Lancaster community leader spends 24 hours on a bench to raise awareness for homelessness

The Spark

Jack Crowley, President of the Water Street Rescue Mission in Lancaster. Just a few weeks ago, Crowley marked World Homeless Day by spending 24 hours outside on a bench in support of those who are currently unhoused.

“The idea is not to imitate or pretend that we're experiencing what our friends who are unhoused actually are going through, “said Crowley.

The demonstration created an opportunity for different organizations to come together and brainstorm how they could better serve the homeless population. Crowley livestreamed his entire experience.

“We had conversations the whole 24 hours. I got like a four-hour window in the middle of the night where it was quiet. I didn't really sleep because it was cold out and I was on an uncomfortable bench. But we had tons of conversations with leaders from across the community, “said Crowley.

Crowley gained some new perspective when he camped out all night. He says the experience was way more than just sleeping in the cold. During his demonstration, a former visitor at the mission visited him. Through conversation, Crowley learned a new meaning to empathy.

“One of the guests who visited me on the bench is a gentleman named David who is homeless. He's staying with us right now at Water Street. And he's doing well. But he actually went through a cycle where he had been with us for three months and then he left and he was back on the street. And one of the things he combated, we were joking about my experience. So is this the morning after I'd been on the bench for 18 hours and I was sore, and I was tired, and he was he was teasing me about that. And I said, David, I know this doesn't compare to what you experienced during those two months. And he's like, Yeah, you're right. And he said, the biggest thing for him was that within 24 hours of leaving Water Street and being back on the street, sleeping on the sidewalks, he said, I knew that I was either invisible or inhuman to every person I encountered that people didn't even want to see me talk about walking down the sidewalk and people not like. Kind of ignoring him, not moving out of his way, even though he had a whole bunch of stuff he was carrying, just kind of pretending he wasn't even there. And then others who looked at him but looked at him with disgust and looked at him with condescension. And he's like, within 24 hours of leaving Water Street, I knew I was either invisible or inhuman. And the only thing that kind of carried him through those two months was he knew that he could come back to Water Street and that people would love him and that he had a church that he went to every Sunday, “said Crowley.

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