Haven

Josiah R. Daniels 2-08-2023

Images courtesy of He Gets Us. Collage by Mitchell Atencio.

When I first noticed the ads on TV last March, I was cautiously optimistic. Each ad features an array of black-and-white photos with people in contemporary settings followed by a simple, relatable slogan on a plain black screen: “Jesus was wrongly judged,” “Jesus suffered anxiety, too,” “Jesus struggled to make ends meet, too;” each ad ends with the campaign’s tagline, “He get us. All of us.”

In response to a police crackdown on people living on the streets, First Presbyterian Church in downtown Dallas opened its parking lot as a safe space for homeless people to sleep—even provid