Frank Espegren, a pastor at St. John's Lutheran Church in midtown Sacramento, is responding to Marcos Breton's Dec. 14 column in the Our Region section, "Homeless camp would be a waste." That column stated, "More government intervention for homeless services – by the city of Sacramento or any local government – would be a huge misallocation of money and good intentions."

What is at stake when Marcos Breton suggests that a camp for the chronically homeless would be a waste? It is not just a safe, undisturbed night's sleep in the cold and wet for someone who is homeless. What is at stake is this: Who we are as Sacramentans – and what kind of city we want to be.

On the day before Thanksgiving every year, members of St. John's Lutheran Church provide a served "sit down" meal to all in our community around 17th and L streets who want to come. This year, one of the St. John's pastors stopped by to join the meal, and while sitting there with some of our neighbors and homeless guests, a St. John's youth who was serving came by and said, "Hey, why are you sitting there, pastor? You're not homeless."

A teaching moment arose for everyone around that table, when the pastor, without really thinking too much about it, uttered, "This is a meal for all of us!"

We respectfully and strongly disagree with Breton's assessment that Mayor Kevin Johnson and council member Jay Schenirer are misguided in exploring the viability of a homeless camp. Each year about this time, when in our tradition we tell and hear the story about there being "no room in the inn," we discover that this is not a story just about somebody else, this is a story about all of us.

At the heart of human life is a common union, one so fundamental that it urges us toward a mutual hospitality – something beyond mere dollars and cents.

So we urge all Sacramentans to think long and hard about Breton's assertion that a "homeless camp will be a waste." We have learned time and time again, decade after decade, here in midtown, one person's homelessness involves us all. If we devote the time and energy and care to address homelessness at every level, from shelter to root issues to supportive services, our joint efforts certainly will not be a waste.

Thank you, Mayor Johnson and council member Schenirer, for doing your jobs. This is our city – all of us together – the ones currently whose lives are on solid ground – and the ones just barely hanging on. If there is potential waste before us, it would be in ignoring the most basic human thing: trying to find a safe and secure place to lay one's head.

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This response was co-signed by three other pastors at St John's, David Mullen, Cindy Carroll and Trudy Franzen.

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