What do we mean by social displacement?

Homelessness not only occurs when someone loses a dwelling place. It happens when abandonment, despair, and feeling out of place all come together in a loss of social and cultural identity. Homelessness is a state of being without any sense of place or effective means of orientation. Homelessness understood in this way is more than houselessness. Homelessness is an all-consuming displacement and a deeply traumatic experience. This is why we prefer the term social displacement.

Social displacement results in broader concrete realities that move beyond traditional categories of homelessness. We understand these concrete realities from Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 25:31-46. There he says, “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat; I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink; I was a stranger and you took me in; I was naked and you clothed me; I was sick and you took care of me; I was in prison and you visited me.” We believe the six descriptions of neighbors Jesus mentions—the hungry, thirsty, stranger, naked, sick, and imprisoned—translate into twelve concrete realities of social displacement experienced by our neighbors in our U.S. context. We call this the Twelve Descriptions of Social Displacement.

    1. Houseless
    2. Insecurely Housed
    3. Subsidized Housing
    4. Substance Use Challenges
    5. Differently-Abled Intellectually, Developmentally, Physically, and Medically 
    6. Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated
    7. People of Marginalized Cultures
    8. Unaccompanied Youth and Aging Out of Foster Care
    9. Senior and Widowed 
    10. Domestic Violence Survivors
    11. Immigrant
    12. Refugee 

We believe everyone deserves a home.

By home we mean something more than a house. A house is a building; a home is a dwelling place. A house is made of wood, brick, mud, or thatch; a home is made of stories, relationships, and memories. Houses can be bought and sold, but home is never up for sale. Home is a bounded place that provides both definition and openness, structure and flexibility. It is a place and space, a web of stories, symbols, rituals, and relationships where a common life is cultivated and human flourishing happens. To us, home is a place of inhabitation where life is oriented toward a life-giving narrative and where restoration is made possible in every human dimension—socially, emotionally, cognitively, spiritually, and physically.

Therefore, when it comes to housing, we cannot continue to do it in a traditional way with a traditional understanding. We help others find a house, but we also introduce them to a web of hospitable relationships that can restore them socially, physically, cognitively, emotionally, and spiritually. 

“Housing must also include a web of hospitable relationships that can restore them to a place of holistic sufficiency.” 

~ Fred Liggin IV, The Floor Plan, p. 18-19

Stories of Gracious Hospitality

The best way to catch a glimpse of how the 3e Restoration Process transitions neighbors living through social displacement toward holistic sufficiency is to listen to their stories.

COLLINS

COMMON GROUND CHURCH

LONNIE