Retired minister mobilizes Korean community to help homeless

SEATTLE - Clothes, shoes and backpacks are piled around a small microwave oven. There is just one double bed in the motel room. This is home for Rhonda Smith, her husband and their three daughters, ages 21, 14 and 13.

“Rent here is $235 a week,” sighs Smith. “Thank goodness for the managers here. They do morning breakfast. The girls can go down, get a muffin bring it up here with some orange juice.”

Smith’s family has this warm room due to the generosity of a statewide coalition of churches dedicated to helping the homeless find permanent housing. At its energetic hub is Jean Kim, a retired Presbyterian minister, who coordinates 50 Christian churches, 40 organizations and more than 80 individuals, all Korean.

In her small home office, Kim writes letters, sends e mails and takes phone calls, all geared to urging Korean groups and Christians to dig deep to provide rental deposits, bus tickets, motel rooms for the homeless. Why Koreans?

“They're blessed and a lot of times they need consciousness-raising,” grins Kim. “They need to share their blessings so I'm offering an opportunity for them to do that!”

In the last three years, the program, nicknamed the Korean Nest Mission, has given out $100,000, mostly to put the working poor into permanent housing.

“We went right to a permanent solution,” says Kim firmly. “Not so much a band-aid. You know you can do band-aid for five-thousand years and nothing happens!”

Rhonda Smith is recovering from emergency surgery. Her husband works construction when it’s available. Next month, they will move with the three girls into an apartment with a rental deposit from the Korean Nest Mission. This evening, Smith and Kim will go grocery shopping with the churches’ blessing.

“The girls and I greatly appreciate all the churches have done,” said Smith. “Things are tight, very tight. This program has been a blessing.”

Saturday, November 20, the Korean Nest Mission is holding an awards dinner and fundraiser at the KO-AM Television auditorium in Federal Way. The event gets underway at 6 p.m. with all donations going to housing the homeless. You can reach Jean Kim at 425-712-1677.