And who is my neighbor?

In the 10th chapter of the Gospel according to Luke, Jesus was asked a question. “What must I do to have a life that never ends?” Jesus responded with an answer that no faithful practitioner of Judaism could question. “You shall love God with heart, soul and strength and your neighbor as yourself.” The questioner admitted that Jesus had given the correct answer. Then came the follow-up question. “Who is my neighbor?”

Jesus responded by telling the story of the Good Samaritan. The story was one with places and people that were easily recognized. The story, though not necessarily true, was current.

Some things do not change. The greatest challenge for a devout person is to love God. This challenge never changes. The companion commandment is different. How do I love my neighbor? The commandment never changes, but the specifics of life change constantly. The story in the Luke Gospel is very specific. The characters in the story were an unnamed man who was traveling, robbers, a priest, a Levite, a socially despised Samaritan and an innkeeper.

That is the way it is with loving neighbors. The cast of characters, the places and the circumstances are different every day.

My observation is that we religious folk practice loving our neighbors very selectively. We are very good at “passing by on the other side of the road” as did the priest and the Levite.

I serve on the Valley Housing Coalition. This is an organization that is required by the Department of Housing and Urban Development and by the Alaska State Housing Authority. These government agencies control huge sums of money that are made available to governmental agencies, developers and not-for-profit organizations for creating housing. HUD and ASHA require that every community have a housing coalition, whose task is to write a 10-year plan for housing the people of their area. Specific attention must be given to special needs housing. Housing support money is made available according to the plan and its priorities. No plan, no money. The Valley Housing Coalition is currently rewriting the housing plan for the Matanuska-Susitna Borough.

The number of people with special housing needs in our area is staggering. Their needs may be related to physical handicap, mental illness, aging or lack of income. We take little note. Unaccompanied teenagers abound. Four percent of our school children are from families with no permanent address. It takes two people working full-time at minimum wage to afford an apartment at current Valley rental rates.

At a recent conference I was introduced to a new term — re-entry housing. The special guest for the conference was Heather Lyons, program manager for the Corporation for Supportive Housing. CSH owns/manages 26,000 living units across the nation and specializes in re-entry housing.

Re-entry housing is for people who have been discharged or are transitioning from jails, prisons, half-way houses, homeless shelters, hospitals, treatment programs or foster care. Re-entry housing is permanent housing and is complimented with needed services.

The United States incarcerates a higher percentage of its population than any other country in the world. When prisoners are released, a majority of them have a problem with substance abuse or mental illness. Without housing and services, they are prime prospects to return to prison.

CSH has amazing statistics of the effectiveness of re-entry housing with services. People do not go back to prison but to responsible citizenship. The cost of re-entry housing with services is very small when compared to the cost of imprisonment.

In Alaska the prisoner population continues to grow and we are building more prisons. Why not build re-entry housing and fund supportive services for people coming out of prison? The dollar savings would be huge and prison building could be brought to a halt.

Lyons was very frank. The No. 1 reason for not building re-entry housing is community restrictions. No one wants people coming out of prison with histories of substance abuse and mental illness in their communities. Not In My Back Yard! No one wants them for neighbors.

When the questioner asked Jesus “And who is my neighbor,” he told them a story. I too could write a story. It would be about a man being released from prison without resources and homeless. It would be about public officials and contractors who look the other way. It would be about a struggling immigrant, who took him home and fed and kept him until they built some re-entry housing.

Loving your neighbor has far-reaching implications. Especially if you serve a God who has no outcasts.

The Rev. Howard Bess is a retired American Baptist minister who lives in retirement in Palmer. His email address is hdbss@mtaonline.net.