Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, October 22, 1995 TAG: 9510200015
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CODY LOWE
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Barring some extraordinary intervention, however, reality always demands our attendance.
In the last few weeks, the residents of Roanoke's Justice House seem to have been caught in that world of semi-dream, where the sweetness of the vision is challenged by the bitterness of the "real" world.
In a matter of weeks or months, it seems likely that Justice House will exist only in our memories, the phantom image of a decade-long experiment in liberation theology and socialist politics.
Few of those who still crowd the Elm Avenue apartments known as Justice House were ever full participants in David Hayden's mission of founding of a community of poor people who would share their poverty in dignity, determining their own futures.
Hayden, you may recall, started the Justice House/Justice Church when he was still a Mennonite minister in the mid-1980s. He challenged government, private charity and organized religion with a confrontational attitude that both fascinated and repelled much of mainstream society.
Even when the church took away its recognition of his ministry, he continued to fight for - and win - concessions for the people who sought him out for shelter and esteem.
Finally, some would say unavoidably, the time came when even David Hayden's iron constitution collapsed under the weight of feeling personally responsible for all of the Roanoke Valley's poor and homeless.
After a decade of leadership, he left Justice House in January, he says with the understanding that some of those agencies he once vilified would support the struggling "community."
Pointing fingers now seems counterproductive for people who are about to greet the hard face of winter. Most of them seem to be looking for help with the move to new quarters, new standard housing with working plumbing and garbage collection and heat.
There are surely many in the Roanoke Valley who have breathed a sigh of relief knowing Hayden isn't around to deliver animal dung to press conferences, or to shout down clerics in their own churches. They will smugly say "good riddance" and "told you so."
But I'm not so sure, after covering Hayden and Justice House for the better part of the last decade, that those reactions are fair.
Clearly, the Justice House that Hayden envisioned never fully became reality.
There were some long-time residents at the apartments, but over the years, even the most faithful, those who bought into Hayden's theology and politics, eventually moved away.
Many blamed Hayden's dictatorial management style. Others returned to old patterns of drug abuse or crime. A few just decided it was time to move on.
Most of those I've talked to had never really loosened their embrace of the capitalist goals of good wages, dependable cars and nice houses. And over the years, the majority of those who sought the hospitality of Justice House were looking only for temporary shelter from life's storms, not a lifestyle.
Hayden's vision of a brotherhood and sisterhood of people who eschewed material wealth and dedicated themselves to the alleviation of the suffering of the poorest of the poor may never really have had a chance in our culture.
But whatever the reasons for the decline of Justice House, it would be a mistake to assess its existence as a total failure.
Over the years, Justice House provided shelter and food for uncounted people who otherwise might have gone cold and hungry.
It provided a transitional living space for many families in crises, who just needed a place for a couple of months until they could get on their feet again.
Most significantly, perhaps, Justice House provided a voice for poor and homeless people who had never had one.
To be sure, there are many fine public and private organizations and agencies in the Roanoke Valley that do a good job of serving as advocates for the poor and the homeless. But the people doing the talking are almost always folks who have never been poor or homeless.
At Justice House, there was a platform for people who had always felt powerless and voiceless. In unity, they gained strength and influence.
It's true that Hayden did most of the talking and we can argue about how truly impoverished he may have been. But he was not the only speaker.
One of the most influential voices at Justice House was "the other Hayden," Suzanne. Though she and David divorced several years ago, she continued to play a vital role as the acting on-site manager of the Justice House apartment complex. She solicited financial assistance, donations of food, and other help in the never-ending series of crises the residents faced. Though often unnoticed in the shadow of her high-profile husband, Suzanne Hayden was a twin pillar with David Hayden supporting the Justice House superstructure.
She was unable to continue in that role after a stroke in June 1992.
But the most important voices came from the residents. At numerous press conferences, they got a chance to speak up for themselves. They sometimes vented a general frustration and anger at government and social-service agencies and the media. They told stories of tragedy and misfortune that gave a face to poverty.
Sometimes the stories actually were counterproductive, feeding the stereotypical view that poor people devise their own misery.
But through Justice House, they attained a voice that the whole Roanoke Valley heard, even if most of us didn't like what we were hearing.
It's hard to see, and its durability is debatable, but even if Justice House doesn't exist next month, it has left its mark on the Roanoke Valley.
We are still seeking responses to last week's Back Pew column on the death penalty? Is it just? Should we keep it or discard it? Responses should be mailed to The Back Pew, The Roanoke Times, P.O. Box 2491, Roanoke 24010; or sent by e-mail to roatimesinfi.net.
by CNB