BOOK REVIEW

Beyond Homelessness Christian Faith in a Culture of Displacement by Steven Bouma-Prediger and Brian J Walsh is the most important book I have read on this subject.  It is an excellent, well documented sociological study. After each chapter they share the social construct dealing with homelessness in the Old Testament. This begins with Adam and Eve becoming homeless when expelled from the garden. They offer 8 criteria of what it means to have a home.

 A home is a place of permanence. To be ‘at home’ somewhere is more than simply having a place to stay…Home…signifies a certain degree of spatial permanence, an enduring presence, or residence. In a speed-bound culture, every highly mobile person is a victim of some form of homelessness because there is no time to foster a sense of enduring emplacement. Shelter alone is not sufficient.

 A home is a dwelling place but not the same as a house. A house is a domicile, while a home is an abode. Home is a relationship that is created and evolved over time. A house refers to its construction while a home has deep psychological and social significance.  

 A home is a storied place. A home becomes a home when it is transformed by memory-shaped meaning into a place of identity, connectedness, order and care. Rituals like celebration of holidays make a house a home by linking our personal and communal stories with a particular location.

A home is a safe resting place where you can relax and be yourself. It’s a safe place where you can be vulnerable and learn to trust, a place of safety and rest.

A home is a place of hospitality. As opposed to a fortress, few are strangers there and there is room to include others.

A home is a place of embodied inhabitation where a person feels a sense of rootedness. To be rooted is perhaps the most important and least recognized need of the human soul. A resident is a temporary and rootless …The inhabitant by contrast ‘dwells’… in an intimate, organic, and mutually nurturing relationship with a place.

A home is a place of orientation in which we know where we are and what we are in this world. A home provides a sense of order and direction to our lives.

A home is a place of affiliation and belonging where we experience recognition, acceptance, and identity.