Miami

Carla Rodrigues, a residential aide at Miami Rescue Mission’s Center for Women and Children, walks a fine line between the practical part of her job–helping the homeless get off the street permanently–and her religious desire to help her clients find Jesus.

She wants the women and children who are full-time residents at the mission to turn around their lives, to find jobs and permanent homes. But she admits that she finds it “sad” when she cannot also bring them closer to Jesus.

“As long as you have God, at the end of the race you might not have anything on earth, but your treasure is in heaven,” Ms. Rodrigues told me when I visited the mission several weeks ago.

Some 240 homeless people live at the Miami Rescue Mission, immersed in an intense 16-to 20-month program that is part physical and psychological rehabilitation, part  education in basic survival …

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Miami

For many homeless people, life on the streets is hard on the feet.

Yet the Friday before Easter I witnessed a group of religious volunteers here doing something that I never thought imaginable—washing those feet and caring for them.

Nearly 2,000 of Miami’s homeless shuffled through the three campuses of the Miami Rescue Mission and its Broward Outreach Centers on Good Friday for the group’s annual “Thanksgiving in April,” a block party open to the more than 8,000 people who are homeless here.

Those who stopped by were offered a free meal, a haircut, a shower, and live entertainment.

Students at Barry University, in Miami Shores, who are taking podiatry courses, were recruited by the mission to provide basic foot care such as nail clipping and filing; homeless people also received socks and shoes that were donated by the Broward County sherriff’s office.
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