Constance Abbey’s mission with (not to) the homeless
Ministry starts early at Constance Abbey. By 7:10 on a weekday morning, a group of neighbors moves chairs around the covered concrete porch of a house on Hamlin Place near Downtown Memphis.
Inside, a 30-minute worship service is about to begin. Meanwhile, a 40-cup coffee pot perks.
“The chapel was the first room we set aside,” said Roger Wolcott, who founded the nonprofit ministry with his wife Margery. Regular morning prayer seven days a week and evening prayer on weekdays bookend the days.
Following the Rivendell model of Christian community and hospitality, morning prayer consists of scripture readings from throughout the Bible and either a homily, a reading about a saint’s life, or the Eucharist. Morning prayer welcomes ministry volunteers, visitors, and neighbors – as area street people are called.
By 8 a.m. the benediction has been pronounced and the coffee, fresh and hot, is set outside on the porch. The day begins.
Constance Abbey serves the area of St. Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral bounded by Poplar, Danny Thomas and Alabama streets, and beyond. The region contains loiterers, loud traffic, a lot of concrete and blight. The ministry began in 2013. A nonprofit, it is funded by donations and grants.
The neighbors are mainly men, a mixture of the homeless, mentally ill, drug-addicted, and some making a new life. Yes, they come for warm coffee, shade, camaraderie, and just for a place to go. Some, however, like Jeremy Bishop, 41, also come because Constance Abbey is constant, reliable, and welcomes all.
“This place keeps me calm and level-headed,” Bishop said. When asked about the colorful tattoos on both arms, some depicting warfare between angels and demons, he explained he got them while in prison because there was “nothing to do but sleep and get tattoos.” Bishop, a large man, works as a bouncer at a Beale Street bar. “I’m trying to get my life and family back together,” he said.
The Wolcotts, both 70, came to Memphis nine years ago. Married for 42 years, they had professional careers in San Francisco, Roger as an investment banker and Margery as a nurse. They are lifelong Episcopalians.
They moved from the Bay Area to Oxford, Miss., bought property, and suffered in the 2008 recession. Ten years later, they smile wanly about that experience and joke, “We lost almost everything except God’s call.”
For many years both had felt called by God to minister to street people. “We talked to experts, those who minister to the homeless, and they all said that to be effective, you need to live in the neighborhood,” Margery said.
While in California, the couple thought seriously about living among the homeless, “but there was not a lot of support among the housed for that type of lifestyle,” Margery said. ‘The
housed,’ she explained, are those with homes who are not themselves homeless.
They began visiting St. Mary’s Cathedral. Over a period of time, the parish’s Wednesday morning Eucharist service and breakfast has grown from two parishioners and a priest to a boisterous mix of 100-200 parishioners, neighborhood folk, and professionals from downtown and the nearby medical community. They worship, mingle and eat together.
“People were ready for our ministry here in Memphis,” the Wolcotts said. Roger clarified that ‘the housed’ were ready for it.”
Roger shared a profound experience that occurred at St. Mary’s in 2010. He said he distinctly heard God’s voice say, ‘You can do it.’ “I immediately argued,” Roger recalled. “I said, ‘I’m afraid. I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to do it.’”
Yet he knew he had heard God’s clear direction for him and Margery. He’d heard those same words decades earlier concerning another important decision -- donating one of his kidneys. “You can do it,” the voice said. “His kidney was a perfect match,” Margery said.
The Wolcotts found rental housing close to St. Mary’s. “We came and had no plan. But there had been a lot, a lot of prayer,” Roger said. They started with one duplex and now have two. The Wolcotts’ private quarters are upstairs next door on Hamlin. Male ministry volunteers, all of whom have been homeless, also live in the two houses.
“My kitchen looks out on a pawn shop,” Margery said. The identical houses are cluttered with drop-offs like clean clothes and bottled water. “People constantly bring laundry supplies and food.”
Constance Abbey is named for Constance, an Episcopal nun who served Memphis during the Yellow Fever epidemic of 1878, until she herself became a casualty. The abbey is affiliated with but independent of nearby St. Mary’s, where the Wolcotts are members.
Rev. Andy Andrews, dean of the cathedral, said he’s impressed with the Wolcotts’ ministry of hospitality. “They are servants to those who have very little,” he said.
Constance Abbey’s ministry hours are 8-10 a.m. every weekday but Wednesday and 3-5 p.m. all weekdays. Tuesday night there’s a big dinner with six regulars and four invited guests.
What do they provide? “Whatever’s needed!” the couple said.
Often it’s an immediate need — a shower, clean laundry, fresh clothes, a PB&J sandwich, or friendship. Talks on the porches are common because of the pretty view of the trees the landlord planted. Neighbors rest and feel welcome.
The homeless walk constantly. They keep moving because they have no permanent place to stay. They often wear ill-fitting or inadequate shoes. The most popular items in the clothes closet are shoes, socks, and underwear.
The Wolcotts learned ministry by trial, goofs, and redirects.”Showers started because a neighbor in a crack house said he and his friends wanted to be clean,” Roger said.
That led to a clothes closet. “Often a man will visit the clothes closet, give me his laundry, and take a shower. Getting all that done can take a morning,” Margery said. She and volunteers do four loads daily except Wednesdays. Margery also picks up the weekly laundry of a neighbor with cancer and returns it clean and folded.
The Wolcotts also help their neighbors with medical appointments and court appearances. At times, waiting in court takes multiple days, but it’s worth it if a neighbor’s sentence is shortened or treatment becomes an option. “It helps to have someone with a suit and tie in the courtroom with you,” Roger said.
When people steal from the ministry, the Wolcotts address it immediately. Roger will question the neighbor. The confrontation’s motive, however, is not punitive. “Maybe there’s a need we can meet,” he said. “Maybe it becomes an opportunity to get the neighbor into health care or treatment. Street people are not used to others wanting to talk to them.”
Roger tries not to let the conversation end until the neighbor says yes to some way that the ministry can help immediately. “I’m good at asking questions,” he smiled. Instead of giving money or onsite housing, the ministry finds other ways to serve a neighbor’s needs.
The Wolcotts clearly are learning as they go. They learned that lemonade is popular because addicts crave sweetness. They discovered the homeless have few life plans and little sense of day or time. To help with time, they placed an electric clock inside a window on the Abbey’s porch.
The couple handles the demands of ministry differently. Margery makes more lists and does more work. Roger gets on his road bike and tours the city.
Another neighbor is Markeith Humphrey, 20. An artist, he comes to Constance Abbey because “they allow me creative space.” His art graces a St. Mary’s bookmark.
Constance Abbey’s ministry resembles the description Jesus gave of his own calling in Luke 4:16-21. It involves serving the poor, prisoners, those who are blind and ill, and the oppressed; it preaches the good news and proclaims the Lord’s favor.
The Wolcotts and their volunteers serve transient neighbors who routinely, endlessly roam the streets, shuffling between concrete openings and limping through this stage of their lives.
“We seek to give a fleeting moment when that neighbor does not feel oppressed,” Roger said. “Listening is the most important part.”
Robin Gallaher Branch, a Fulbright scholar, is an adjunct professor in the department of religion and philosophy at Christian Brothers University. She can be reached at rbranch3@cbu.edu.