The Real Need A man was driving down the road and suddenly got a flat tire. He noticed a tire shop just down the road and, limping on his flattened tire, he pulled the car into the parking lot. A tire salesman came out of the shop, looked at the tire, and said, “Ah, you ran over a nail! I can get you a new tire, but there are a couple of customers in front of you.” The man decided to wait. As he was visiting with the other customers, they mentioned that they, too, had run over nails. Then a couple more cars pulled into the shop, also with flat tires. The tire salesman came out of the shop and saw that there were nails in those tires, too. He turned and looked down the road to see another 20 to 30 cars heading toward the tire shop, all with flat tires. Without skipping a beat, the salesman called back to his manager, “Boss! We’re going to need more tires!” Buying more tires is certainly a solution (and after being driven while flat, some of those tires might need complete replacement). But at what point does someone ask about the nails? Homelessness is a complicated issue, and for each individual experiencing homelessness, we hear a different story. However, there are some causes and commonalities, including drug addic- tion rates, increased numbers of individuals struggling with mental illness, a broken criminal justice system, and a foster care system that leaves 25 percent of former foster youth homeless within four years of leaving the system. Something is broken. We are spending more on homelessness than ever before, but the number of people entering into homelessness continues to climb! People are falling into crisis faster than we can get them out. The media is focused on the national crisis, but what is happening across the nation is being fueled by personal crisis. At what point do we ask about the nails? Addressing the Why R oughly 30 years ago, a young man from Minnesota showed up in Seattle to help address homelessness. He came to help launch an after-school program for inner-city kids. The kids were not homeless, but their families were in crisis, and if someone didn’t begin to invest in their lives and the lives of their families, then they would soon be at risk of falling into homelessness. That man was Herb Pfiffner and he went on to become the president of Seattle’s Union Gospel Mission. Over the years, he and his team wouldn’t just serve those who were homeless, but they con- tinued to create dynamic programs designed to keep people from becoming homeless. They created legal clinics, dental clinics, prison outreach, addic- tion recovery, and domestic violence shelters. The effects of sin and brokenness are insidious and treacherous. We might not be able to keep peo- 8 WWW.AGRM.ORG MAY/JUNE 2017 Homelessness is a complicated issue, and for each individual experiencing homelessness, we hear a different story. However, there are some causes and commonalities…