By Thea Jarvis

In the low-ceilinged dining hall beneath the sanctuary of Oakhurst Baptist church in Decatur, the table is set for 17. Around 6:15 on this mild autumn evening, 11 men drift in from the outside parking lot. They have been shuttled to Oakhurst in an oversized van after meeting their driver at the side door of St. Luke’s Church on Peachtree Street in downtown Atlanta.

There is chatter and joking as they enter the hall. Their faces, worn from the doings of the day, relax as they find their place at table. They are at home here, safe and secure for another night.

A prayer is offered in thanksgiving. The small family of volunteers that arrived earlier has prepared a simple meal of fish sticks, potatoes, a salad and tea. Tonight, there is dessert, a coconut cake donated by a friend of the Oakhurst ministry.

The volunteers – a husband and wife with three young children in tow – join in the meal. A highchair is set up at the end of the table for the youngest and the hall reverberates with the high-pitched voices of children and the low murmured conversations of the men.

After dinner, the job board on the wall near the kitchen is consulted and the men set about their evening duties. Some wash and dry the dishes, others sweep the floor or take out the trash. Those not involved in nighttime tasks wander outside to the parking lot for a smoke or climb the four flights of stairs to their sleeping quarters – a floor of Sunday school classrooms that has been partially converted to bedrooms, a bath and laundry area.

In the large open space that is the hub of the quasi-dormitory, a guest tunes in a Hawaii Five-O rerun and watches Steve and Dano hunt for bad guys. Friends join him on the sofa or in chairs shadowed by the low lights of the room.

Showers are started and, though it is only just past seven o’clock, pajamas gratefully found. In the host bedroom, where a volunteer will spend the night, one of the men seeks medication for his ailing foot among the plainspoken, over-the-counter remedies sitting on an open shelf.

The laundry area begins to hum with the sounds of thrashing underwear, shirts, socks and pants while a small-scale clothes closet nearby offers fresh clothing for those who need it.

The men, some who have been coming to Oakhurst for just a few nights, others who have been there the better part of a year, settle down as darkness falls. They will turn out their lights by 11 o’clock and awaken to an early morning breakfast of eggs, grits, toast and cereal.

At 6:30 a.m., the Oakhurst van will leave for St. Luke’s once again, this time to return the men to the city so they can search for work or continue the jobs they have already found. Each is guaranteed a place at Oakhurst for the coming night as long as he arrives on time and follows the rules regarding drugs and alcohol.

The Oakhurst shelter “runs almost by itself,” says Ann Connor, one of its founders who began the effort in 1981, along with a core of about 12 people interested in opening space in their hearts for the biblical “homeless poor.”

This now-streamlined ministry has not been without hard work and challenge, she is quick to point out, but its success represents a working model for other communities examining the possibility of fuller involvement with the homeless.

Oakhurst has had a head start on most churches in that it was an already socially conscious, active congregation in its pre-shelter days. Among its established contributions were literacy action courses, a neighborhood library, and “Seeds,” a bi-monthly magazine focusing on hunger. The course the church had taken was the combined result of the accidents of time and some conscious decision-making.

Ann Connor relates that during the sixties, Oakhurst was a fast-growing congregation whose membership, limited to white families, was involved in a building program to expand its educational facilities. When the Oakhurst pastor unexpectedly announced that those seeking to be admitted to the church would no longer be subject to the vote of the membership, he opened the doors for an integrated community. Half the congregation left without looking back and the church rolls dwindled to about 150 people.

Those who remained regrouped in their old quarters and decided that Oakhurst’s building expansion, well underway, would have to be redirected. The new facility, just across the street from the church, was leased to Southern Bell and its rental monies turned over to a continuing fund specifically earmarked for “new and innovative missions.”

It was this same continuing fund that was to provide seed money for Oakhurst’s night shelter. The fund still represents the largest portion of assistance for the work.

“The first year operating expenses were high,” Ann Connor remembers, compared to what she now describes as “ strictly low-budget operation.”

Once the congregation had been informally polled and its leadership consulted to be sure there was no objection to maintaining a shelter on church grounds, space had to be carved out and properly outfitted for the undertaking.

The fourth floor of the church building consisted mainly of Sunday school classrooms with an open area at its center. The effect is that of a wheel, with the large room at the hub and small “spokes” of rooms running from it.

The setup proved ideal for the shelter concept and six of the spokes were converted to bedrooms, with space for guests in each. A shower and water heater were installed by volunteers, a dryer purchased, a washing machine donated. Beds were found and moved in place.

Smaller, yet essential items were also required. Bed linens were offered at no cost by a local hospital. Towels, razors, soap were budgeted in as needed.

When the shelter opened in 1981, it had been determined that 11 men could be accommodated. This involved some choices on the part of organizers, not least of which was the decision to host men only. Because there are more men on the street, Ann Connor explains, the shelter focused on male guests. The number 11, she adds, “just happened. We often wonder why, but that was what we had room for.”

A bloc of some 50 volunteers were scheduled for morning and evening hosts, cooks, drivers and phone contacts. Those committed to the shelter work volunteered at Clifton Presbyterian’s night shelter for some hands-on experience.

Because the Oakhurst community owned a large van, the nitty-gritty of getting guests back and forth to the shelter involved only upkeep and an outlay of gas money. The church’s commodious kitchen, well-supplied with pots, pans, dishes and silverware, was just waiting to be used. And the dining hall, with tables and chairs that welcomed over 100 people for Wednesday night suppers and after-church socials, could easily seat a small handful of homeless men.

These 11 guests are fed hot, nutritious meals each evening for the modest cost of about fifty cents each.

“We can only do that because of the Food Bank,” Ms. Connor explains, referring to the food exchange in downtown Atlanta which takes in donated and surplus food from government and food industry sources and re-distributes it to those who serve hungry people. The food is purchased from the bank at rock-bottom prices that cover its operating expenditures.

At Oakhurst, the supply of food from the Food Bank is supplemented with funds from the Baptist Home Mission Board, which digs into its home relief budget for food monies.

Only one evening a week does the cost of feeding the homeless go up – to about two dollars per person – when the men join the Oakhurst community for the traditional Wednesday night supper.

“It’s an important time,” Ann Connor believes, for the men to be a part of the church and for the church to see that the folks they are sheltering are real, flesh and blood people. On Wednesdays, shelter guests can catch up with some of the volunteers they might have met before and can get the feel of the larger family at Oakhurst.

“We tend to have a strong return of men to the shelter. Folks tend to stay with us a good while,” Ms. Connor says. “That might be because it’s a family-like setting.”

Another opportunity for interaction between the men and the Oakhurst membership occurs on weekends, when guests picked up Saturday night stay on through Monday morning. Because religion classes are still held on the fourth floor of the church building each Sunday morning children have a unique opportunity to interact with the men. Adults, too have a chance to meet the men, whether at church services or on the grounds of Oakhurst. Out of these opportunities, special relationships have developed, with Christmas remembrances and homemade baked goods becoming tangible signs of friendship

Because of the way the homeless are received at Oakhurst, because the shelter is small enough to foster a true family atmosphere, and, most of all because of “the movement of the Spirit,” in Ann Connor’s words, there have been small successes.

Ms. Connor relates the story of a young man who was out of work and down on his luck. He had remained at the Oakhurst shelter “all the way through one winter,” she remembers. Eventually returning to his wife and children in Mobile he found a job and later called the folks at Oakhurst to say “thank you.”

“People do change here,” Ann Connors believes, and the change occurs not only in the hearts of those who are sheltered.

“We have all benefited at least as much if not more than the men who come to the shelter,” she says, adding a personal credo: “I’m not trying to make these people who I am. I’m just trying to give them a place of sanctuary.”

This year marks the first in which Oakhurst has opened its doors to a year-round ministry to the homeless. When it began, only the months deemed harshest were covered – November through April. With a commitment to a full-time shelter, the Oakhurst community has stretched its arms even wider, challenging others to do the same.

“We are called to feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, visit those in prison,” Ann Connor says, emphasizing that at the same time we cannot judge those who do not answer this call.

But for those active in ministering to the homeless, she feels the command is clear; “We don’t have an option. We are told to do this. It will mean life or death for those on the street – and for us.”