The East Bay’s homeless residents rolled out sleeping bags across the hardwood gym floors at the Castro Valley shelter of First Presbyterian Church of Hayward Monday night — a refuge for those who don’t have a proverbial place at the inn.
First Presbyterian’s effort to shelter the East Bay’s homeless population during Christmas goes to the heart of the Christmas season for Pastor Aaron Horner, the outreach director overseeing the church’s homeless program. He tied the church’s effort to shelter the unhoused to the Christian story of Christmas, in which Mary and Joseph are turned away from shelter due to “no room at the inn,” and Jesus is born in a stable instead.
“As a Christian, as a pastor, as a father, I believe that we’re called to support people that are in need,” Horner said. “In the current day, I can’t think of folks who are in more need and more cast out of our society than folks who are unhoused.”
Since 2019, the First Presbyterian Church of Hayward has welcomed shelter-seeking residents inside its doors in a time-honored tradition of giving to the less fortunate during the darkest, coldest days of the year. In Alameda County, another church offering homeless services on Christmas is Trinity Lutheran Church at 1323 Central Avenue in the city of Alameda (through Jan. 4). In Contra Costa County, City Life Church has partnered with Love-A-Child Missions Homeless Recovery Center at 2279 Willow Pass Road, Bay Point. Catholic Worker Hospitality House in San Mateo County is hosting shelter services at St. Bruno’s Catholic Church at 555 San Bruno Ave W, San Bruno. Santa Clara County’s Office of Supportive Housing was unable to identify churches in the county offering homeless shelter services.
At First Presbyterian, more than 70 unhoused people spend each night in the parish’s two shelters at 2490 Grove Way in Castro Valley and 27287 Patrick Avenue in Hayward. These clients include Tanya Jackson, 73, who has come to Grove Way for 18 months to escape the wintry overnight temperatures for both herself and her dogs, Mimi and Blue.
“I love Christmas,” Jackson said but added that she would not be with her sisters and brothers this year because of their poor health. “So it’s still been kind of tough this year.”
About half of First Presbyterian’s clients are chronically homeless, meaning they have been homeless for at least 12 months, Horner said. The other half of clients are a mix of people experiencing episodic homelessness, considered a short-term yet often repeated experience, and transitional homelessness — a status that often follows a catastrophic life event such as job loss or fleeing domestic violence.
In this way, First Presbyterian Church is like a modern-day manger for the East Bay’s homeless population. Residents huddled in masses around a TV playing “Godzilla vs. Kong” while others wrapped themselves in blankets on the floor. Muffled barks echoed in the gymnasium as Jackson picked up a plate of pasta from the kitchen and shuffled out to the courtyard, followed closely by Blue and Mimi. First Presbyterian is one of the few shelters that allows clients to remain with their pets.
“They don’t turn people away,” Jackson said, “unless they start acting up.”
Jackson said she hasn’t felt close to her faith recently — over a year of being homeless “makes you mean,” she said. But this time of year, she said she wants to reconnect to her faith and spread it to others.
But conversion is not one of Horner’s goals. He said he views the shelter’s mission as giving dignity to those who’ve been mistreated, misjudged and blamed for their homelessness, which he attributes to a larger societal problem. Horner said his “proximity” to the people who are hurting– like many of the shelter’s clients have been — has changed him to be more compassionate and call on others to help marginalized communities like the overnight congregation at First Presbyterian.
“Seeing how our system can mistreat people, to me, I feel like that’s our calling as people of faith to right those wrongs by going out to the margins,” Horner said. “Like (founder of Homeboy Industries) Father Greg Boyle says, ‘Stand at the margins until the margins no longer exist.’”