|
Reflections from the Ground in Washington County
This February at the Mass Assembly, we gathered 400+ strong and together we committed to the "Housing and Wholeness Campaign" - a campaign where we reject the "for" and "against" binary that divides us, and instead acknowledge and honor the complexities of people in a belief that we can cultivate a larger "we/us" to welcome our neighbors through deep listening and compassionate curiosity of the moveable middle.
Since February, we have started to execute deep canvassing at our anchor sites in an attempt to do just that! One of which is the Safe Rest Village at Aloha United Methodist.
However, before we could do our deep canvassing at Aloha UMC, word got out about the project and the neighbors were quick to organize the moveable middle before us. Reactive flyers were posted anonymously around the neighborhood, Next Door and Facebook, stirring up fear and anxiety amongst the neighbors.
Soon, neighborhood protests were planned and hate mail and threats started to seep into the Aloha UMC community. Moving forward through this, we pivoted our deep canvass to one-day sooner to meet the neighbors face-to-face and hopefully engage with some of the moveable middle that wasn't already reached by the neighbors. While we only met one person in the moveable middle that day, we were successful in quelling the protest and instead invited them to a community engagement session planned for the next day.
The community engagement session was a palpably tense and difficult meeting.
There, we welcomed more than 170 neighbors, organizers, friends, county officials, and even a local news outlet into the beginnings of a conversation and Q&A.
Through the shouting, chanting, and accusations, one thing was clear - these neighbors were afraid and wanted to take up all the space. However, by the time the meeting ended, I was inspired to see the community of support stick around, re-grounding in a belief of this hard relational work more than ever before.
As we encounter such strong NIMBYism and fear in the face of some of our work, I think of the line from the early 2000's hit single "The Scientist" by Coldplay:
Nobody said it was easy, no one ever said it would be this hard.
And let me tell you, I've felt that exact line in my bones these last two weeks. But Martin also continues from those words with a wish:
Oh, take me back to the start.
And in that line, I find hope in the iterative process of our Sacred Organizing. In many ways (unlike Martin), we do get to go back to the start.
Every action has a reaction, and because we are committed to relationship, we have the privilege to gather our communities of support, go back to the drawing board, evaluate, and take a next faithful step.
And if there's one thing we know, it is that we cannot do it alone.
Since that first community engagement session, we have grieved, evaluated, strategized, and celebrated both as small Core Teams and across the coalition with communities experiencing similar narratives. And that's the work. No one said it was easy, but we are not alone, and together we will continue to organize amidst the small but vocal minority of folks operating from fear and build a bigger WE towards humane and proven solutions to this housing crisis.
You can read more about the details of Aloha's plan and see media coverage of last weekend's organizing here.
The work continues - at Aloha UMC and across our five 'anchor' communities. Thank you for joining us, with your feet, your voices, and your prayers.
In Solidarity,
Jake and the Washington County Design Team (Keren, LaVeta, Janelly, and David)
|
