Tag Archives: urban seed

Spare any coins?

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Recently my friend and I were sitting having a coffee on Swanston street when a guy wandered up to us and asked us if we could spare any coins. He explained that he was homeless, sleeping in a nearby alley and needing money for food and accommodation. He looked the part too: the epitome of the homeless stereotype. An older guy with a Gandalf beard and ragged, dirty clothes.
We offered to buy the guy a meal and he accepted. My mate and I wandered across the street with him to a 24-hour diner style restaurant and we all got a drink and him a meal. We sat and chatted while he ate and he was a pretty friendly guy. He explained that he had been homeless for about 20 years, spending most of that time in Melbourne. We asked if he had heard of our organisation (Credo Café was only a few hundred metres away from where we sat) but he said he wasn’t familiar with it. This shocked me. Firstly because of the long duration of his homelessness but also the proximity of his sleeping spot to our main office and café.

It really hit home for me that the roughly 100k homeless people in Australia is no small number.

As he finished his meal we said goodnight and off we all went, him to his business and us to ours. As we walked down towards Flinders Street my friend and I chatted about the conversation we’d just had. I couldn’t believe he’d never heard of Urban Seed but my friend commented, “I just wanted to know about his ring.”

“His ring?” I responded, confused. “Yeah he was wearing a wedding ring. He’s been homeless for 20 years and is clearly alone now, so what happened to the girl?”

One hundred thousand homeless around the country and each one has a story but I’ve only had the privilege to hear a few.

Money

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monoploy
We’ve been thinking a bit about money.

Seeing Urban Seed is a not for profit, money is always an interesting topic.  When it comes to to talking, thinking about and even asking for money we are not that good at it.  Partly because it’s not what we often view as important or that matters. But without money we would not be able to do the things that we do.  We don’t make money, we rely on the generous support of people to fund all that we do at Urban Seed.

In a recent conversation with a colleague we decided that money was a bit like blood and water.  Perhaps money is similar to water and blood in that is ‘vital’.  For without money one cannot live…  But more importantly maybe money is like blood and water in the way that it works to sustain life.  If our blood did not circulate we would not survive.  If water stays still it grows stagnant.  Blood and water must keep moving.

Maybe money is also like blood in the way that blood moves to where it is most needed in the body.  It rushes to the parts of the body that need healing, flooding the broken hurt bits with the goodness needed to heal.  Maybe we need to let our money circulate and move in this same way to the hurt and broken bits that need healing in the world?

The challenge for us then is how and what we do with our money.  How do we keep our money moving so that it remains vital?  And maybe just maybe by doing so we ourselves may become more healthy.

And so audaciously I will now ask if you can move your money to the work of Urban Seed so that we can continue to help the hurting and broken heal.

Give Now

Give Easy

Do you ever feel scared or uncomfortable in Credo?

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Credo Cafe is one of Urban Seed’s most special places. It’s where we share lunch with people from all walks of life and a place where we are all the same. Students often ask us questions about whether we feel safe in credo. Here is a response from Stephen Said.. but before that, here’s a little about Stephen (info from www.urbanseed.org)

Stephen Said, Residential & Community Engagement Co-ordinator

Stephen is a husband, a dad, and a foundation member of the Melbourne Heart Football Club. He works in the area of activism and social change as an educator, activist, speaker, writer and community development worker.  Stephen is particularly interested in radical spirituality, incarnational community and the dynamics of personal and social transformation and you can read more about this on his blog. He has helped many think about the nexus between the issues of justice, poverty, consumerism and discipleship in the context of popular global culture.

Question: Do you ever feel scared or uncomfortable in Credo?

Stephen: I often feel uncomfortable and scared. Often when I am close to someone who might be suffering some kind of mental illness, I feel both. It’s hard because I think about all those reports on the news about people with mental illnesses hurting or harming members of the public.

However, the longer I spend in Credo, I realise that not only have I never been threatened, but I have never seen someone threatened by a person with a mental illness in Credo.

If I keep thinking about it, I realise that a lot of my fears are based upon media reports that really are not very accurate at all. So these days, when I find myself feeling uncomfortable or afraid, I try to ask myself “Is the source of my fear/discomfort real, or something the media/broader pop culture taught me?”

It’s a hard discipline to practice, but when I do, it really helps me to actually be more open to the people who are around me, rather than being frightened by culturally constructed stereotypes.

Thanks for sharing Stephen!!

Have your say :: Student voices

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Reflection by Mitch Lovell :: Year 9 :: Bentleigh Secondary College
On friday we went to the city to learn about an organisation called urban seed. The organisation helps homeless people and drug addicts.

They talked about different types of homelesness . I learnt that being homeless doesnt always mean you’re a hobo living out of garbage cans. She explained how they gave out free meals to anyone. They do this so the homeless people could eat if they needed to and it also helps the homeless community socialise with business people they see walk past everyday. They do this because when the business person sees the homeless person (after they have shared a meal together and talked) they dont see him as a hobo, they see him as that guy john they had lunch with the day before.

They also run another program where anyone can come and play laneway cricket. The reason for cricket is not only for homeless and non homeless people to interact; its also so people can have a sense of belonging and to feel that they have achieved something.

I think going to urban seed was a great experience and it taught me alot of stuff i didnt know about homelesness.