03: What It's Really Like to Be Homeless with Chris Christian

On any given night in America, more than 550,000 people are homeless. 

To put that in perspective—that’s more than 8 times the capacity of Gillette Stadium, home of the SuperBowl Champion New England Patriots. It’s more than the number of people who live in all of Sacramento, California, or Tucson, Arizona.   

That number includes men, women and children—each with a unique story. 

And while the number of those who are experiencing homelessness has declined by some 100,000 people since 2007, there is still work to be done. And it’s work The Salvation Army, for one, is committed to. 

That’s why we turn to people like Chris Christian. 

Chris was homeless on the streets of Santa Barbara, California, for nearly 5 years. He and his wife slept in their van—and eventually a tent. 

Chris was a lawyer for more than 20 years prior to that. But he was called to ministry—and he found it in the midst of homelessness. 

Today on the show, Chris shares what it really means to be homeless, how it feels and what the hardest part about it is. He talks about his own crisis of faith in feeling abandoned—and how the stories of struggle and pain that we see reflected in so many biblical characters became his story. 

He reveals insight and compassion for those without a place to call home and he lets us in on the way out of homelessness. 

Find show notes for this episode and more at caringmagazine.org/podcast.