I love me some Grand Rapids, MI. It’s a fantastic place with many opportunities, sights, sounds, good eats, and quality people. I enjoy the variety Grand Rapids brings and the way it complements the style of life that West Michigan is known for. Like many other people in GR, I certainly enjoy the fact that GR not only hosts an incredible event such as Art Prize; it also is home to many different breweries that define themselves on distinct traits and tastes. I love being able to go to Griffins games, Whitecaps games, swing dance in Rosa Parks Circle, take a carriage ride down Ottawa Ave, sledding in the winter and swimming in the summer at Richmond Park, and being close to other amenities that are only a few miles down the road such as the beautiful beach at Grand Haven and getting lost in some good country music at Birthday Bash at the 131 Motorsports Park in Martin. Grand Rapids has so many good things about it that the people who live here immediately fall in love with the city and it’s people.
Being downtown so often has shown me just how much potential this great city has to offer. It also, however, enlightens me on a few things that a few of us who have grown up in the suburbs fail to see. Although the restaurants, bars, and stores are packed on any given night, unfortunately so are the streets. The thing about Grand Rapids that is different than any other city is that the homeless people here are so good at masking their homelessness. Although the streets aren’t packed with obvious homeless individuals, there are many more that fail to meet our eyes. They don’t live in boxes, beg on the corners, push carts around full of random items. Instead, they hide themselves in the nooks and crannies of places we city folk and suburbanites don’t even think exist.
The above picture is the point I want you to understand. What do you see? Is it a bunch of people waiting in line at a coffee shop? How about a restaurant? Is there an event taking place inside that these people want to see? This picture was actually taken in front of God’s Kitchen off Division St. This picture is of people who are either in severe poverty or homeless lined up to get a meal. What I want you to notice, though, is the mood of these people. As you can probably already tell, the weather isn’t all that pretty. It’s cold. Very cold. In fact, it was below zero when this photo was taken. But somehow, though all the disparity that has been going on in their life, they continue to build a community with each other. What makes this picture so intriguing is that these people have more than likely been to the lowest of lows in their respective lives, but actively engage in building community with other homeless individuals around them. This picture only serves as a snapshot as what I and many people in the Grand Rapids area have seen out of the people in the poverty level bracket here in Grand Rapids. It seems that whenever you see someone living on the streets in GR, they aren’t alone. They are usually with 2-3 other people, working together to survive until the next day. That’s why sometimes difficult to distinguish whether or not the people are homeless or not. Regardless, I find this illustration to be very enlightening. How is it that these people of this city find a way to cling to each other through the bad times? How is it that these people have more of a sense of community than we who have it a little bit better than they do? The fact that the homeless here in GR have this sort of response to times of adversity makes me love this city even more.
However, I am a bit uneasy about going to other parts of the globe that may not have this sort of response to times of turmoil. I consider myself very fortunate not to have grown up in a city saturated in crime and murder, but I remain unsure of how I will respond when exposed to a city or even a group of people that don’t have the same response as the people of this city do. My squad and I are guaranteed to encounter people who would meet well below the poverty line in our time during our trip. We are completely unaware of how these people will react to their current status while we are there. There may be times of unexpected crime and certain responses these people will give that may threaten our safety and our positive experiences. I have had a bit of experience with times of high tension in the city, but have never seen an explosion occur. Throughout this past week, I have been in contact with a few people from my squad about their life experiences and how they have never experienced city living and the dynamics of what city life is like. I have had extensive city life experiences, but I can’t help but feel like these experiences are far from what life is like not just in other cities here in the U.S., but in the world.
I ask that you pray for peace and understanding if in fact our squad were to be exposed to that sort of environment at any point in time on the race. We need as much of it as possible, because although Grand Rapids may have prepared me for city life, it may have not prepared me for the worst.
– N.J. Shear
