on. It’s one of the better things. I won’t say that there aren’t some negatives to it but in general it’s a kind of a light in a dark world.”