In the News: Bay Area Reporter

Lutherans receive LGBT pastors

Published 07/22/2010

by Matthew S. Bajko

m.bajko@ebar.com

	The Reverend Jeff Johnson

Twenty years ago two San Francisco Lutheran congregations ordained a lesbian couple and a gay man as pastors in defiance of their denomination's ban against non-celibate LGBT people becoming clergy.

The two churches' decision in 1990 set off a two-decade fight over the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America's anti-gay policy. While the congregations were ultimately ejected from the ELCA for their decisions, 15 additional LGBT people became Lutheran pastors in the ensuing years through an extraordinary ordination process.

Although their local congregations considered them to be pastors, in the eyes of the national Lutheran Church they were deemed unofficial clergy. Church leaders subsequently disciplined many of the churches that ordained them.

Last year the national Lutheran Church revised its policies and dropped the requirement that LGBT pastors need to be celibate. This weekend six LGBT pastors ordained extraordinarily and two pastors who had been dismissed from the ELCA clergy roster will be received as full-fledged pastors in the church at a ceremony Sunday, July 25 at St. Mark's Lutheran Church in San Francisco.

"I think this is a very significant step for the church, which has been in this two-decade process of studying gay and lesbian people and talking about finding ways to include us. That process has now come to an end and the church has decided that LGBT people are to be welcomed fully as leaders and members of the church, so it is a huge step that the church has taken," said the Reverend Jeff Johnson, whose ordination 20 years ago as an assistant pastor at the city's First United Lutheran Church sparked the internal dialogue within the national Lutheran Church.

Johnson, 48, now lives in Oakland and is the pastor at University Lutheran Chapel in Berkeley. He will be taking part in the formal Rite of Reception service this weekend presided over by the Reverend Mark Holmerud, fourth bishop of the Sierra Pacific Synod, which covers northern California and northern Nevada.

"I am deeply grateful to the [extraordinary] pastors, and the two pastors who were removed from the ELCA roster, for their grace and good will in being a part of this process," Holmerud said in a statement about the ceremony. He added that the actions of the 2009 ELCA Churchwide Assembly "have brought us to a new day."

At the Sierra Pacific Synod assembly in May, Holmerud lifted a public censure and admonition placed on the Berkeley church in 2000 after it called Johnson as its pastor even though he was not on the ELCA clergy roster. At the meeting Johnson was also elected to serve on the regional synod's council pending his participation in this weekend's rite.

The other extraordinary Lutheran pastors taking part in the service are the Reverends Craig Minich, pastor of youth ministries at the Oakland-Berkeley Lutheran Youth Program; Dawn Roginski, pastor of parish programs at St. Francis Lutheran Church; Megan Rohrer, executive director of Welcome, which feeds the homeless in San Francisco; Paul R. Brenner at St. Francis Lutheran Church; and Sharon Stalkfleet with Lutheran Ministry to Nursing Homes in Oakland.

"I think you can't go through this kind of wilderness walking in the church and not be stronger because of it," said Rohrer, 30, who identifies as a transgender dyke and was extraordinarily ordained in 2006 by four San Francisco Lutheran churches. "It feels like coming out to your parents and having them react really poorly for a long time and then one day they change their mind."

The two pastors being reinstated this weekend are the Reverends Ross D. Merkel, pastor of St. Paul Lutheran Church in Oakland, and Steven P. Sabin, pastor of Christ Church Lutheran in San Francisco. In 1998 the ELCA removed Sabin from its clergy roster after he admitted to being in a committed, same-sex relationship while serving as pastor at Lord of Life Lutheran Church in Ames, Iowa.

"For two decades, many have been grieved and alienated by the ELCA's exclusion of gay and lesbian pastors blessed with loving spouses. I hope and pray that they can, like me, lay aside the hurts and take hope from the gracious power of God to renew and direct the church into evermore faithful and effective proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ," stated Sabin.

Retired Revered James DeLange, who was the senior pastor at St. Francis Lutheran Church in 1990, called this weekend's service a "vindication" for those who fought against the church's discriminatory policies and the beginning of the healing process for many Lutherans impacted by that struggle.

"For those of us who have been just staying with the struggle and have tried to work to try to change the policy this is a vindication of our efforts," said DeLange, who is straight and chairs the San Francisco Interfaith Council. "I am just glad I lived long enough to see the change of policy."

As for the lesbian couple his church ordained the same day as Johnson, the Reverends Ruth Frost and Phyllis Zillhart, DeLange said they now live in Minneapolis and are expected to have their own rite of reception sometime this fall.

Also this Sunday St. Francis will vote on whether to return to the ELCA. In a nearly unanimous vote, the 300 delegates at the Sierra Pacific Synod assembly this spring adopted a resolution inviting both First United and St. Francis to rejoin the national church. First United has yet to schedule a similar vote.

Johnson expressed mixed emotions about how long it has taken the Lutheran Church to fully embrace LGBT pastors.

"I think that the church's taking this step does not change the difficult things the church has done over the past two decades, so it is very important for people to tell the truth about the discrimination they have taken part in as we celebrate this momentous, wonderful happening," he said.

The formal Rite of Reception for the pastors is open to the public. It will begin at 4 p.m. Sunday, July 25 at St. Mark's Lutheran Church, the corner of Franklin and O'Farrell Streets in San Francisco.

You'll find the original here.

In the News: Argus Leader

Callison: Embracing the Church

Transgender minister to be received as ELCA pastor

Jill Callison • jcalliso@argusleader.com • July 22, 2010

evious Page

When Darlene Audus was a teenager, her Lutheran father discouraged his daughter from dating Roman Catholic boys.

She didn't understand that kind of prejudice then, and the 76-year-old Clark woman today doesn't understand the prejudice directed at her granddaughter, Megan Rohrer, a lesbian.

"I back her all the way," Audus says. "She's a super gal."

Rohrer, 30, is the first openly transgender Lutheran pastor ordained in the United States. Transgender is an umbrella term for people whose gender identity or gender expression differs from the sex they were assigned at birth. Only a very few choose to change their bodies through hormones or surgery.

On Sunday, Rohrer will be part of the first rite to receive gay pastors into the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

"She's had a tough struggle to get where she's at," says Audus, a retired county auditor. "I'm proud because she kept at it. It would have been easy to give up. But I wished I could protect her from all those things."

"Those things," as Rohrer tells it in a telephone conversation from her home in San Francisco, include horrifying tales.

After graduating from Lincoln High School, Rohrer enrolled at Augustana College. In the aftermath of the 1998 murder of Matthew Shepard, a gay University of Wyoming student, the campus became a hostile place, she says.

"Aggressive football players would knock on my dorm room door and try to turn me into a straight person in violently sexual ways," she says.

In an attempt to exorcise Rohrer's "gay demons," students in her religion class threw holy water on her and sang hymns as she walked to class.

Rohrer moved off campus for three months, fearing for her safety.

But college faculty supported her, Rohrer says, and it also was the place where she discovered her calling and first fell in love.

"I would never wish an unsafe space for anyone, but sometimes having to take a stand helps push a person into a leadership position," she says. "I was able to find the determination to be a pastor in a church that wasn't yet ready to welcome me."

Rohrer entered seminary on the West Coast. She never considered joining a denomination that would welcome her as an openly lesbian pastor.

"Growing up in South Dakota, everything about my culture was Lutheran," she says. "I spoke Lutheran. A lot of the theology Lutherans proclaim and are excited about is kind of the natural way people live. It's hard to leave a culture behind."

Although her home congregation, Hope Lutheran, wouldn't fill out the necessary paperwork to allow Rohrer to pursue her calling, she says, she found support from the South Dakota Synod office.

Rohrer appreciates both sides' honesty.

"When you're in South Dakota, sometimes the person who disagrees with you most is your closest friend because they're honest with you," she says. "In bigger cities, it's different. If you disagree, you don't have to talk again."

Rohrer, who now runs a nonprofit agency for the homeless and serves four churches in San Francisco, was ordained outside the rules of the ELCA in 2006 - an extraordinary ordination. On Sunday, she will become a pastor in the ELCA.

That became possible when in August 2009, representatives of the ELCA voted to allow congregations to call pastors who were in "publicly accountable, lifelong, monogamous same-gender relationships."

Rohrer knows how difficult that vote was for many Lutherans. At the Churchwide Assembly last August, she and a Canton woman who opposed the change would pray together before every vote.

"Even when they're hoping the vote will go the other way, I really think God is bigger than this decision," Rohrer says. "I think our faith lives are bigger than this decision. I'm excited to be part of a diverse church where we can pray together."

Rohrer is in a committed, same-sex relationship and, for the past eight years, has served as a pastor to the homeless.

Many of the homeless she works with come from the Midwest. They left home either because their families rejected them or they assumed if their sexuality became public, they would be shunned.

"They left out of fear and never gave anyone the opportunity to accept them," Rohrer says. "That's another reason I continue to be engaged with congregations in the Midwest. We'll always have homeless as long as people can't openly welcome gay and lesbian people into families, church and school."

Audus could never reject Rohrer.

"It wasn't like you could go, 'That wasn't my granddaughter any more,' " Audus says of learning Rohrer is a lesbian. "It was just that the path would be a little harder."

Rohrer, however, might not agree that the path was any harder for her than anyone else. What she does acknowledge is that this is a world where secrets about sex lead to abuse of power.

"I want to be part of a church that holds me accountable, that asks me tough questions," she says. "I want to be part of a group of pastors that are honest about how they're forming healthy relationships. Being gay or straight doesn't matter. What matters is if you're in a loving relationship."

Jill Callison's column runs Tuesdays and Thursdays. Reach her at 331-2307.

You can find the original story here.

In the News: Mission Local

Feeding the Mission, in the Western Addition
Your reporter squealed like a little girl when she realized she had actually found a potato.

By: Heather Smith | July 8, 2010

It starts with a Lutheran Church on fire. St. Paulus at Eddy and Gough burned to the ground in 1995 and has remained a vacant lot ever since. Then, this year, an improbable alliance came together. Case Garver, a 22-year-old Lutheran Volunteer Corps member from Ohio, and Megan Rohrer, a local pastor, were negotiating with local churches to open up unused property in the city for farming.

It was more than just a quaint idea — Rohrer is director of Welcome, an organization that deals directly with the poor, and food banks in San Francisco continue to be stretched to their limit. Rohrer secured permission for the St. Paulus lot. Then came the tricky part.

“Neither of us knew anything about gardening,” says Garver. “Then we found Tree.”

Tree knew how to garden. A Mission resident whose history stretched back decades, Tree had been growing and harvesting food from gardens mostly in the neighborhood, cultivating a group of local gardens and distributing the bounty to a variety of groups. In 2008 he began the Free Farm Stand at Parque Niños Unidos at 23rd and Treat. “People trust him,” says Lauren Anderson, an artist and gardener who runs the foraging nonprofit Produce to the People. “Which means a lot. It’s not easy to invite someone into your backyard, even if it’s just to pick fruit.”

Tree agreed to help run the farm with Anderson and some other nonprofit groups, with the idea that some of the produce would go to the Free Farm Stand in the Mission. The Lutheran synod that owns the church site agreed to cover the water and electrical bills. And so the farming began.

Your average burned-out foundation is not necessarily ideal farmland. The site was sunny, and as Garver puts it, the soil was equal parts sand, KFC buckets, Häagen-Dazs containers and used syringes. When asked if the crew had to use special safety gloves to clear out the soil, Garver deadpans, “It depends on how you define ‛special.’ Or ‛safe.’”

“We did have gloves,” he adds.

“There are so many different urban agriculture groups,” says Anderson. “They all believe in slightly different things: Teaching people how to garden. Getting people community garden plots. Greening the city. Working with youth. Our priority [was] getting food out of the ground and to the low-income people who needed it. The secret was manure. Lots and lots of manure.”

Planting in the basement of a burned-out building turned out to have its advantages — the plants were sheltered from San Francisco’s gale-force winds by the remaining walls. The terrible soil is producing more food than anyone expected.The first harvest at the plot they named The Free Farm — 5.5 pounds of produce — came out of the garden on April 11, just a little over three months after work began. A second mini-stand was established outside and began passing out food to residents of the immediate neighborhood. By the end of June, the free farmers had harvested 784 pounds of produce in six months, the most of any garden in the network supplying the Free Farm Stand.

On a Wednesday afternoon, a volunteer sits outside the farm behind two galvanized tubs of gargantuan, prehistoric-looking collard greens, offering them to slightly confused passersby. The quirks of the landscape are still being discovered — carrots have been challenging, collards and cabbage have done astonishingly well. There is fortune in this: Collards have been one of the most popular crops in both neighborhoods. Attempts to push kale have been met by resistance.

Inside, volunteers are elbow-deep in the dirt, feeling around for the first crop of potatoes. They range from a very enthusiastic visitor from southern Japan to Steve Pulliam, a recent transplant from Atlanta who found the place while walking his dog. When he began, he had no gardening experience. Five months later he is speaking confidently about duck droppings.

“I wanted to be outside. In the sunshine. Not around kids,” says Sarah Hale, a schoolteacher. “So much has happened this year: Haiti, the Gulf. I wanted to do something where I knew that I was doing good. Something small, and effective.”

Anderson, meanwhile, admits to aspirations beyond the small. “This is a terrible, terrible analogy,” she says, jokingly. “But we’re trying to decide if we want to turn this into a franchise.”

Letters for my Brothers raises $200 for NCTE in less than a month!

Royalties from the three weeks of sales for Letters For My Brothers: Transitional Wisdom in Retrospect enabled us our second royalty check for $100 (for a total of $200) to the National Center for Transgender Equality. %20 of the proceeds for Letters For My Brothers will be contributed to NCTE.

The National Center for Transgender Equality is a national social justice organization devoted to ending discrimination and violence against transgender people through education and advocacy on national issues of importance to transgender people.

By empowering transgender people and our allies to educate and influence policymakers and others, NCTE facilitates a strong and clear voice for transgender equality in our nation's capital and around the country.

Thanks to all who bought books this first month! You have helped us to prove that creativity can make a real difference in the world!

More than 783.57 pounds of food grown!

I haven't blogged about our gardens in a while because I've been so busy. But, I wanted to send an update that 783.57 pounds of free produce have been given away from the Free Farm. Bethlehem Lutheran has also been enjoying harvests lately.

Beyond the food, we've also worked with more than 566 volunteers in the garden this year.

I'm someone who is usually moved more by personal stories than numbers, but these numbers are very impressive.

Thanks to all the great volunteers and leaders at the Free Farm!

Resume

Megan Rohrer, MDiv, DHL

EDUCATION

• 1994-1998 Lincoln High School in Sioux Falls, SD
• 1998-2001 BA at Augustana College in Sioux Falls SD
• 2002-2003 Student at Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary in Berkeley, CA
• 2004-2005 Master of Divinity from the Pacific School for Religion in Berkeley, CA
• 2009- 2017 Doctorate of Ministry, Pacific School for Religion in Berkeley, CA
• Current- Candidate for PhD in Transformative Studies, California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco, CA

AWARDS:

• 2015 Distinguished Alumni Award, Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley.
• 2014 Award of Merit Winner: LGBT Category for notable artistic and technical productions, Accolade Global Film Competition, for the film Zanderology.
• 2014 The Castro Lions Club, Richard E. Twining Memorial Award, for outstanding service to our community.
• 2014 Honorable Mention, Unsung Hero of Compassion, His Holiness the Dalai Lama
• 2013 Nominee for Historian of the Year, Upcoming Artist of the Year and for the Artistic Film Zanderology, Museum Of Transgender History and Art Awards.
• 2013, Tenderloin Pride Awards, Gangway.
• 2012, August 19th declared "Pastor Megan Rohrer Day" by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.
• 2012 Finalist in Transgender Nonfiction, 24th Annual Lambda Literary Award.
• 2011 Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Palo Alto University for community service.
• 2011 Finalist in the Bay Area Citizen's Citizen of Tomorrow Award. (The Bay Area Citizen is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization providing local coverage of the San Francisco Bay Area for The New York Times.)
• 2010 Winner of Out History's Since Stonewall Local History Competition for the online exhibit Man-i-fest: FTM Mentoring in San Francisco from 1976-2009
• 2007 Honorary Black Belt, Triangle Martial Arts Association, San Francisco, CA

TRAININGS AND CERTIFICATIONS

• Center for Crisis Management: Certified Crisis Chaplain
• Living Works, SafeTALK -Suicide Awareness
•  CA POST:  Law Enforcement Chaplaincy: 40 hours of training designed to prepare prospective and incumbent Law Enforcement Chaplains(LEC) to effectively deliver services to law enforcement personnel, their organizations and the communitiesthey serve.
• California Department of Social Services: California Child Abuse Mandated Reporter Online Training for Clergy and Law Enforcement
•  St. James College Seminary: Certified Professional Chaplain, Graduated with High Honors
• Ashworth College: Certificate in Early Childhood Education, Graduated with Honors
• Law Enforcement Chaplaincy Sacramento: Trauma and Crisis Care
•  Safety Through Training (CA POST Certified): Critical Incident Stress Management
• International Critical Incident Stress Foundation: CISM Practical Review & Update
• Department of Public Health: Disaster Mental Health Training
• Traumatology Institute: Currently completing internship as a Clinical Traumatologist;  Compassion Fatigue Specialist
• 2012 Completed 291 hours of coursework towards the certification process for the California Association of Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Counselors.
• 2011 CPR/AED for the Professional Rescuer and Healthcare Provider, American Red Cross Bay Area.
• 2010 - Received onto the roster of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the Episcopal Diocese of California
• 2008-2011 Somatic Experiencing Training, Foundation for Human Enrichment: 216 hours in how to treat Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
• 2006-2011 Ordained & Rostered Minister, Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries
• 2005 Clinical Hospital Ministry Training, Sojourn Chaplaincy, San Francisco General Hospital, San Francisco, CA
• 2004 Reiki Master, Care Through Touch Institute in San Francisco, CA
• 2003 Nonviolence Facilitator Training, From Violence to Wholeness Curriculum, Pace e Bene, Oakland, CA
• 2001 Counseling Training : 50+ hours including: MABS; safe holdings; sexual abuse; and prevention for sexually active children.

WORK HISTORY

• 2018- Present Community Chaplain Coordinator, San Francisco Police Department
• 2002-Present Executive Director, Welcome- a communal response to poverty, San Francisco, CA 
• 2013-Present Assistant Night Minister, Night Ministry, San Francisco, CA.
• 2010-2017 Contributing Blogger, Living Lutheran, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Chicago, IL
• 2012-2012 Provider and Resource Manager, Project Homeless Connect, San Francisco CA
• 2010-2012 Growing Home Community Garden Manager, Project Homeless Connect [a project of the Department of Public Health and the Mayor's Office], San Francisco, CA (Growing Home Community Garden won the 2010 NEN Best Community Challenge Grant Project)
• 2001-2002 Child Care Counselor, Children's Home Society , Sioux Falls, SD
• 1998-2001 Summer Conference Staff at Augustana College, Sioux Falls, SD

SELECTED PRESENTATIONS, PUBLICATIONS, AND CURRICULUMS

• 2014 Speaker, Sharing Local Histories,Creating Change, National LGBT Equality Conference.
• 2013 A Giving Season, Café (December 2013).  
• 2013  What Kind of Giver Are You? Café (December 2013).
• 2012 Keynote, Transgender Religious Leaders Summit, a project of the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies at the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, CA.
• 2012 Speaker, Creating an Effective Youth Ministry Program Inclusive of LGBTQ Young People, Youth Faith and Family Conference, Coalition of Welcoming Congregations, a project of the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies at the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, CA.
• 2012 "Advocacy: Faith Meets Action," Café (June Issue).
• 2012 Keynote, Transgender Unity Banquet, Houston, TX.
• 2012 Featured Speaker, Equality Talks Workshop – Human Rights Campaign, Western Regional LGBTQIA Conference, University of California, Merced and the University of the Pacific, Stockton, CA.
• 2012 Presenter, A Faithful Response to LGBTQ Homeless Youth, Creating Change, National LGBT Equality Conference.
• 2012 Panel Speaker, The Pleasures and Perils of LGBTQ History, the American Historical Association Conference.
• 2011 With Open Arms, Documentary.
• 2011 Panel Speaker, LGBTQ Youth: Improving Our Response and Gaining Community Support, National Alliance to End Homelessness Conference
• 2011 Panel Speaker, LGBT Homelessness & Youth: Religious Advocacy and Accountability, HRC Clergy Call
• 2011 Photo Essay, Everyday Drag: The Aesthetics of Gender and the Pressure to Perform, Briarpatch Magazine, May/June.
• 2011 Co-editor, Letters For My Brothers, Wilgefortis
• 2010 Co-editor, Designer and Contributor, Vanguard Revisited Magazine. (exhibited in the 2011 National Queer Art's Festival's Exhibit - Queer it Yourself: Tools for Survival)
• 2010 Associate Curator, Our Vast Queer Past, GLBT Historical Society Museum
• 2010 Street Power: The Story of San Francisco's Vanguard, National Queer Arts Festival, GLBT Historical Society
• 2010 Curator, Man-i-fest: FTM Mentoring in San Francisco from 1976-2009 (online exhibit on Out History and physical exhibit at the GLBT Historical Society)
• 2010 Queer Public Histories of the Tenderloin, Queer Studies Lecture Series, Sonoma State University
• 2009 Queerly Lutheran, Wilgefortis
• 2009 Finding Your Spiritual Path, Philadelphia Trans-Health Summit
• 2009 Polk Street Stories Project, Hobos to Homeless Exhibit: California Historical Society
• 2009 Faith and Gender: A Congregational Guide for Transgender Advocacy, Facilitator for the Human Rights Campaign
• 2009 Out in Season: The Church Year through Transgender Eyes, Online sermon resources for pastors following the lectionary to talk about transgender themes and issues, Human Rights Campaign
• 2009 “Queering Soteriology,” Stand Boldly: Post Modern Lutheran Theology- A collection of essays from young Lutheran Theologians. Three Trees Press
• 2008 Queer Spirituality, Class taught at the Faith and Feminism conference at HerChurch/Ebenezer Lutheran in San Francisco
• 2008 Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries – Creative Ministry to, for and led by queer people, Lutheran’s Concerned North America biennial assembly
• 2008 “Eye of God,” Schmap Berkeley Guide: Fifth Edition, – Photograph.
• 2008 Testimony - Documentary intersecting faith and coming out stories.
• 2007 Out of the Extraordinary: Benefit Album for Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries- Megan co-produced, contributed and designed this CD that includes Bread for the Journey, the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus, Dakota Road, Jonathon Rundman, Carrie Newcomer and the Indigo Girls and raised more than $7,000
• 2007 Bound for Glory- Solo CD where Megan handled all aspects of production and creation.
• 2007 Simul: Lutheran Voices in Poetry, Ed. Odland, Mark, Xulon Press
• 2005 Gender Plurality and the Church: Serving Transgendered Individuals in Communities of Faith, Pacific School of Religion’s Earl Lectures
• 1998 Homosexuality, the Church and Reconciliation, Augustana Symposium, Augustana College, Sioux Falls, SD
• 1997 The World Would Be a Better Place if Everyone Were Naked, American Academy of Religion, Luther Seminary, Minneapolis MN

Community Work and Activities:

• 2014 - Present   Member of the LGBT Advisory Committee of the San Francisco Human Rights Commission
• 2010 - Present   Founding Board Member, SF CARES
• 2007-2011 Member of the Board of Directors for Sojourn Chaplaincy at San Francisco General Hospital
• 2006-2010 Director of Candidacy for Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries
• 2007-2008 Communications Chair Covenant Circle Member for Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries
• 2006 Tenderloin Community Health Fair Planning Committee Member
• 2007 Member of the Steering Committee for the San Francisco Trans March
• 2006-2007 Member of the Goodsoil Consensus Circle
• 2000-2001 Member of the Board of Directors for Pride on the Prairie, Sioux Falls, SD

In the News: San Francisco Chronicle

Redeeming homeless

Editor -- In the Oct. 29 article by Kevin Fagan, "The city's cost of a life redeemed," the author wrote that the "rejection of help is a key reason there are so many homeless people on the nation's streets." They believe that it is the homeless who reject to receive help.

However, as a minister who listens to the stories of the homeless every day, lives on the streets regularly to see what it is really like for the homeless and has served the homeless for more than four years as the director of the Welcome Ministry in the Polk Gulch, I have seen that it is more often hospitals, social service agencies and the government that refuse services to the homeless.

In fact, if Project Homeless Connect would release their numbers, they would have to admit that of the more than 1,500 people that come to project connect begging for help, only three individuals are given the chance to work with the Homeless Outreach Team that doles out the housing services. Despite these low odds, the homeless camp out in front of the doors of the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium for more than three days for the opportunity to get into the SROs leased by the city (that according to federal standards still makes them considered homeless).

Vicar MEGAN ROHRER, director
The Welcome Ministry
San Francisco