To the Editor:
On Tuesday evening, June 5, a public hearing was held in the Middle School Auditorium concerning the proposed affordable housing project, sponsored by the Hope Partnership. As the clergy from the First Congregational Church and St. Ann’s Episcopal Church, we sat through the meeting and listened to a very thoughtful and careful proposal from Hope, and from its team of planners. We appreciated the structure of the meeting outlined by the Zoning Commission. We also heard, by contrast, the comments and catcalls of residents, many of whom were vitriolic, spiteful, and willfully disruptive. It was not a proud moment for Old Lyme. It was, in fact, quite embarrassing, for it revealed some of the most dreadful tendencies that can emerge in small towns such as the one in which we all reside.
It was apparent in the hearings that some residents had spent considerable intellectual energy to challenge the work that Hope Partners put into their proposal. We can only wish that those same individuals used that energy to solve problems of housing, or poverty, rather than disrupting the work of a trustworthy organization focused on providing housing for everyone from firefighters to returning veterans, postal workers to retail workers and far more. We could hope that they might have used their knowledge to solve some of the issues they claim to have uncovered. We still hope that those individuals might use their wisdom and experience to help move a worthy project forward, helping to diversify our community, that others might enjoy what is truly good about this town.
As clergy, we believe we’re called to a better and higher way. We believe there’s room for dialogue, respect, and civil disagreement in public forums. And we believe that there are better angels within us all that may yet emerge.
We also believe that Old Lyme needs affordable housing. We further believe that Hope Partners have carefully and thoughtfully selected an appropriate site for such housing in Old Lyme. To provide shelter is an injunction and virtue at the center of all the Abrahamic faith traditions. But it stands at the center of our democratic tradition as well. There are those in our midst who desperately need shelter. Some are elderly, as one person courageously reminded us on Tuesday. Some are young families struggling to get by. Some are recent college graduates, working several jobs to get a foothold in a shrinking labor market. Some come to us from different parts of the world, striving to make a new life in the United States. Affordable housing is a powerful way of providing shelter, when shelter is in short supply.
Every Christmas, each of our congregations rehearses the story of Mary and Joseph, turned away from their own quest for shelter because, the story tells us, “there was no room for them in the inn.” We appeal to our fellow residents to seek a different, and better response, one that says, “There is room in our inn. There is room in the town of Old Lyme.”
We believe that’s what the better angels of our humanity call us to in a moment such as this.
In faith.
Sincerely
Rev. Dr. Steven R. Jungkeit, Senior Minister, The First Congregational Church of Old Lyme
Rev. Mark K. J. Robinson, St. Ann’s Episcopal Church, Old Lyme
Rev. Laura Fitzpatrick-Nager, The First Congregational Church of Old Lyme
Rev. Carleen Gerber, The First Congregational Church of Old Lyme
