He lowered his voice. “They’re giving food and shelter, but they don’t have any job-training or substance-abuse programs. They keep running things this way, these people will stay homeless forever.” Just as Bruce was challenging the participants in his leadership program by bringing us to the shelter, he wanted to see the men in the shelter challenged as well. Just as Bruce respected us, he respected the homeless men, and he believed that if you respected someone, then you had to ask something of them. These men, he believed, should be involved in their own recovery.
