Faith, Justice and Homelessness with Chinese-Canadian Social Worker, Lorraine Lam

Are you passionate about your faith and justice?  Join us for a conversation on the intersection of faith and justice in our every day lives.  

Lorraine Lam, social worker in Toronto, Canada, specialising in working with the precariously housed joins us for a dive into this much needed conversation.  

Lorraine is a Chinese-settler Canadian community worker, a musician, a writer, a speaker, a community cultivator, an advocacy organizer, but mostly she's a social worker, a consultant, and a bridge builder. I love following along on her journey of social justice, poverty, and homelessness. She works a lot with deescalation and crisis intervention, as well as faith in action, and we get the privilege of having her with us today.

Transcript

Faith & Justice with Lorraine Lam

Intro/Outro: [00:00:00] Welcome to Practice Good. The podcast that empowers change makers to give good and live good. Here is your host, Shiloh Karshima, social entrepreneur, corporate trainer, and former pastor. Join us as we explore the intersection of social impact and soul care!

Shiloh: Today we're super, super lucky to get Lorraine Lamb to join us.

She's a Chinese settler Canadian community worker, a musician, a writer, a speaker, a community cultivator, an advocacy organizer, but mostly she's a social worker, a consultant, and a bridge builder. I love following along on her journey of social justice, poverty, and homelessness. She works a lot with deescalation and crisis intervention, as well as faith in action, and we get the privilege of having her with us today.

I met Lorraine about two years ago in the Women's Speaker Collective, and she continues to blow my mind with her advocacy efforts. So we get to learn from her. We get to cherish her today, and we get to hang out for a bit. Welcome to the podcast Lorraine!

Lorraine: Thank you. I'm really glad to be here as well.

Shiloh: It's gonna be fun. I was telling you a little bit about how excited I am to really have this conversation about faith and justice and how they interact and really how they're, one of the same together.

You can't separate them, but let's go backwards a little bit. Tell us a little bit about your work in the arena of justice and homelessness poverty alleviation, all those kind of things. Faith in action. What's your history? How did you get into this and what are you currently doing? 

Lorraine: Yeah, those are big question.

I think for myself it's really important that, like I name and acknowledge that I grew up in a solo parent household and for my mom it was always so important that we went to church and that I went to church. And I remember just growing up in, the church space and always hearing stories about oh, the Good Samaritan, or we memorized the verse about loving your [00:01:00] neighbors, right?

We know all those things and I think I grew up with that, but I think the older I got, the more I realized sure, love your neighbor as yourself, but. I didn't really even know who my geographical neighbors were at the time, and so I was just really by how things I learned at church didn't seem to actually match up to what my experiences and observations in real life were.

And curiosity has been my biggest teacher, and I've always just been really curious about why people ended up in the spaces that they were in. Why not me? And I think. My heart was just always drawn to certain things and questioned. And I remember the moment I turned 16, that's where like the legal driving ages here in Toronto.

I turned 16. My mom basically drove me to get my lights in and she was like, hurry up so I don't have to drive you anymore. And then I got my license and was able to have access to the car and I just drove myself a [00:02:00] different, Local drop-ins. And so kitchens always with the intention to volunteer to help because I think, again, that was so hardwired in me, but very quickly it was discovered that I'm not very helpful because I just ended up sitting with people who wanted to like just tell me their life stories.

And so hours would go by and I would just keep coming back to the same places. And eventually it was when I was 18 and I started my first year of university in downtown Toronto. Same idea. I went to a local drop-in to try to, help with the soup kitchen there. They had a breakfast and lunch program.

I showed up there to help in the kitchen. The lovely lady asked me to help make a salad. And I was like, I don't even know what a beep looks like, fashion. So I started cutting up something else that I thought maybe was a beep, and the lady was like, oh, maybe you're more suited in the dining room.

I was like very, very embarrassed. But it was such an [00:03:00] invitation actually for me to just sit in the dining room with the guests who came. And I remember being really nervous oh, what do I say to somebody who like, clearly just slept on the street last night? Am I just gonna be like, Hey, how's your day going?

Cause obviously it just seems like such a stupid question. But yeah, I ended up just getting to know people. Again, it was through consistency. I always showed up the same days every week and stuck around and sat in the same spot. And that's how really I started getting to know people and know their stories.

And I realized that so much of what I learned about loving our neighbors and so much of what I learned about, this idea of charity was actually backwards. Cuz I think this idea of charity in the church that I grew up with is that, this idea of charity that I grew up in the church with.

Focused on this idea that people just had to work harder, but I very quickly realized that like we have some systems that are set up really horribly. And so I think that's how the work began. I started really just [00:04:00] wanting to walk alongside people and support them, but I think the piece of advocacy just came with that because they wanted to change the systems that the people I was supporting were stuck in.

Shiloh: So what did you do from there? You were in college and university, did that direct, like how you chose to like, get a degree or what types of jobs that you took after that, how did those stories impact your life and your trajectory moving forward? 

Lorraine: Yeah, actually, so when I was in school, I was studying music because I thought maybe I wanted to get in the world of music therapy and as I was sort of hanging out and spending my time at the soup kitchen and doing my studies of music, I very quickly realized that it felt like I was in these two very separate worlds. Because at the time, and even today, like the world of music therapy is especially in Canada, it's definitely not a public sector thing.

Most people who have access to it are folks who have more resources, and yet I was working and just drawn to a community that[00:05:00] had none of these resources. So I think for me, I actually spent about maybe five or six years hanging out in this space, just not really sure what to do with my formal education, but knew that I wanted it to somehow come together because again, like I just don't believe that we're supposed to live in these different silos.

For me, I think everything like faith and justice are together. They're not two separate conversations. So like for me, I deeply felt that for my life, my "career" should not be divorced from "what I was doing when I was serving people". So when I finished my music degree, I looked into opportunities to, to see what music therapy could look like for of this population of people who were unhoused or precariously housed with addictions and mental health stuff. And just realized there wasn't really that space for it. And so I started just study social work, but I actually ended up working in the same community as I started my social work degree.

So everything just worked out to [00:06:00] happen around the same time. 

Shiloh: You have been working in this space of social work and different types of nonprofit careers since then. What kind of things have you learned, or how has your, understanding of, you use the phrase, I love this precariously housed, those who are precariously housed.

How has your understanding grown since that time and what are some of the kind of nuanced things that we think we assume or we understand about this population that we really are getting wrong. 

Lorraine: I think a lot about the story of the Good Samaritan, and for people who are not familiar with the Samaritan story the idea is, there was a person who is on their travels.

It's, it's a faith-based parable from like Christian faith. So it's about this person who was on a journey walking, mining his own business, and then all of a sudden, so he was in like hostile territory and then he got robbed. And long story short, what happens in this story is that three separate people who [00:07:00] were considered like leaders in the community faith leaders, priests, or like the nice people at the church, those kinds of folks all walked by this person.

And essentially said, oh, that sucks that he got robbed. I guess I'll pray for him. And then walk away. And the story ends with this person who's the good Samaritan, who's basically, you could consider this person to basically be a gang rival of the person who got robbed, the person who really should not have been the person to help.

But this person, this good Samaritan sees this person who is robbed and helps him, not just by like bringing him stuff, but actually takes this person and carries him and takes him with this guide and support him. And I think in the story about the Good Samaritan, we always like to think that we're the good Samaritan.

But I think in my years of doing this work, I actually think we're more like the robbers who robbed the person in the first place. I think what we don't [00:08:00] realize is that we are so often complicit in the same structures that cause people to be in the spaces that they're in. So there's another saying we hear a lot, oh, like people who are, people who have fallen through the cracks.

The thing is, I don't think people fall through the cracks. I think people are just pushed out the window. And I think a lot of times it's people who have a lot of access to privilege and resource who are doing that, whether intentionally or unintentionally. The fact is it's still happening. And so sometimes I think, in, my year, I think I've been doing this for about 15 years now.

In my years of doing this work, I see that it's not, that the people who are struggling are not trying hard enough. They're doing everything that they can, but we've created these systems that are so impossible and I think this is why the conversation around like faith and justice were important because as people of faith, how can we continue to be complicit in these same systems when we claim to love [00:09:00]our neighbors?

Shiloh: So if people are hearing you and they're going, okay, people aren't falling through the cracks, they're being pushed out windows, right? And that we have been complicit in these situations and these spaces that we create in a society. Can you kind of go into more depth? Like what does that tangibly look like?

How are we participating in what these current crisises are in our society? How, how are we being a part of this? 

Lorraine: I'll recognize that maybe some of your audience is not from where I am in Toronto, but I think maybe most people can understand this idea of food insecurity, for instance.

So right now, in Ontario, in Toronto, in Canada, There's a conversation happening around how the use of food banks has exponentially skyrocketed. And so what we're seeing happen is people are like, oh, okay, the need is here. It's high. We're seeing food bank lineups Just get [00:10:00] longer and longer.

And sometimes the default response is, okay, we're gonna organize a food drive at my church or at my school, or with my neighbors. Surely the solution is if we just donate more stuff to the food banks, then that's great. But I actually think the issue is we're not examining the reasons and the causes for why food insecurity is going up.

It's not enough to focus on the charity actions of just donating without actually swimming upstream and looking at justice, which is about changing the systems in the first place. So what does it look like for us to get involved in, Fighting for a better livable wage. What does it look like for us to, consider why it is that living costs are so high and social assistance rates are so low?

What does it look like to actually get involved in policymaking to say actually the fact that baby food at grocery stores is locked behind a [00:11:00] counter is indicative of the fact the people, moms are really struggling. So how do we actually lobby to change these structures that like moms in poverty have to live in?

And so I think go that's one example in terms of yeah, we see the problem, we often focus on the symptoms, but that doesn't really address like the deeper issues of stuff, right? So I think that's where some of the conversations around helping often just kind of get 

Shiloh: stuck in. I love that.

I think it's hard to get people to reconsider or consider stepping out of their daily routine and doing more than the easy task in front of you, right? The calling for donations, the feel good, and take pictures and put yourself on the back and really go, what can I do upstream to help this? And that takes work.

It takes research, it takes. Fight. It takes confusion, it takes mess. [00:12:00] It's messy, it's hard. It's not easy, and it's not the quickest thing, and it doesn't always get a pat on the back. 

Talk to me in your perspective, why do Christians particularly and churches have a hard time with this concept of social justice and why are we not doing what it takes to get us to another place of serving these populations of people and transforming the way we have society so that we can create the kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. What's the problem here? What's the bottleneck? What's holding us up?

Lorraine: Yeah. I love that you're asking that question. You talk about this idea of came down and I think that we live in a reality right now where the church is more concerned about empire and legacy versus actual kingdom work.

 I think churches seem to be more concerned about what it looks like to hold onto power instead of relinquishing it second you [00:13:00] talk about this idea of like, why, why are churches really not getting involved in, in like, you know, the kingdom is here? Because I think that as a church, I think , we've confused this idea of kingdom versus empire. And in empires, institutions such as the church is more focused on holding onto power instead of relinquishing power.

When Jesus talks about the kingdom of God, he talks about it being upside down and it's backwards the last are the first. It's not about holding onto status, but I think that's what the church seems to be so focused on these days. It seems to be more focused on holding onto power siding along with those who are in power as opposed to actually be walking alongside those who are poor. 

So here's the thing, like I think when I think about Jesus' ministry and the way that he loved people and minister to people, he could have easily just stood on a mountaintop and just like launched fish and bred out of a cannon to 5,000 people everywhere he went.

[00:14:00] But that's not what he did. He, I mean, sure he fed lots of people and healed lots of people, but what's really striking to me is his ministry of presence was slow.

 He wasn't fixated and focused on how to have maximum impact. He had like these one-on-one interactions with people, and when we read in scriptures, it always says when Jesus looks the person in the eye and then would do a thing. I don't think that in this culture of empire and power retention the church has actually taken the time or the compassion to look people in the eye, and I think that's what's causing a lot of the problems that we're seeing. And I think that's why as well, like the church is really good at talking about like we need to do things for those people. But I think it often comes from a place of we have to do those things for those people because my salvation depends on it.

And it's not so much about the fact that we need to love [00:15:00] people just because the people deserve to be loved wholly and so I think again, maybe this is not malicious. I really hope that the church is not doing this maliciously, but I think there are a lot of blind spots. And the voices who are often oppressed, voices of those who are vulnerable or often silent and ignore.

Shiloh: I remember reading years ago a book by Shane Claiborne, and he was telling this story about some churches who got together and did some food donation projects for people who were kind of hiding out and living in these empty buildings that the community didn't want them to live in. And they were like fighting to get them out and he would go and visit and.

There would be boxes and boxes of things. And he is like, what are these? And they're like, oh, they, the churches sent us popcorn and canned goods and they had no can openers and they had no microwaves. 

Lorraine: Yes. We see this happen. Oh my gosh. I think I, every year [00:16:00] around Christmastime, I'll post something on social media just to be like, please, don't spend your Christmas day giving food to people who are outside because every year this happened Often on Christmas Day churches and folks who belong to the Christian faith will decide that this is the day that I'm gonna like love poor people.

And then we'll drop off all this stuff at different places. And like people who are living outside don't have bridges there's been no conversation about dietary needs. And then what ends up happening is then you create a big pile of garbage around this person and where they're living. And then this ends up having.

The person who's living outside targeted because now like larger officials or like neighbors around are saying like, oh, this person is like creating a mess. This person didn't create the mess. Well-intentioned people without having conversations with folks or thinking through about what was actually helpful.

They created this mess. And now once again, the person who is the poor and the most vulnerable is having to deal with the lingering effects of that. 

Shiloh: I think that's so [00:17:00] powerful because It is easy to just unintentionally, I've heard you use that word a few times unintentionally with good intentions, but unintentionally do harm.

And I think both in the work that you do and the work I do, like our intention is not to discourage people from doing good work. I remember, man, I was probably in high school and I saw a homeless man on the side of the road or asking for money or food and I. Convinced my dad to turn around and go to the grocery store, and we bought him a bag full of food because we thought we were doing the right thing by not giving him money.

And so I went and gave him a grocery bag of food. I felt so proud of myself and we left and we went and did what we had to do. And when we drove back by, the man was gone and the grocery bag was sitting on the ground.

Lorraine: Wow! What did that feel like for you in the moment then? 

Shiloh: You know, I was young. In the beginning, I felt kind of mad. I was hurt. I [00:18:00] was like, I did such a good thing for him, you know? And it was all this very much me centered kind of thing . Oh, and how selfish is he? Maybe you shouldn't give to people and all these things. But as I've grown and learned, you know, there's a lot of really great resources in the community that have been doing work for generations, decades and generations.

They're experts in this, in these areas like. Why not go to them and ask them what are the needs in the community? What, what is the best way that we can serve rather than assuming I know best and creating that. And I've seen a lot of churches do that. I've seen churches literally go around nonprofits and public service organizations to do what they think is best.

And then those agencies are watching them going, you're actually doing more harm. Even these like I don't know if you're familiar with these, but how do you feel about serve days? Like all these churches, they're like, let's do a serve day. And they get their big T-shirts and they go out for one full day of like just attacking one community and doing one thing.

And I, I always feel a little bit like [00:19:00] uneasy about that. 

Tell me what is your perspective on church and engagement and people unintentionally doing things like I did, to make a difference and ultimately not realize you're creating harm. 

Lorraine: Such a good question.

This goes back to what, we were talking about earlier in terms of why is the church struggling so hard and alongside this idea of empire. I think it's this idea of charity that often just focuses on the person who's doing the giving. It's not focused on the person who's actually.

In the most vulnerable space. So surf days, I personally really struggle with them, but I also recognize that maybe that is the starting point for someone, and that's great. If that's gonna be the starting point, great. But please don't stop there. Serve days. My question is always about what is the intention?

 In my experience with serve days, it often again, Focuses on the group that has got the most power. It focuses on the group that's doing the serving, and it ends up creating a [00:20:00] spectacle and kind of poverty porn of the people who are poor, people who are vulnerable. It objectifies them for the sake of the giver to look well, and the other question I have is, why is it just a serve day?

What does sustainability look like? Because one day of doing this work is not gonna make these larger things go away, and we know that. But then what does it look like to actually continue doing the work? I often want to just know what the purpose of it is and to be very honest and transparent.

The last place that I worked at was a faith-based organization and there were lots of groups that always wanted to come and do serve days. And honestly, it was often just a lot more work for us to coordinate the serve days to accommodate this group. And it just felt really backwards And I think to back to your point about people, again, assuming that they know best instead of talking to the agencies, I'd go one step further, like, why [00:21:00] not talk to the people that you're trying to serve yourself? Right. I think about people in my life when they wanna support me, they're gonna ask me like, Hey, Lorraine, like what do you need? They're not gonna ask my mom or my colleagues what I need.

Right? Because I think the point of them asking me is that they see the value of my voice and they trust that I know. So why is it that we don't trust the value of the poor person's voice? Why don't we trust that they know what they need? And I think sometimes there is this level of like, oh, surely we can't give them money cuz they might spend it on things we don't agree with.

But here's the thing, if you're going to be giving, just give freely. The Lord says give generously. Again, this idea of they might spend it on something we don't agree with. Takes such a judgemental lens on the poor person, on the oppressed person, as if they don't know what they need.

And also, frankly, if you give to an organization, most of the time the organization's funds is not going directly to the person anyway, like it's going to pay salaries and other stuff. If you're really concerned about where [00:22:00] money is going, then you know, that's just a really honest truth. 

Shiloh: I used to work for a nonprofit and we, part of our program was teaching those in generational poverty how to budget.

And it was just quite funny to me cuz one day we had a an older woman from the, low income community, step in and teach the budgeting class and it was like worlds different than what we would teach. And it was beautiful and it was wise and it was so practical.

 She's in her seventies and eighties and here she is teaching principles of what does it look like to have limited resources and then to also save in the midst of that. That's something we don't know, that's something that like, if you haven't lived it, all the spreadsheets you can have are not gonna solve that issue. So I think it's so beautiful that you talked about like just asking the person and I think it comes back to proximity actually the church. Are we in proximity [00:23:00] to people that are really suffering in international economic development? We call them the poorest of the poor.

It's not just the poor, it's like the poorest of the poor and who's actually in relationships with people that are experiencing these situations in their lives. And I. I think a lot of the crisis is most people aren't, and most people aren't asking, and most people aren't in proximity. It's so powerful what you're saying.

Lorraine, what do you do when you come into this with a lot of hope? You realize you've made a lot of missteps and you're finding a new way, but at the same time, it, the journey of social justice feels like you're hopeful that you'll change something in a lifetime, right? But then when you look around and the older you get, the more you're like, Gosh, I don't know what actually will change in my lifetime.

How do you have hope and how do you take care of yourself and your mind, and your spirit to be sustainable personally in the long run? 

Lorraine: That's a good That's a hard question. I think of late, I have tried to do a lot of [00:24:00]learning from people who have come before me, so Some of that is like people that I'm like actually working with.

So for instance, like one, one of my coworkers right now, like she's been doing this since I don't know, from nineties or something, and she's still doing it. So I look to people who have come ahead of me to be like, you're still here so clearly this is worth fighting for. And I think like recently I watched the MLK documentary on Netflix.

It was cool to watch, but I think one of the things that was most striking to me was, one of the later episodes it talked about how like his friend would talk about how like he would cry in his room a lot of nights and wonder what is the point of all this? We all know about him and his work, but I think we don't talk about the discouragement enough.

 For me it's important to remember that feeling hopeless, feeling discouraged. All of that tells me that I haven't become apathetic. And I think that if I get to a point [00:25:00] where I just didn't care anymore, then I think that's where I know it's, you know, something needs to change in, in terms of how I approach them.

I think this goes back to our earlier conversation though, about charity versus justice, because if we approach this as charity and we just focus on ourselves, then it's easy to just kind of be like, forget it. I'm not seeing the change, move on. But justice is about fighting for something bigger and for other people, and so we just can't afford to give up and we can't afford to lose hope.

So I think it's giving myself the space to feel all the crumminess and all the sadness and all so much anger. I think it's, giving myself permission to feel all that and recognize that yeah, of course I feel this cause this stuff is really hard. 

What I do to take care of myself. It kind of changes season to season. Sometimes it's about surrounding myself with people who kinda get it and like I can have these conversations with, sometimes it's seasons of just like, I need to just pull [00:26:00] up and be on my own and a lot of like solitude. I do a lot of writing and processing that way as well.

 It's really trying to pay attention to my mind and my body to see what it is that it needs. In different spaces and it's, also trying to remember that it's important to play. I think as we get older we forget how to do that. The discipline of a play is something that I've definitely been trying to focus on as well.

Shiloh: It's interesting that you talk about the discipline of play, because my husband and I joke around about the theology of play and how we struggle with play and it's really a discipline and it is a form of worship to allow yourself to be delighted in, to just be playful, right?

I look at my children and I just. Fall in love with them having fun, and if they were always just like following me around, mom, what do you want me to do? What do you want me to do? What do you want me to do? What do you want me to do? I'd be like, go be a kid. You know, like so I love that and I think it's so important.

[00:27:00] It's extremely hard for me, and I'm sure for other advocates extremely hard. That's why we have to discipline ourselves to do it. But I think it's so essential and the things that you say are super wise, I'm gonna have to read, listen to this as well, because it's like, that's exactly what I'm trying to do and I need friends who do it too, who have that struggle as well. So thank you for telling me these things. It's a good reminder. It's definitely a good reminder. 

 We have a few minutes left and there's a story that I, in your life and in your experience that has really shaped me as well that I would love to hear if you are able to share in the last couple minutes. But would you mind telling everyone about your wedding and about Chris, your friend?

Lorraine: Yeah, so my partner and I got married in 2018. And yeah, I remember when we were talking about the process of what it would look like. For me it was really important that where we decided to get married was a place that was really accessible to people. I say accessible [00:28:00] in terms of. Like actual like transit.

So it had to be in a space where people didn't have to drive to get there accessible in terms of feeling welcome and included. And then there's like accessibility needs. The reason for that was because the community of folks that I work with, for me, they're not just like all those people that I work with, but they really have become like my extended family.

So for me, there was like no question about it when my partner and I got married that obviously they were gonna come and obviously they were gonna be there and it was really important that people could just show up as they were. And for me, because I don't have a super close relationship with my dad he was definitely part of the wedding and he came as well and was with my stepmom and everything was great.

So like my immediate family was there, but there was something really important to me about. I think when we talk about weddings, we talk about two biological families coming together. But for me, this community is so a part of that family that it was important [00:29:00] for that coming together to be reflected as well.

 Chris is one of the first friends that I met when I was 18 and hanging out at this drop in that I basically was politely asked to not be in the kitchen. And he was somebody that I saw almost like. Almost every single time I was there. And he honestly became one of my best friends, like an older brother that I like never had.

And when he found out that I was getting married, he was so excited for me and it was like so lovely. And his next question was, oh my gosh, sis, can I walk you down the aisle? And I was like, what you would wanna do that? I like lost my mind and then he lost his mind. It was just like a whole thing. And then I was like, yeah, like there's no doubt about it.

Of course. Right? Chris was somebody who was not housed he had a story that is so different from mine. Mine is one rooted in privilege and kids is definitely not. But the fact that he offer like what a gift. [00:30:00] And so, we agreed that was gonna happen and I made it really clear in the months moving forward that I was like, honestly, if you like, on the day of decide you don't wanna do it.

It's been months before, you don't want to whatever, like it is balls in your court if you wanna do it. Great. Recognizing that so many pieces of his life were so volatile and unpredictable, like he didn't even know where he would sleep at night, right? So I don't expect him to show up at my wedding.

So I got married in mid-February and I remember early in the month he asked my friend at the time if he could borrow some money. He also asked me if he could borrow some money for me. And he bought himself like a new pair of shoes. He had asked a local, like the same drop-in. He had asked the nurse if she could, if like a month before he asked her if.

If she could help, look for a suit that might have gotten donated so that he could have it. So he was like getting his ducks lined up like weeks before. And yeah, that morning he got a fresh new [00:31:00]haircut from my friend. Looked so dapper and showed up. And this guy who, you know, I think in the eyes of empire is someone who is not deserving, is someone who has not worked hard enough, is someone who quote, we shouldn't give him money cuz we don't know what he'll do with it. This person walked me down the aisle on my wedding day and it's one of my favorites memories. And his friends were there too, so like one of them like showed up with like giant sleeping bag and a hoodie and he's like sitting front row in the wedding photos with like his two thumbs up.

It was great. And like they brought some people that like, I didn't even know. So it was like, honestly it was just really beautiful and I think for me it was also a really great opportunity then to share with some of my extended family and my new in-laws about like, why? Why is this community here?

And I know there were some conversations where some people were a little bit uncomfortable, but honestly I think like most people, if not [00:32:00] all that I had talked to afterwards would talk about how Chris and the community was basically like the highlight of the day. And I think it was a real, for me personally, it was like a real physical witness of, all the banquets, like analogies that Jesus uses in the scriptures about the poor. Honestly, like sitting with those who are less poor and all dining under the banner of love. 

Shiloh: I love that. And I think I heard somewhere that you said that Chris has passed now.

Is he, he's not. He's not that anymore.

Lorraine: Chris died 2019, actually, like in March. It was just like right before the covid lockdown started. So his memorial service was like the last one we could do before more of those lockdown protocols were in place. So yeah, I deeply miss him. A lot of his brothers had died before he did.

So I think, again, this speaks [00:33:00] to the need for system to change. And I think it also speaks to the need for like, you know, these are, this is about proximity, right? We can't talk about helping people and whatever, from a distance. We really get to know people. So I think for me, when we talk about realities of homelessness, the realities of, residential schools and traumas, when we talk about the realities of being poor and being racialized, those are not just abstract things for me, but they're about people that I like, deeply, deeply, love, and have lost.

Shiloh: For people who are listening that are like, wow, maybe I've been doing this all wrong, or maybe there's, I, I wanna start to learn more or do something different. Like, where do they begin? What's just a basic beginning step. We talked about proximity, where do people start? 

Lorraine: I always encourage people to start by doing a little bit of like internal reflection.

Cause I think it's always easy. At least I know for my personality, I'm just like, okay, now I'm gonna do all the things. But I actually think we need to slow things down bit. [00:34:00] Maybe just check ourselves to see like, what, what is it that really tugs at our heart? Because recognizing not everybody is going to be super passionate about working with people who are unhoused.

Not to say that they shouldn't care about it, but I think we're all wired with something that is like, ah, this is the thing for me. I have a friend who's really, really passionate about working with animals. I think that's really important. So I often say start there. Think about the things that we really care about that You see an ad on TV and you're like, oh, okay.

Like I just, I'm just gonna like leave. You know, like those are the things that I think we start with. And then just look in your like local neighborhood to see okay, what's happening here? What already exists? Instead of trying to start something new, oftentimes I don't think we need new things.

I think we need to build onto things that already exist to create a sustainable movement. Start there. Look for some resources to learn from people. I think we need to learn to listen better instead of just trying to do all the things at once. I would start [00:35:00] there and I trust that all the opportunities and things will very quickly present itself.

Shiloh: That's awesome. Lorraine, if people wanna hear more from you or wanna book you to come speak or something, where should they go to get connected? 

Lorraine: I guess the easiest is probably to find me on my website. That's lorrainelam.me.. , all of my socials are linked there as well, so that's probably the easiest way to do that.

Shiloh: Thank you so much for joining us. I really feel like I could talk to you for like another hour. I mean, like, I wish you lived closer, it would be really fun. We are so grateful to have you and I really enjoyed our conversation and your stories and your life are so inspiring to me. So thank you so much.

Lorraine: Thank you. It was such a treat.

Intro/Outro: Thank you for tuning in.

We hope this episode has given you some valuable insights and inspiration for your social impact journey. If you enjoyed the show, let us know, follow and leave a review, [00:27:00] and don't forget to share the fun with your friends and followers. Now go out there and create some positive change!