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Homelessness/Housing
The following article originally appeared in Salt of the Earth. It is posted here for private use only. It may not be reprinted in whole or in part without the permission of Salt of the Earth magazine.
Dan Allen
Father David Monahan interviews Dan Allen
DAN ALLEN'S BEARDED FACE is a mosaic of the sadness of poverty, the joy in plain people being "for" others, anger provoked by damaging greed, and an articulate sense of humor, which bubbles up from a deep well of hope in the reign of God.
Allen's base of operations is his jumbled, smoky office on Tulsa's down-at-the-heels north side. It's the headquarters of Neighbor for Neighbor, an antipoverty organization he founded three decades ago. Today its many services help some 26,000 people a year.
Allen began his work with poor people as pastor of nearby St. Jude's Church. After resigning from the priesthood, he threw all his energy into Neighbor for Neighbor, where he could act totally "the servant role."
Over the years, Dan Allen has become the voice of the poor in Tulsa. When he cries foul, people—even the high and mighty—listen because they realize he tells the truth. "We don't have a whole bunch of regulations and stuff," says Allen. "Every day I just try to go in the direction Christ leads."
IN 1966, WHEN I WAS ASSIGNED PASTOR at St. Jude's, I came here as part of a team for two black and two white Catholic churches. Our team tried to bring these four parishes into a unit to jointly address the problems of social injustice and the tremendous racial tensions in this area of Tulsa.
Since the 1930s, blacks had been restricted to an area about three miles south. But following legislation that opened things up, the black community in the 1960s was migrating north into this area. This led to white flight with horrendous negative effects.
Our team tried to respond to poverty, but we also spent a lot of energy building an ecumenical base. We got together with 24 area churches and congregations from probably 15 denominations—Protestants and Jews.
In this group, we initially focused on providing food and other basic services to the poor. But from the beginning the idea was not to run simply a charity, but to integrate charity and justice into one. If you separate them, you end up with paternalism or legalism.
We formed a group of 15 people to lay the foundations for a more focused program that would address both the injustices at the political level and the physical needs of people who are poor. That's what led to the founding of Neighbor for Neighbor, which was officially established as a private, nonprofit corporation in 1968.
THE KEY WORD IN THE CONCEPT OF Neighbor for Neighbor is for. It's what love is in the New Testament: to become one for the many, for their sake, without any conditions.
In our NFN logo, the F is represented by a symbol of the Eucharist. I understand the Eucharist to be for the sake of those present so they will become God's love for the many. When we say in the Eucharist, "This is my body, my blood for you and for the many," all too often we forget about "the many." They are the many of "I was hungry, I was naked," etc.
I believe that taking our faith seriously means that we have to make damn sure that society's "rejects" become part of and experience the Good News. To me, the Eucharist is not just a form of worship, it's a contract believers make with their community.
When I was at St. Jude's, somebody left the parish some property. That's where we started the credit union and financial counseling. It's also where Legal Aid of Eastern Oklahoma was launched and the magnet schools, which led to the desegregation of the Tulsa public schools.
Because we based the direct services in our parish, daily the poor were in the parish hall. Sometimes there were 450 cars outside. I'm still under court injunction because somebody filed suit against me about those cars.
I saw my role as pastor not as bringing more people into the church but bringing the church to the people. But many of St. Jude's white parishioners disapproved of what we were trying to do. They didn't like being challenged about their racial prejudices, and in fact many became part of the white flight. When I was appointed pastor, we had four or five Masses every Sunday. By the time I left we were down to two that were only half full.
Eventually, the opposing parishioners succeeded in having me removed and reverting their parish to the old style. We moved Neighbor for Neighbor to its new location here, and the bishop appointed me diocesan director of Neighbor for Neighbor. The only problem was, we had no funds or income. I had a title, but that was about it.
WE BEGAN TO REBUILD OVER HERE, and again the Eucharist was central in our rebirth. We had our own Sunday community and liturgy. There were about 25 to 35 just plain old poor folks. We'd start with the Liturgy of the Word in the morning, then we'd go out to work on housing or do other work in the community. At the end of the day we'd come back, talk about our experiences, and then celebrate the Eucharist. That's the core that we began with. And we remain faithful to it.
Neighbor for Neighbor is not an "agency." We are entirely funded by private donations from churches, businesses, and individuals and take no government monies.
One pillar of support has been Resurrection Parish in Tulsa, which through its "Give a Damn Sunday" contributes about $40,000 a year. They've been doing that for 18 years. Resurrection is also a major source of volunteers.
Funded by donations, we are free of government rules and regulations. Every program we start comes out of our relationship with the poor, who are coequal participants. They set the agenda.
For example, we recently formed a landlord corporation of poor people who don't qualify for mortgages. They are now buying and rehabbing houses from the Department of Housing and Urban Development and are landlords and tenants to each other.
They are concentrating their buying in north Tulsa, which is the city's worst area and has a lot of gang activity. In this same area, we are also establishing Safe Houses to become stabilizing influences in the most troubled neighborhoods. They provide childcare, tutoring, and other services for teenagers and adults.
WE'VE GOT OUR OWN FOOD STORE HERE, where poor people can shop for food with dignity. About 14,000 people shop in the store each year. Whatever the cost of the item is to us, that's what they pay. Anything that is donated is put on a point system. People pay maybe $10, but they go home with $42.50 worth of groceries.
The free health clinic started in 1971. Staffed by more than 300 volunteering health-care professionals, it provides dental, medical, optometric, and pharmaceutical care, as well as medical counseling to the uninsured.
To establish our legal clinic, we bought and transformed an out-of-use Conoco service station. It's the only place in this city where you can come with a legal problem without people first being concerned with whether you have enough money to occupy their time.
NFN ALSO WORKS TO MAKE GOVERNMENT respond to the rights and needs of poor people. We organized and established the Coalition for Fair Utility Rates.
A good example of what Neighbor for Neighbor is about is a young mother who came here about four years ago. She had two children and, because of extreme difficulties, was in a state of despair.
We worked out a loan process with her that allowed her to at least retain a house of residence. While she was working off her loan by running our clothing shed, I found out she really was a dental hygienist and only needed a few more credits to get her degree.
So I told her, "We'll help you complete your education. While you're doing that, instead of working in our clothing store, I want you to volunteer in the dental clinic."
Her whole attitude, her whole life changed. She is an amazingly gifted lady. She now is a full-time staff person in the dental clinic and is so good that various dentists have tried to hire her.
THEN THERE IS LEOTIS MCHENRY. He and his five children were living in a shack a few miles north of here. He was half blind, and his teeth were all rotted. He was obviously in poor health.
I had hired him to do some renovation work up here. When we needed another full-time worker, he said to me, "I'll work for nothing, if you'll just give me a chance." I told him, "We don't practice injustice, so if I hire you, you aren't going to work for nothing—but you're damn sure going to do one thing first. We've got a dental clinic over here and the whole health schmear. You need to get your body together because you look like death warmed over."
The health improvement and the job changed his whole concept of himself. Now he's heading the housing program I talked about.
All in all, today we have 11 paid employees and in the neighborhood of 300 volunteers.
FOR THE WHITE MIDDLE-CLASS COMMUNITY, this place is a "university of poverty." Volunteers who last three months will remain a part of this community. If they don't last that long, they don't "graduate" from this school.
The graduates take back to their own neighborhoods and workplaces a better understanding of what it means to live in poverty and the impact public policies have on poor people.
This way of bringing communities together is what's kept the program afloat. When people see what has happened to other people—and can happen to them—then they develop a life commitment to the poor.
I don't know how in hell we've done it, but we have made it—at least this far. Since we don't have a whole bunch of regulations and stuff, every day I just try to go in the direction Christ leads.—END
© 1997 by Claretian Publications