Meeting at the Crossing for a Hot Meal

The line curled around the three-story brick building at the corner of 7th and Centre streets in San Pedro, a sliver of humanity brought together by whatever unfortunate circumstances had left them without money for food.

Among them was Derrick Reynolds. He lives in a camper on Terminal Island, across the street from the Southwest Marine shipyard, where he worked as a pipe fitter until his layoff six weeks ago. “When I hear about little things like this, I take advantage of it,” he said. “You got to make do with what you got.”

Lucille Williams was waiting too. She lives in the Barton Hill Hotel, one of six San Pedro hotels that cater to low-income people and those who receive welfare assistance from Los Angeles County. “This is a good place,” she said. “They treat you nice and they make you feel like you’re not bumming meals.”

Inside, a cadre of volunteers from the Lunada Bay Christian Fellowship buttered bread and spooned homemade beef stew into paper bowls, readying for the evening’s meal. Canned chili and corned beef hash were on hand as well, in case the beef stew ran out.

It was a typical scene for the Crossing, a nondenominational Christian mission where the homeless converge four times each week to share a meal and the Gospel in a room that once housed a bar.

Soup and Sandwiches

Founded by volunteers at Trinity Lutheran Church, the Crossing opened for business three years ago, offering coffee and doughnuts on Friday nights and soup and sandwiches on Saturday mornings. The mission now serves hot meals to as many as 150 homeless men and women on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights, as well as Saturday mornings.

A coalition of 16 churches from the San Pedro area keeps the Crossing alive; members of each church donate food and their time to sponsor one meal each month.

Says Crossing executive director Harlan Heyer: “God has brought these churches together so that we can work together and help solve a community problem. . . . The Crossing is people, and that’s what makes it so unique. It’s not one person or two or three. It’s the people that come from the churches. Without them, it wouldn’t happen.”

According to Heyer, most of those who eat at the Crossing are homeless single men, and the Crossing is one of the few places for them in San Pedro. The mission, which occupies only a small portion of the brick building, is hoping to buy the building from its current owner, Mercy Ships International, and convert the rest of it into a 50-bed shelter for homeless men.

“Our goal,” said Heyer, “is to take a man who’s lost hope and has no place to turn, bring him in, clean him up and get his head together so that he can think straight, get him some job training and then put him back out into society so that he can be a positive influence on the community.”

To a certain extent, the Crossing is already accomplishing that goal. Nine months ago, it opened what Heyer calls a “phase two house” in San Pedro for men who need more than temporary shelter while they look for a job or learn a trade. Eight men live in the two-story rented house; each pays $50 a week. They may live there for as long as a year, Heyer said.

Joseph Branch counts himself lucky to live in that house.

On the Friday night that Lucille Williams and Derrick Reynolds waited to be fed, Branch had come to the Crossing--a graduate of sorts--to provide the evening’s entertainment.

He fled the streets of Harlem five months ago, leaving behind a drug dealing business but carrying with him what seemed like a hopeless addiction to crack cocaine. He says that he wanted to get as far away from New York as possible but that when he arrived on the West Coast, he realized that “I was running from a problem, but the problem was inside me.”

Traded Drugs for Religion

He landed in San Pedro with no friends, no money and no place to stay.

Through the help of the Crossing, Branch, 23, has since traded drugs for religion and rap music. Now, he comes to the mission to spread the word of the Lord--in rhythm and rhyme.

“Now I’m in the music ministry,” he declared, clutching a Bible bound in red leather. “When I first started doing drugs, I was listening to rap and doing drugs. Now I’m doing that same beat, but it’s about Jesus.”

He points to his arm, scarred with tattoos. One says “Joey,” after his son, who remains in Harlem. One says “Mom,” for his mother. And one says “DIG”--letters that, Branch said, once meant “Damn, I’m Good.”

Now, Branch said, they stand for “Disciple in God.”

Branch, who recently found work with a cabinetmaker, credits his turnaround to the Crossing, where he says he found people who treated him with respect and love. He returns there to perform, he says, because he wants to send a message to the people on the line that curls around the building every Thursday, Friday and Saturday night.

“I used to stand on these lines,” he said. “I used to walk and talk with these people, give ‘em cigarettes. . . . People have come to me and say, ‘Man, you look good.’ I say, ‘It’s Jesus, brother.’ ”