Salem: Do Workers' Comp Professionals 'Pray With Our Feet'?

Monday, August 9, 2021 | 0

Before the pandemic, we in Nashville used to go to concerts or sporting events at the Bridgestone Arena. It holds a lot of people.

Jane Salem

An organization that serves Nashville’s homeless population estimates that on any given night, this same number of people, approximately 20,000, are experiencing homelessness. Of them, about 8,000 are children. These numbers include persons in shelters, encampments, motels, sleeping in cars or on the streets, or staying on a friend’s couch for the night.

Judges and staff attorneys of the Tennessee Court of Workers’ Compensation Claims learned of that statistic at a recent meeting from a knowledgeable and moving speaker who has dedicated her life to service. Her name is Lindsey Krinks.

Twenty thousand homeless persons is a daunting and tragic number for a city of approximately 1.2 million. If you agree, please keep reading.

This article is about Nashville’s homelessness crisis. And it’s about Krinks’ remarkable book, “Praying With Our Feet,” that will inspire you to act.

The reasons a person becomes homeless are myriad: job loss, abuse at home, drugs/alcohol, eviction by a family member, illness or disability, etc. A combination of these factors is common.

Another significant reason is being unable to keep up with bills. The minimum wage in Nashville is $7.25. A minimum-wage worker would have to work over 140 hours a week, 52 weeks a year to afford a one-bedroom apartment at “fair market rent” in Nashville. Nashville has been rated by gobankingrates.com as the city whose cost of living has increased most rapidly of the 50 largest cities examined, primarily due to housing costs.

These statistics come from Open Table Nashville, which Krinks cofounded in 2011. Open Table Nashville is an interfaith homeless outreach nonprofit that “disrupts cycles of poverty, journeys with the marginalized and provides education about issues of homelessness.”

Krinks is the organization’s director of education and advocacy. For over a decade, she’s worked on the underside of Nashville — the streets, encampments, jails, slums and underpasses — while also working with faith leaders, community organizers and public officials to make the city more hospitable and just. Krinks is also an interfaith street chaplain. On any given day, she can be found in tent cities, washing feet on the streets, marching for change or foraging for native herbs and plants. She has literally helped bury the dead.

She’s also a mom to a 1-year-old, and in 2020, she lost her own home in the March tornado.

The title of Krinks’ memoir refers to a quote from Abraham Joshua Heshel, a Jewish mystic, philosopher and scholar who was also a confidante of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. As Heshel marched in Alabama with King from Selma to Montgomery in 1965, he said “he felt as if his legs were praying.”

Krinks came to Nashville from her native South Carolina to attend Lipscomb University. Initially, she wanted to pursue a career in physical therapy, get married and enjoy a comfortable life with a house, kids and lots of paid vacation. (Weren’t most of us taught this, in one form or another?)

But after a particularly inspiring course on biblical ethics in her sophomore year, Krinks decided that to truly follow Christ, she needed to forego consumerism and do more. She began organizing campus educational forums and service projects, occasionally raising the ire of administrators.

Near graduation, Krinks and other students coordinated a letter-writing campaign and demonstration at City Hall to push for more money for affordable housing in Nashville’s budget. As the demonstration ended, a well-known advocate for the homeless — homeless himself — informed her proudly that she’d become “an activist.”

I’m not going to recount Krinks’ whole story here because I want you to buy the book for many reasons.

It’s well-written, for starters. It’s clear to me that Lipscomb’s English Department taught her well.

Krinks occasionally quotes scripture, theologians, philosophers and activists, including Dorothy Day, St. Francis of Assisi, Dorothee Soelle and Slavoj Zizek; she earned her master’s in theological studies from the Vanderbilt Divinity School in 2013. The book is billed in part as about “Christian living,” which ordinarily would send a reserved Midwesterner and (lousy) Catholic like myself running the other way. But Krinks uses the quotes strategically and not heavy-handedly. It absolutely works.

Krinks’ story is engrossing. Following her principles hasn’t been easy, to say the least. She was arrested for violating curfew during Occupy Nashville in October 2011. Afterward, her church canceled her planned reflection on scripture and the Occupy movement at the last minute, leaving her feeling deeply betrayed. She attended the service with her lips duct-taped. And she has lost friends she met on the streets along the way who have inspired her with their courage and kindness.

Perhaps most importantly, the book is worth your time because it might make you question some of your own choices and priorities.

We work in the field of workers’ compensation because we want to help people, right? To make a difference? Have you ever heard an injured worker say he’s close to losing his home or that she’s already living in her car? How did you respond? Have you ever been close to your financial breaking point? And have you ever thought about whether your values and religious/spiritual beliefs match your words and actions?

Tough questions, but worth considering.

And you can do something to help. Support Open Table Nashville or your local organization that serves the homeless. Donate or volunteer. While volunteer opportunities might be paused due to COVID-19, perhaps with a little planning for safety, it might still be possible.

Further, don’t look away the next time you’re stopped at a red light and see a person with a sign. Give them new socks, food, water, a few bucks, feminine hygiene products or other toiletries, whatever might help. Validate their humanity.

I’ll close by saying I’m so glad that Krinks never became a physical therapist.

Jane Salem is a staff attorney in the Tennessee Court of Workers' Compensation Claims, Nashville.