This interview was conducted by Zoom on June 2nd between ESTHER and one of our partner charities, Christ in the City.

ESTHER connects people in need directly with donors via trusted charities. People in crisis receive donations directly on an ESTHER card with restrictions to protect money for the most helpful purchases.

ESTHER is raising funds to give directly to the homeless in Denver starting summer 2021. Consider helping here.

Mollie spoke to Sam Shultz (Christ in the City Director of Outreach) about the recent partnership and upcoming Denver pilot program.

Christ in the City works to address poverty at its core. Their mission is to create a culture of encounter, where each person is seen, known and loved. They achieve this through equipping their missionaries with the skills and knowledge needed to walk the streets daily in small teams, building relationships and trust with those who are chronically homeless and service resistant.

MOLLIE: Hey everyone! We have been working to line up the very best charity partners in Colorado as our beachhead pilot in the US. And it has been such a pleasure getting to know the guys on the ground at Christ in the City. I have Sam with me here today and we’re going to chat a little bit about Christ in the City, about himself, and what a typical day-to-day looks like for him.

SAM: Hi, I’m the director of Homeless outreach at Christ in the City. Christ in the city is a young adult formation program that is centred around service to the poor and encountering the poor among us. I oversee the homeless ministry part of Christ in the City.

MOLLIE: Brilliant, and could you tell us a bit about day to day at Christ in the City?

SAM: Yeah so our applicants are young adult missionaries in their 20’s. They stay for an entire year and live in a community here at Christ in the City, they pray together, they cook meals together, they have formation sessions together. Also worked into their day is street ministry. That’s where they go out onto the streets of Denver, almost on a daily basis in teams of about 3 or 4, they walk the same route every day for a year. They get to know the homeless by name and their route really well. Over time they build up a friendship with the homeless on their route so a lot of cool relationships come from that. Also once a week we have our lunch in the park. The park we go to is right next to the Capitol so it’s downtown. It is sort of this cultural hub for all types of people in the city. So it’s a way to bring the whole community together including the homeless and we serve about 300 people each lunch.

My job is to accompany the missionaries as they encounter the homeless, to train them in how to do street ministry and to facilitate some of the difficult situations they run into over time, as you can imagine building up friendships with strangers. Especially those who are struggling. So I oversee all of that and accompany the missionaries whilst they accompany the homeless.

MOLLIE: Amazing, we just absolutely love your purpose and what you guys are about so it is great to chat a bit more about that.

Because you are out on the streets daily, you must have a real sense of what is going on for people who are currently experiencing homelessness, or have been chronically homeless.

Would you be able to tell us a bit about what it is like for people living on the streets in Denver? What are their biggest challenges? Simple things or more complex things…

SAM: I would say for some, they are relatively comfortable. There’s a lot of food in Denver, there’s a lot of resources available. However others are simply surviving day to day, hour to hour. So we see a huge spread of people and it kind of depends on where you’re walking. If you’re walking near the river which is on the outskirts of downtown you’ll find a certain community there. But if you’re going down 16th street Mall, let’s say, in downtown Denver, there is a very different vibe there. People are very energetic, they’re playing their drums on the street corner, they’re talking to people.

I think that there is something we do see in every story and that is this shift in the human heart where the unthinkable has become a reality. To us, the thought of pitching a tent under the bridge is unthinkable. To go through something like that would have a drastic change on your psyche, on the way you look at yourself and the way you look at others. That change has become reality, so there’s a sadness and a loneliness there which everyone is experiencing and that is what we are after at Christ in the City.

Then there’s what you mentioned before, the basic human needs that we forget about, that make a big difference. I’ll tell you a quick story — when I first got this job we were driving in the car and I looked out of the window to see this man just kind of yelling, screaming. I was looking at him sort of perplexed and I asked my coworker “why is he screaming?” He just looked at me and said “you know if I didn’t know everyday where I was going to go to the bathroom next I would be screaming too.” I was like woah that’s actually really true. So just basic human things; food, bathrooms, showers, that all becomes a challenge when you don’t have a home.

MOLLIE: Yep, basic sanitation that we all completely take for granted. Thanks so much for sharing that. Just to touch further on the key challenges that you see for the homeless community. Is there a couple you could pick out other than the personal needs, is there anything else?

SAM: Yeah definitely. In general there are many opportunities to meet the physical needs. There’s a lot of food resources in Denver and a lot of outreach groups. But there are sort of these underlying needs that I see as mostly unmet, and that are actually more at the core of the issue. One of those being psychological needs. I would say the majority of people we find on the street, who are chronically homeless, are either dealing with some form of addiction or some mental illness that they need some help with. And so that help is not readily available to them and we’re not clinical psychologists in any way but I think the ministry that we are providing is getting more towards that need — the spiritual and psychological need. I’d also like to share a quote from Mother Teresa, she came to the US at one point and she said:

“There is a poverty in your country that is just as severe as the poorest of the poor in Calcutta. In the West there is a loneliness, which I call the leprosy of the West. In many ways it is worse than our poor in Calcutta.”

That is quite a statement. She spent most of her life picking up people from the street who had leprosy and were dying. Then she came to the US and found out how lonely people were. To say that in many ways it is worse than the poor in Kolkata is quite a statement. There’s a basic human need for relationships and that is something which we see is unmet.

MOLLIE: Definitely, you know the whole loneliness pandemic is parallel with the COVID pandemic. It is a subsequent situation that has happened as a result of the world having to isolate and the disconnection we have all been feeling. So definitely there is a whole theme of loneliness.

Building friendships with the local homeless community is at the core of what you do. Could you talk to me a bit about why this is so important? This probably leads on well from loneliness and the need for connection which we were just talking about.

SAM: Yeah, I love talking about this question! At the most basic level, the greatest human need is to be in relationship. We are made from relationships and for relationships. And so when that is not present almost everything else in our human experience crumbles. The common thread that we see in every homeless story is that there’s a radical rupture in relationships.

If we went through a list of people we would go to if we hit a dire circumstance we could probably come up with 50 people that we would call before we decided to pitch a tent under a bridge. Just imagine for a second if you went through each name and crossed each name out because you felt like you couldn’t go to them. Maybe they had hurt you or you had hurt them, maybe you felt unworthy of help. For whatever reason good or bad you didn’t feel like there was anyone you could go to. That sort of condition, that spiritual space is tragic because the essential human need for relationship is unmet.

Friendship is what we see as the core centre of where healing begins for people. It convinces people that they have value, it shows them that they are human. It is motivating, it’s a good thing in itself. We could offer so many things on a material level but it might not really get to the core of the issue unless there is some relationship present.

MOLLIE: What I am hearing from you is that essentially the friendship and the relationship then is the bedrock of everything else. So if you can form friendships and relationships with the homeless people in your community, then the healing begins and also maybe even looking into other services stems from that.

Moving on, obviously key to what Christ in the City does is your missionaries. It would be great to hear a bit about the day in the life of a missionary. If they’re out on the streets walking their route, could you tell me a bit about that, what that might be like for them?

SAM: Missionaries have a packed schedule each day. They wake up at 6am, they pray together, then they have breakfast together — cooking for each other and with each other — there are 34 missionaries living together. We have it down to a pretty seamless process. There’s chores after breakfast, everyone has a chore in the house.

Then they go out on the streets for street ministry. That is about a 3 hour assignment for them. They go out and encounter the homeless. Then they finish up their time on the streets with mass or church each day. They come back for lunch, have some formation sessions in the afternoon with their assigned mentors. Some one on ones and some class time. After all that they debrief together, their street teams get together and talk about the day, some of their victories and some of their struggles. And just generally how they are doing.

We find that’s actually an extremely important element of the day so that people aren’t running into compassion fatigue. Where they are ministering to others, day in and day out, and not really having a chance to voice what’s going on for them. That’s most of their day, they have some free time in the afternoon as well.

MOLLIE: You were saying there when they are out on the streets they are chatting to their friends or people they have been meeting along the way. What could an example of a victory be for a missionary who has been out on the streets encountering the homeless?

SAM: I would say when we first meet somebody there are a lot of walls and a lot of boundaries that are put up, understandably, and a goal is to connect with them on a deeper level over time. To not push it, but over time to grow deeper in the relationship. So a victory might look like going deeper in conversation, ‘oh Jeff finally opened up about his family and some of his struggles there’.

Oftentimes people are trying to get into housing but they don’t have the motivation. They feel inadequate, they don’t feel equipped, and we’ve actually had friends who have told us ‘I never thought I deserved housing’. But after a year with the missionaries one of our friends said ‘I feel motivated just by our friendship to go through this.’ So we can’t give them housing, but we can provide motivation and comfort. These are little victories here and there.

MOLLIE: That’s amazing Sam, thanks so much for sharing. Why do you think now is the right time to partner with ESTHER to work together and tackle poverty?

SAM: I would say that certainly after COVID, there has been an alienation of people. A lot of people have closed off and are trying to preserve themselves. So people are more lonely than ever. I think it’s a great time to reach out and connect.

I’m super grateful that this partnership is happening now because you get to a certain point in the friendship and somebody says ‘I’m ready to get into housing and I’m ready to improve my situation’ and we’re like yes great, you need money. Sometimes the next step is just how are we going to pay for this? It feels like a more integrated and more whole way of caring for someone when you can not only accompany them, empower and motivate them, but you can provide the means to help them take that next step. I see our partnership as a very streamlined way to accompany people very well in a balanced way.

I would also say back to Mother Teresa, basically she said that “tomorrow has not yet come, yesterday is already gone, so we only have today. Start today.” That is what she would say, there’s no greater time than the present to help somebody else and get outside of ourselves.

MOLLIE: At ESTHER it is really important to us that our programs are delivered alongside soft services — things like friendship, the support and care that you provide. We have seen really special things happen when you give someone money alongside supporting them to attend counselling, or cooking lessons for example. What do you think the combination of your support and direct giving can do to transform the lives of the homeless in Denver?

SAM: When there is an ownership of something, especially a material thing, there is a transformation inside of us. It tells us I’m capable, I’m worthy of having possessions and I’m responsible. It gives people responsibility. I’ll just use one of our friends as an example. He’s a social guy, loves hanging out with people. But he never really had much to give, other than himself and his presence and time.

He’s a hoster, he wants to host people and to give them gifts. That is his way of saying I care about you, he wants to give you a gift. If you don’t have that material resource it is hard to love another in that way. If we allow people to get these basic needs met then there is a greater transformation of the human person. It is all integrated I think. Even at a basic level too when your day to day is just worrying about where you’re going to go to the bathroom or get something to eat, that takes the forefront of your mind. If those basic things can be taken care of, there is so much more to be thinking about. Striving after.

Something I also wanted to share with you is that we see so many people who are in survival mode on the streets. Which makes sense. They are living day to day, hour to hour. It is tragic because most of us are in striving mode, we are striving for the next goal. When that part of us is lost it is sad. People aren’t setting goals for themselves anymore. When we can get out of the survival mode and into striving or thriving, that is where dreams are met. Hopes are born. We are no longer surviving but we’re creating goals and happiness is being pursued.

MOLLIE: Definitely, I think what you touched upon there is so true, about how just having some financial stability and income gives you the headspace to come out of survival mode because you know what you are going to eat for that week. You can start thinking about some goals and the motivation for change can really come into play.

As our final question I wanted to ask, this card solution that we offer at ESTHER is an incredible way to tap into the community and enable direct giving. How do you think this will change the way you offer support?

SAM: I think the way that we approach it will be that we don’t just offer it to anybody that we meet. It will be those who we have a relationship with and know that this is the next step for them in their transformative process. With that in mind we will go into some friendships, discerning that element. This obviously won’t be a criteria for us as to whether or not we enter into a friendship with people, it will be something that we think about for the next step in the process of transformation for them.

The candidates I’m currently thinking about are our friends who have been with CIC for a while. They are ready to enrich their lives. What’s stopping them is their ability to pay for it. It will give us this new aspect of giving which is very balanced. It’s not just our presence or friendship but it is something a little more tangible to offer.

I’m excited for it!

To find out more about the work of Christ in the City you can find them here: