Rev. Elizabeth Maxwell

Lewis: [00:00:00] So, good afternoon.
 
Maxwell: Good afternoon.
 
Lewis: I’m Lynn Lewis interviewing Reverend Elizabeth Maxwell for the Picture the Homeless Oral History Project, and it is August 20th, 2019. Hello. [Smiles]
 
Maxwell: Hello.
 
Lewis: How are you?
 
Maxwell: I’m fine. It’s lovely to see you.
 
Lewis: Yeah, it’s wonderful to see you. And we’re going to get to know you a little bit, and then we’re going to talk about your relationship with Picture the Homeless, which was very important to Picture the Homeless in many ways, and we’ll get to that.
 
Maxwell: Great.
 
Lewis: So, would you share with us where you’re from and where you grew up?
 
Maxwell: [00:00:45] I grew up in a college town in East Texas called Nacogdoches. My father taught at the University there. My parents were not from there, but they lived most of their life together there because they had met in Wisconsin when my dad was in grad school. My mom is actually a New Yorker, but I grew up in that little town and left to go to school and made my way to New York, kind of gradually. I came to New York in 1989.
 
Lewis: And where did you go to school?

Maxwell: I went—it’s interesting actually. I went to a boarding school for the arts, so I studied singing, and then I went to Duke [University] in North Carolina, and then I went to seminary in Princeton [University], and then I got ordained.
 
Lewis: [00:01:45] Can you trace back to something in your childhood or youth that moved you to eventually become a priest—or go to seminary and become a priest?
 
Maxwell: My family was involved with the Episcopal Church, always. It’s sort of unusual actually, for people to be cradle Episcopalians. A lot of people come into the Episcopal Church from somewhere else, [smiles] and my parents did. But, I was raised in the church, so it was always part of my life. But when I went away to school I was involved with a kind of a community of Christian kids, and in some ways it might have been quite conservative, but it also gave me a very strong sense of ministry and of community and of what it’s like to really share your life and your faith on a deep level. And so, after that I wanted to be involved with—I just thought of—kind of God stuff with people.
 
Maxwell: [00:02:55] And it was actually before women were ordained in the Episcopal Church. I was in college when the first ordinations happened. So I was kind of growing up as I was watching what was possible, and I had a sort of a strand of social justice too, but in a lot of ways it was just a sense of wanting to be involved with what was deepest for people. And I went to seminary, and I became much more of a feminist in those days. I mean, I just sort of realized how incredibly male the tradition was, even though there was also a very life-giving strand of it, and I was also involved with some racial justice stuff there, and some environmental stuff there. And in a way, I think it’s just continued along for my whole vocation, which is now kind of a long time.
 
Lewis: Mmmmmm.
 
Maxwell: [00:04:03] But I feel sort of fortunate that I came to my vocation early, you know. I probably would have done something interesting if I hadn’t, but I’m glad in a way, that I started so early.
 
Lewis: During what years were you in the seminary?
 
Maxwell: I graduated in ‘82, and I got ordained in ‘83.
 
Lewis: Well, I guess in every decade there are social justice questions to be addressed and
 
Maxwell: Yeah.
 
Lewis: unfortunately, for things like racial justice, there’s always those questions
 
Maxwell: Right
 
Lewis: in every decade.
 
Lewis: [00:04:50] Were there particular things going on during that time politically that you were involved with?
 
Maxwell: I was in seminary when Reagan was elected the first time, and I actually had taken a year off. I was in Baltimore, and I was working for the Episcopal Church there on two different projects, one that had to do with resettling refugees, which the Episcopal Church has done for many, many years. And so, I was involved with that and also involved in a project that had to do with senior housing and people who were living in that housing. And many of them—I actually did a kind of an oral history project there with those people because they had come into this housing project that was run by a particular Episcopal Church, and we wanted to know more about their stories. And a lot of them were older African American women who had no social security of course, because they had worked usually as domestic workers. And it was an African American church that had started the housing project, so I was working on that.
 
Maxwell: [00:06:11] And I was working on resettlement, which actually was mostly people from Southeast Asia but also that was the first time I met Ethiopians—because there were Ethiopian refugees who were being resettled there. But just… I remember the kind of appalling feeling of what was happening in terms of the attack on a safety net for poor people and how—I mean, when I think back to those days and how it was just kind of unbelievable to me that he could get elected, and there have been many elections since then [laughs] that have been kind of unbelievable. But I just remember thinking this is—I don’t understand, you know, how this can be happening.
 
Maxwell: [00:07:04] When I was in seminary, we also spent quite a lot of time just on the kind of local social justice issues. In other words, trying to get a curriculum that included Black theology, Black church history, and the voices of women of all—all kinds. And then there was a lot of stuff happening with liberation theology in Central America that we were all—I was interested in, and my friends were interested in. So—I mean, in that first decade of my ordained life, I mean I—you lived in Nicaragua, but I visited there and was involved with people who had a much deeper history there than I had. So that was one of the things we worked on, you know—just trying to look at what our foreign policy was doing, in that part of the world.
 
Lewis: [00:08:07] We’ll—we’ll touch on this later, but it’s so fascinating and beautiful that—I know you’re very involved with pushing back against Trump policies around immigration.
 
Maxwell: Yeah.
 
Lewis: Which have their roots
 
Maxwell: in that time.
 
Lewis: in that time.
 
Maxwell: Well, or before.
 
Lewis: And earlier.
 
Maxwell: Earlier yeah, but definitely what our government has done in those countries, certainly since the ‘50s—before that, but remembering the time that I was a relatively young adult. You know, I remember very well what we were doing there.
 
Lewis: Yeah. I think we’re about the same age. [Smiles]
 
Maxwell: Yeah.
 
Lewis: [00:08:49] And so, you were in Baltimore then?
 
Maxwell: No, I was only in Baltimore for a year during the year off. No, I was in northern New Jersey. I was ordained in the Diocese of Newark.

Lewis: Okay. And then you worked there in Newark?
 
Maxwell: I worked in Newark as a seminarian, and then I worked in the suburbs as a new priest and worked kind of around the diocese that was northern New Jersey. And then in ‘89 I got the job at Holy Apostles [Episcopal Church] and moved into the city, and I was there a long time. [Smiles]
 
Lewis: Yeah, that is a long time.
 
Maxwell: Twenty-one years.
 
Lewis: [00:09:29] Tell me about your work at Holy Apostles, what kinds of things you did. What was part of your—
 
Maxwell: Well, it was really always twofold. The—Holy Apostles as you know, includes the largest soup kitchen in the Episcopal Church. And the clergy who are there always had roles that had to do with the soup kitchen and also roles that had to do with the congregation. And there was a lot of overlap between the congregation and the soup kitchen, but the soup kitchen in some ways was much bigger than the Sunday congregation, although the Sunday congregation was people who were concerned about the soup kitchen, sometimes had been part of the soup kitchen, had been volunteers, had been guests or were still—or volunteered there. But I was the program director for the soup kitchen, which meant that I was in charge of the things that were not food. In other words—the counseling program, some of the advocacy programs. Clyde [Kuemmerle] was the volunteer coordinator and also did some advocacy. But I was, you know—in charge of hiring Clyde and Clyde’s predecessors and so forth, and working with him. And then in the congregation, I was sort of like the senior associate rector, and I preached and lead services and did adult ed. And I often thought I had the best job, because I didn’t have to do all the fundraising. [Smiles]
 
Lewis: [00:11:13] Yeah. What kinds of things did you… Now that you’re not there, what kinds of things did you take away from that work? That combining—service, the soup kitchen, the counseling, really providing life-sustaining
 
Maxwell: Mm-Hmmmm.
 
Lewis: kind of support to people within a—a context of a faith community. What kinds of things did you learn from that or how did it change you?
 
Maxwell: [Long pause] You know, in some ways I think I still don’t know all the ways, because it was part of my life for so long. It was—for me, a real relief to be in a community and congregation where there was the faith life, the liturgical life, the spiritual grounding, and there was also this outreach, and they were sort of seamlessly knit together. And I don’t mean that there were never any problems with how they came together, or you know—but they were… It  was understood that this was part of what we did. [Pause] And I met people and worked with people that I might not have ever easily met or worked with. I mean, it really expanded my sense of who my people and my community were, not just in an intellectual way but in a lived way. And—and that was a huge gift. You know, I could be sort of anywhere in New York and run into people that I had known, in that work. And I would be on the train, and somebody would say, “Holy Apostles! Holy Apostles!” [Laughs] And I would say, “Oh yeah, hi.” But, and I [pauses] I don’t know, I just felt like it was a huge gift.
 
INTERRUPTION: I note that, “It’s very hot, so I’m going to note that the AC pops on here and there, which we’ll hear as background noise.”
 
Lewis: [00:13:37] One of the things about Holy Apostles that—that really struck me, is that the food is served in the chapel.
 
Maxwell: In the church.
 
Lewis: In the church itself.
 
Maxwell: Mm-Hmmmm.
 
Lewis: Could you talk about what that—what that means?
 
Maxwell: Mmmmm. I love that. You know, we had a fire in the church in 1990. So I arrived about ten months before the fire happened and the soup kitchen had been going since the early ‘80s and had been in the parish hall—the parish house, which is a much smaller space. And after the fire the church had to be rebuilt. And decision was made that the pews would not be put back—partly so that it could be a flexible use space, and that included being used by the soup kitchen. And it was like an idea that came to the rector, who was [Rev.] Bill Greenlaw—just like that. And when he brought it to the vestry, which is like our governing board, there was really—nobody had any question about the soup kitchen being in the church, you know. It was like, “Oh, of course. Of course, we should do that. You know, it’s our best space. It’s bigger. There are so many possibilities.” And it also really didn’t hurt that that meant that the restoration of the church as a multiuse space could draw on all kinds of people who might not be interested in just restoring a religious space.
 
Maxwell: [00:15:18] That that really—it was not for a cynical reason. It was because it was by far the best way to use the space, and the best way to serve. And for me, it became—really, it really was a very visible demonstration that the life sustaining food that we offer people Monday through Friday and the meal that’s the kind of central sacrament of our religious life, have this—their roots in the generosity and goodness of God. Both of them do and there’s a sacramentality to the work of the soup kitchen. It—it says bodies are important, and you know, Jesus talks about his body given for us, and our bodies are here, and the body is good, and here is the food for the body and the soul, and it’s—it’s not split, you know. It comes out of the same love, and place.
 
Maxwell: [00:16:27] And also there was something about being in a space that’s beautiful, you know? I love that you could see the stained glass and the light playing through the glass, and sometimes we would have music in there, you know. [Smiles] I mean, the—the arts are important to me. You can imagine from my very early time as a singer… And I always have thought that social justice and creative expression and the appreciation of beauty go together and nourish each other and need each other. So, all of that—and I’m sure there’s way more about the space and what happens there. Another thing that, you know—we always had, from right around the time that I came—we had a writing workshop, so people participated in that. We’ve produced books, you know—of the writing workshop, and for a while there was a drumming circle and an art circle, and those things were all kind of part of what—what happened in that space.
 
Lewis: [00:17:33] Yeah, it always impressed me because often the spaces that are set up for poor people are kind of drab and ugly
 
Maxwell: Right.
 
Lewis: and it tells you what’s important, you know?
 
Maxwell: Mm-Hmmmm.
 
Lewis: What kind of space you’re invited into tells you how you’re thought of and what value kind of you have,
 
Maxwell: Mm-Hmmmm.
 
Lewis: and it just… There are so many kind of subliminal messages. So, the soup kitchen of course, doesn’t serve only homeless folks
 
Maxwell: Right.
 
Lewis: because, you know, hungry people go there.
 
Maxwell: Yep.
 
Lewis: [00:18:20] Did you have specific homeless ministries or programs, or were—was everybody invited into all of these different kinds of spaces and services? You know, how was that? How did that work?
 
Maxwell: Everybody was invited, and everybody was served who came, within the hours that we were open. And there were ministries that I think were probably interesting to people with particular needs or situations. So, for a long time the counseling program was in the trailer in the driveway. And we always had resources for people who were street homeless. We had times when we got a lot of people coming who had just gotten out of Rikers [Island] or just been dropped off, you know—at Port Authority in the middle of the night, with nothing. I remember, you know, people coming in and saying, “I just need everything! I need everything.” And trying to get them to calm down enough to parse out what was a priority and where we could try to refer and help, and that kind of thing.
 
Maxwell: [00:19:42] But people came with all kinds of different situations, you know. Sometimes they were living on the street. Sometimes they were housed, but very marginally able to feed and care for themselves. Sometimes they were dealing with alcoholism or some other addiction. And sometimes, you know—domestic violence… All kinds of other things. So, people were welcome to the programs, certainly to the writing program and the drumming program and anything else like that, that we were doing. There was a mediation group for a while. All that kind of stuff was open to anybody who was eating there.
 
Lewis: [00:20:26] Do you remember when you first heard about Picture the Homeless?
 
Maxwell: I think probably I remember it more because we were talking about it a little bit earlier. [Smiles] Yeah—I mean, I think it was because of the Republican [National] Convention in 2004. And we had already begun to think about how we were going to cope with continuing our service and getting people in and out of our—our space. Because we were in the “frozen zone”, was what it was called, [smiles] the frozen zone, because we were so close to where the convention would be. And so, we needed to have ID cards for all the people who worked there, including my dog, actually. He had a card. He didn’t have to have a card, but he got one.
 
Maxwell: [00:21:22] But also, we needed to figure out how our guests were going to come and go. And I—to tell you the truth, I don’t remember exactly how they managed to come and go because they didn’t have ID cards. But I—whatever we did, I should remember this, but I don’t. But I think Picture the Homeless was part of the—they reached out to us because we were involved with doing that, and we… There had been a lot of people, faith leaders and advocates and others, who had been trying to figure out how to make this work, in that part of the city.
 
Lewis: [00:22:04] Well I—I remember you. I’ll tell that little story, because I mentioned it a little bit before we started the interview. We noticed a big uptick in police violence towards homeless folks
 
Maxwell: Mm-Hmmmm.
 
Lewis: in—in that area, like west Midtown. So Penn Station, Port Authority, but also just on the street.
 
Maxwell: Mmmmm.
 
Lewis: People thrown up against a wall, told to—you know, “not come into the area…” It was—the violence escalated, and I was a civil rights organizer then.
 
Maxwell: Mm-Hmmm.
 
Lewis: We reached out to Fifth Avenue Presbyterian—that had already won two lawsuits [smiles] against the city
 
Maxwell: Right.
 
Lewis: because they were inviting homeless folks to sleep on their steps.
 
Maxwell: Right.
 
Lewis: and they won their First Amendment case in court. And when we met Margaret Schafer… You know, she was an elderly, small white woman—looked kind of like, somebody said she looked like a schoolmarm.
 
Maxwell: Mm-Hmmmm.
 
Lewis: And so somebody kept—people kept telling us about her… That she was really radical and a radical faith person, and then we met her. And I remember folks saying, “Do we have the right person?” Until she started talking. And she was so clear about the role of the church
 
Maxwell: Right.
 
Lewis: in terms of justice and standing up for what’s right and—you know, suing the city. I mean, they sued the city.
 
Maxwell: Mm-Hmmmm.
 
Lewis: So we said, “Well, are there more people like you? [Laughs] Who can we talk to about this RNC [Republican National Convention]?” It was like a hurricane coming, and she said, “Reverend Maxwell.” And we had been reading in the paper, the senior pastor Green, was it?
 
Maxwell: Bill Greenlaw.
 
Lewis: [00:24:09] Bill Greenlaw—because the city said they were working with Reverend Bill Greenlaw of Holy Apostles to mitigate any harm to homeless people. And we were like, “That’s the same church!” And so, they wouldn’t even return our calls. We were calling the city. We were calling DHS [Department of Homeless Services]. We couldn’t—no one would talk to us. And so, we reached out to you, and it was myself and Bruce [Little] and Torrey [Summerville] and Jean [Rice]
 
Maxwell: Yes!
 
Lewis: who came and met with you. And you were very nice, and you said, “Well, what can I do for you?” And you know, I don’t remember all the details either, but we told you we’d been reaching out to faith communities in this frozen zone. That people were not going to be able to come in and out of, unless they lived or worked there. And if you’re homeless and lived there
 
Maxwell: Right:
 
Lewis: you had voting rights, but for the purposes of the RNC you weren’t considered a resident. And there were a lot—people got their mail…
 
Maxwell: [00:25:15] I remember very much the conversation about how people could get their mail. Although I don’t remember how we resolved it, but we did resolve it so people could get their mail.
 
Lewis: We—we… The RNC was the beginning of the month, like the first four days
 
Maxwell: Mm-Hmmmm.
 
Lewis: of September—no, August.
 
Maxwell: August, I think, yeah.
 
Lewis: And so it was 390 Ninth Avenue [New York City] was on the other side of Madison Square Garden, and 390 Ninth Avenue was general delivery [post office],
 
Maxwell: Right.
 
Lewis: and so they allowed us to set up across the street and hold people’s bags. But first they were just going to close it down.
 
Maxwell: Yeah. And people were getting their checks. That was partly why it was so important, because it was the beginning of the month.
 
Lewis: Yeah. VA [Veterans Administration] checks, social security checks and disability, social security disability checks, so people would be lined up around the corner the first three days of the month, and then they would walk down and cash their checks and go have lunch at Holy Apostles, often.
 
Lewis: [00:26:19] So we went to you, and you were very welcoming and wanted to know what you could do for us. And we told you we just wanted to be part of planning a response, and so you said okay, and you convened a meeting. You called the meeting.
 
Maxwell: That sounds right. That sounds like something I would have done. [Smiles]
 
Lewis: And then you welcomed everyone, and then you said, “Well you know, I called this with Picture the Homeless, and they have some things they would like to say to you.” [Smiles] And you kind of stepped back.
 
Maxwell: Mm-Hmmmm.
 
Lewis: Some people were very mad, some of the people that came.
 
Maxwell: Mmmmm. I remember that now, yeah. Well, they needed to hear from you.
 
Lewis: [00:27:09] And so in your position doing that, were you thinking about the fact that you were using your power and your privilege to be an ally [smiles], you know, the way that we would kind of talk about
 
Maxwell: Yeah.
 
Lewis: that now?
 
Maxwell: [Long pause] I thought that it was really important that people know what your perspective was—what Picture the Homeless, what actual homeless people’s perspective was and that it not be just organized by other people who might or might not know what was important, for you. And I wanted you to be actively involved, and there wasn’t really any other way to do that except to have you be actively involved, and to have you be actively involved from the beginning in a kind of a front and center way. I—I mean, I guess if I’d been asked I would have said, “Yes, you know, I’m using my power and my privilege.” [Laughs] But I didn’t—I didn’t really think about it. I thought, this is the way I wanted to do it.
 
Lewis: [00:28:20] Do you remember anything about the Picture the Homeless members that were in that meeting that—that struck you, or that moved you to move forward with us?
 
Maxwell: You know, honestly I don’t. What I’m assuming—from just being reminded of it, is that I heard you and I thought, “This makes sense. You know, these people are going to be clear…” And you must have said things that made sense to me. That must have been what it was.
 
Lewis: Hopefully. [Smiles] You know, the folks that went to that meeting were—
 
Maxwell: I’m so sorry that I—
 
Lewis: No, it was a long time ago. It was fifteen years ago.
 
Maxwell: Yeah.
 
Lewis: The—the members that were in that meeting, ate at Holy Apostles
 
Maxwell: Mm-Hmmmm.
 
Lewis: and were homeless in that area,
 
Maxwell: Mm-Hmmmm.
 
Lewis: and it was so powerful for them to meet with you—as peers
 
Maxwell: Right.
 
Lewis: representing an organization and you representing Holy Apostles—that that was incredibly powerful, and it was not very long after Picture the Homeless had started. And so, I wanted you to know that.
 
Maxwell: [00:29:43] Thank you. I’m so glad. I mean we—the issues around the RNC affected homeless people in a very particular way, a very critical way. And hearing from you—in a way, gave those of us who were trying to keep programs running, a sense of what made sense and what was really needed. So, it was very valuable in that way.
 
Lewis: And so, through that process we set up a network of faith communities
 
Maxwell: Mm-Hmmmm.
 
Lewis: that were willing to allow homeless folks to sleep there, that weren’t normally shelter—didn’t have church shelter beds, but that—for that period, didn’t mind.
 
Maxwell: Mm-Hmmmm.
 
Lewis: And we were able to force the RNC to reduce the frozen zone. It was kind of like half of Manhattan at first
 
Maxwell: Yeah!
 
Lewis: and to keep the post office open.
 
Maxwell: Yep, yep.
 
Lewis: So those were significant things for people that needed them.
 
Maxwell: [00:30:51] Yeah, Holy Apostles was open long—way more than our normal hours during that period. And we had all kinds of people coming in, you know—including the cops. You know, they would come in because they were all posted around there, you know. They would just come in and have a drink of water or something. But we had some homeless people who were coming in at times other than when the soup kitchen was open, as well.
 
Lewis: [00:31:21] And it was on the day of the large protest, the Still We Rise [demonstration] protest that we learned that our co-founder Lewis Haggins was buried in Potter’s Field.
 
Maxwell: How did you learn that?
 
Lewis: The missing persons for the NYPD—their cold case unit, would routinely run fingerprints
 
Maxwell: Mmmmm.
 
Lewis: of people that had died as John Does, even though they’re supposed to do that in the morgue before they go to Potter’s Field,
 
Maxwell: Mmmmm.
 
Lewis: but they hadn’t. And so, he died in December of 2003.
 
Maxwell: Right, and this was September of 2004 or August of 2004.
 
Lewis: [00:32:09] So, for nine months he was a John Doe, and his family kept—you know, calling wanting to know if we’d seen him, and we didn’t know what had happened to him. We thought maybe he’d gone into a program.
 
Maxwell: Mm-Hmmmm. Did he die on the subway?
 
Lewis: He passed out on the subway, and his friend that was with him told the emergency service personnel and police—gave them his name and everything, but by the time he got to the hospital the paperwork was lost, or maybe they didn’t bother to fill it out, and so the hospital didn’t know his identity. And he died in the hospital. And they didn’t run in fingerprints in the morgue, so he was buried as a John Doe.
 
Lewis: [00:32:59] And then when they ran his prints, he had been arrested for trespass for being homeless, and also when you get public assistance you are fingerprinted.
 
Maxwell: Right.
 
Lewis: And so they had his fingerprints on file, ironically, for being poor and homeless, and so they called his family on the day of the RNC, and his brother Brock [Haggins] called me, and I asked… I told Jean, who was speaking, Jean Rice—that day for us on the stage, I asked him not to say anything until we could tell Anthony Williams, the other co-founder, and then I told Anthony and gave Jean the sign, and he mentioned Lewis in the speech.
 
Lewis: [00:33:46] And then Charlie Heck was a new member, and he said—and had never even sat around the table in a meeting. He always sat off to the side with a lot of bags. And he got up and said to us, “Well, our co-founder is in Potter’s Field. We have to get his body! He needs a proper Christian burial.”
 
Maxwell: Hmmmm.
 
Lewis: And people were just kind of stunned, you know—and also, “How are we going to get his body?” And Charlie chastised us and said, “What kind of people are you? What kind of organization is this? We have to! He’s our co-founder.” And everybody said, “Okay, what do we do?”
 
Maxwell: Right.
 
Lewis: And Charlie laid out—like, a road map, and we reached out to you. 
 
Lewis: [00:34:37] And so, do you… Do you re—what for you was the engagement like working with Picture the Homeless around Potter’s Field and getting Lewis?
 
Maxwell: Well, this was a big education because I had never thought about it before really, you know—I’d… And [long pause] it was very moving to me how determined and persistent people were and that kind of convinced me that it was something we really had to do, that it was the right thing to do. And that it wasn’t just about Lewis really, that there were lots and lots of people for whom this was an issue. And I learned a bunch of stuff that I’d never known about before, so... But I think the other thing was the—again, I don’t remember all the details, but I remember the feeling of—that there was a lot of clarity about how to kind of keep moving, even through all the road blocks and the times when it just didn’t seem possible that we were going to be able to get out there, you know?
 
Maxwell: [00:35:56] And I remember getting the Bishop and the Archdeacon involved, and they saw that it was the right thing to do. I mean, obviously giving somebody a proper burial is a religious function! So, [pause] the faith leaders got interested in that. And then it became eventually clear that there was a much longer history about people not being able to get to Potter’s Field, when they had loved ones who were buried there. And that was clearly wrong, but it took a while to move. And then the whole relationship with the Department of Corrections and the prisoners who were used to dig the graves and that kind of stuff—which was like, what? You know? Which—I had no idea.
 
Lewis: [00:36:51] It was amazing to us that faith leaders, every faith leader… No—there wasn’t one faith leader that we spoke with, that knew how the bodies were treated.
 
Maxwell: Yeah, I had no idea. Had you known that before?
 
Lewis: No, I had no idea. And I didn’t even know where people were buried who were just poor and had no insurance. I just didn’t know. But Charlie knew, and William knew, so we had members who were people of faith, and they knew because other homeless people that they knew had died
 
Maxwell: Mmmmm.
 
Lewis: in the shelter, or in Charlie’s case he had prevented homeless people from being buried there.
 
Maxwell: [00:37:38] How had he done that?
 
Lewis: If you’re Catholic or Muslim the Catholic cemeteries or Muslim cemeteries will take the body. They have plots that like—family members have bought more plots than they ended up using.
 
Maxwell: Mm-Hmmmm.
 
Lewis: and they’ll take the body if there’s some proof, some sign that they’re of that faith.
 
Maxwell: Right.
 
Lewis: Charlie knew that.
 
Maxwell: Right.
 
Lewis: We didn’t know. Rogers knew too. We had some members that knew because someone that they had a relationship with while they were homeless, died—and they found they couldn’t go pay their respects. Because you had to have a death certificate, and in order to have a death certificate you had to have a legal relationship.
 
Maxwell: Right.
 
Lewis: And you couldn’t be a friend, or a partner… And so they learned the hard way. And so we had homeless folks who were faith leaders—like, lay faith leaders who were deeply, deeply cared about this issue
 
Maxwell: yeah.
 
Lewis: that we didn’t know about, and the faith leaders that we had relationships with also didn’t know.
 
Maxwell: We didn’t know, no. We didn’t have any idea.
 
Lewis: [00:38:55] And so, you went to… You came to Picture the Homeless, to several meetings about this.
 
Maxwell: Mm-Hmmmm.
 
Lewis: Do you recall—do you have any stories about what any of those meetings were like?
 
Maxwell: [00:39:54] [Long pause] I mean, I remember coming. I remember finding my way to East Harlem and [pause] by that time I’d—you know, I knew some of the people of Picture the Homeless, and I sort of knew what we were trying to do. And sometimes it was a bit tedious. It would go on, [smiles] you know—everybody being heard, which was important but took a long time. But [long pause] yeah. I mean, I just remember that it was part of the process. I’m sorry not to be clearer.
 
Lewis: [00:39:50] No, that’s okay. Do you—who are some of the folks that you remember being there?
 
Maxwell: William, and I remember Charlie, Jean Rice. I remember you being there... Those are the main ones but probably others I would instantly know if I saw their faces again.
 
Lewis: And the other faith leaders that were involved?
 
Maxwell: [Pause] That’s a little harder to remember actually, although there were a lot of us!
 
Lewis: There were a lot. It was amazing. Among the early ones were the Episcopalians—were, you know—
 
Maxwell: [00:40:37] I mean, I remember… Actually, I do remember the archdeacon, Mike Kendall. I remember that the Catholics from St. Francis [Church] were there and probably somebody from Xavier [Church] too, although what I really remember is being with the—the Franciscans. Who else were the Episcopalians? I’m sure there were.
 
Lewis: Rev. Kooperkamp.
 
Maxwell: Oh of course. Yeah [smiles] he would be there.
 
Lewis: Rev. Kooperkamp, before we went to the Department of Corrections meeting…
 
Lewis: [00:41:14] And Lewis’s family was very involved.
 
Maxwell: I remember meeting them, yeah.
 
Lewis: What do you remember about them?
 
Maxwell: They were [long pause] they were kind of a middle-class New Jersey African American family that—it seemed like [pause] they had been so worried about where he was, you know. They were worried about him being homeless, and the idea, you know, that there had been this kind of indignity of not knowing and then him—his body not being treated properly so that they could know that he had died… You know, all that time that he had died, and no one had told them. I mean, I remember their dignity, and I remember that they had suffered indignity and that they were clear and well-spoken.
 
Lewis: [00:42:26] And they went to all of those meetings, those Department of Correction meetings—as did you,
 
Maxwell: Mm-Hmmmm.
 
Lewis: and Rev. Kooperkamp, early on saying, “Well if they don’t give us what we want we won’t leave, until they do!” And we didn’t know him,
 
Maxwell: Yeah. [Smiles]
 
Lewis: and he had his hat on.
 
Maxwell: Yes, that hat. [Laughs]
 
Lewis: [Smiles] That kind of Indiana Jones kind of hat and his collar, and we were looking at him, like, “Who is he?”
 
Lewis: [00:42:59] And we were so impressed with the—like the genuineness and decency of all of you all, as faith leaders—you know, just saying “We didn’t know. What can we do?” It was like a journey.
 
Maxwell: Right. It was a journey. A long journey, as I recall. [Smiles] And we met all kinds of people who knew about things about it that I hadn’t known, you know.
 
Lewis: [00:43:28] Were you one of the… I don’t remember this—did—were you one of the people that… One of the leaders that went to Potter’s Field to perform a service?
 
Maxwell: Mm-Hmmmm.
 
Lewis: When we had them every other month?
 
Maxwell: Yes, and I think—I think the first time we went, I went—and then I went at least one or two other times. And I remember going with the bishop and the archdeacon. Because the bishop, you know, sort of—he was going to do the main service, but we wanted him to have other Episcopalians there. And he was very moved by it. I remember that. But I remember going, and I remember that other people went.
 
Lewis: [00:44:11] What—what was it like out there?
 
Maxwell: [Long pause] You had to go, you know, across the water to get there. It was a long way to get there—took the whole day basically, to do it. [Pause] You could imagine it being kind of peaceful and beautiful, but a lot of things had just fallen into disrepair. And my awareness about the prisoners being used was very stark. I remember also that one of the times we went, and it may have been the first time or another time, there were also people who were family members who had finally gotten permission to go out to where their deceased family members were buried.  
 
Maxwell: [00:45:27] And one of them was a woman whose mother had given birth to a baby.
She was—the mother was an immigrant, and the baby had died, and she had no wherewithal to bury the baby, and so they just took the baby. And, you know—she had gotten out of the hospital and had a life in this country. And this woman had been born later, and her mother had died fairly recently in her old age, and she had said to the woman, “I want you to go find the baby, where the baby is buried.”
 
Maxwell: [00:46:15] And hearing that story, it was like—wow, you know, there are all kinds of people who are out here. And nobody knows where they are, and the city has sort of made it their business for people to not know. They haven’t made it easy! And she fell down on the ground when she… They had a place where the—they, with burials like that they had some kind of record about who was where. And so she knew more or less where the baby’s body had been put and she just fell on the ground weeping. Obviously, that made a big impression on me. I mean, I remember being out there and being a little less clear about where homeless folks were. But, it was very powerful that so many people wanted to go and pay their respects, certainly to Lewis but there were many others that folks knew, who were there.
 
Lewis: [00:47:21] And we had the first service for Lewis at Holy Apostles, remember that?
 
Maxwell: Mm-Hmmmm.
 
Lewis: And his family came.
 
Maxwell: Yes, I do remember. It was on an evening, right? On a weekday evening.
 
Lewis: And some of his friends.
 
Maxwell: And people spoke.
 
Lewis: People spoke. Some of his friends who were homeless came, and we all sat around in a circle.
 
Maxwell: Yes, and just shared memories. And his family talked about him too.
 
Lewis: [00:47:51] And in part of their journey, before we found out he had passed away… When, one time when they called and I said, “You know, we just don’t—we don’t know where he is.” And we didn’t know he had passed away. And I said, “You know, Lewis knew a lot of people. Why don’t you take a photo and just walk from Port Authority, walk down Ninth Avenue to Holy Apostles and show his photo to everyone, and see if they know where he’s at?”
 
Maxwell: Mm-Hmmmm.
 
Lewis: They—they were kind of sad, you know, and maybe frustrated that we couldn’t give them a better answer.
 
Lewis: [00:48:41] But they called after and they said thank you—because so many—everybody knows him,
 
Maxwell: Hmmmm.
 
Lewis: and everybody had something nice to say about him. And so they… His life, being homeless, was nothing like their life.
 
Maxwell: Right.
 
Lewis: And it was confusing and hard for them that he didn’t go back home because he could have gone back home, but he didn’t feel that he could.
 
Maxwell: I remember that. That they didn’t understand why he hadn’t come back.
 
Lewis: And they loved him, you know.
 
Maxwell: Right.
 
Lewis: And he loved them, and so then that service at Holy Apostles was another step for them to really hear from Lewis’s friends and community. And also that it was in that beautiful—
 
Maxwell: [00:49:30] Yeah. And to know that he had had a community, you know, that he hadn’t just been kind of out there by himself. But that, as you say, people really had good things to say about him, and he had made a difference to a lot of people.
 
Lewis: Yeah. So that—that made a big difference for us, that Holy Apostles allowed us to have the service there, even as we were fighting to have one in Potter’s Field, and so you went to the big one that we had at Potter’s Field for him.
 
Maxwell: Yeah.
 
Lewis: [00:50:02] And do you have—do you have any memories to share about that day?
 
Maxwell: I really just remember that it was such a long time coming, and it was kind of exhilarating to finally be able to go and be there and see what it was like. And I remember for the people who knew him, how—how meaningful it was. I’m sorry I don’t have anything more precise; you know. I remember that I thought about what could be said, and I’m sure I said something, and I don’t know what it was. [Smiles]
 
Lewis: [00:50:48] So, one of the other things that we did with Holy Apostles, Picture the Homeless—is that you all allowed us to have a table there.
 
Maxwell: Mm-Hmmmm.
 
Lewis: And so, could you share why that was so and what other kinds of groups had a table there, and why it was important that Picture the Homeless have one?
 
Maxwell: It was—other groups that offered important services, often had tables. We tried to have some sense that we were aligned, you know, in terms of our values and commitments. But, I thought that Picture the Homeless was doing really important work organizing people and offering a kind of dignity and that not everybody would want to be involved but that for some people they might want to really be involved in the kind of justice work that you all were doing. And so, I was very happy for there to be a table. Sometimes we had—like, a voter registration table. There were some addiction recovery groups that had tables. We tried, you know, to make sure that they were genuine programs, or people who really could help. We had harm reduction stuff around HIV [human immunodeficiency virus]. I’m sure there were more. Those are the ones that come to me now. But I felt like it was important for people to know what you were doing, and that was the only way I knew to make it available. You could tell your own story. I didn’t need to tell it, nor could I have told it.
 
Lewis: [00:52:48] What do you think is important about Picture the Homeless in terms of the vast array of not only homeless programs in the city, but also the social justice movement in general?
 
Maxwell: [Long pause] I [laughs] always just really enjoyed the straightforwardness and the quirkiness, in a way, of Picture the Homeless. You know—that people were who they were, and the name, you know—Picture the Homeless. It was sort of like—this is not a program. This is people. And there are a lot of injustices to be addressed, and the people who are the most affected are speaking about what’s important to them.
 
Maxwell: [00:53:49] And I was always impressed by how many different skills and experiences and backgrounds and articulate, intelligent perspectives there were, you know. So, I just—I just felt like it was a group… It wasn’t always easy to get anything done or to work with people, but it felt like it was a group that really was organizing around basic dignity and rights and the issues that affected people, and it wasn’t always what an agency might think was the most important thing. And it was also very lean, you know. There was not a kind of an overhead structure. It was just the people.
 
Lewis: [00:54:50] What were some of the things that were challenging?
 
Maxwell: Sometimes it was challenging because people had so—so much that they needed. Sometimes it was challenging because people would kind of go off on their own story, and it would be hard to follow. Sometimes there were things that I felt like I couldn’t do, or we couldn’t do in exactly the way that people wanted them to be done. [Pause] But… Yeah, I mean, sometimes I thought, “We’re a church, and we’re a soup kitchen, and we’re trying to be supportive, but we are going to keep doing the thing we do, and we’re going to work with you, but we’re not—we can’t devote all our energy, you know, over here.”
 
Lewis: Yeah, I’m sure we would have taken [laughs] it if we could have. There was so much, there is so much to do.
 
Maxwell: There was so much to do. There was so much need and so much to do.
 
Lewis: [00:55:56] What has happened with homelessness that you feel that you’ve seen in New York City from when you started working at Holy Apostles and even through today? What’s been happening in New York with housing and homelessness?
 
Maxwell: Well, it’s harder and harder to find an affordable place to live, and so there’s—there’s a feeling of—you know, I see homeless people on the street now. There was a time when I saw fewer homeless people on the street. Now I see homeless people on the street. But I also think a lot of them have been kind of pushed out. And I [long pause] and I feel as if I’m somewhat out of touch with exactly where people are organizing and how things are working. But, it’s such an outrageously expensive place for everybody, you know? So there are, I would think, a lot more people who can’t afford to live here and therefore are struggling with the issues of homelessness. And I don’t think there’s been a real effort to seriously address it. That’s—I don’t know. You may—you do know way more than I do, so...
 
Lewis: [00:58:00] Well, I know that the city budget for the Department of Homeless Services is over a billion dollars a year now.
 
Maxwell: Mm-Hmmmm.
 
Lewis: And so, there are resources being allocated to homelessness, to managing homelessness,
 
Maxwell: Right.
 
Lewis: not to solving homelessness. And a lot of the city policies actually create homelessness by funding certain types of community development over others. One of the things that William, I think, articulated so well, and I think it’s a question for faith communities in general, is that, you know, there’s the different between charity work and justice work.
 
Maxwell: Mm-Hmmmm.
 
Lewis: [00:58:54] And you know—so for you as a faith leader, how can—how can communities really get involved? Like if someone’s not a congregant? How do we engage with faith communities around the—as William would say, “the justice question”?
 
Maxwell: Mm-Hmmmm. If you’re not a congregant. I think that many faith communities are glad to partner with—particularly groups outside of the congregation, particularly groups that know more than we do, or can help us see. Sometimes I think we’re kind of focused on our own particular religious life or our own particular programming, or whatever it is. But I think—you know, there are some religious communities that are probably not going to be as open, but some are. Some are open, and I think if there are—sometimes in communities, larger sub-communities in the city, I think faith communities are glad to organize with others and make common cause.
 
Lewis: [01:00:35] We learned this—through that Potter’s Field process, that different faith communities have different decision making structures.
 
Maxwell: Right.
 
Lewis: And so finding out what they are,
 
Maxwell: Mm-Hmmmm.
 
Lewis: it may be the—the senior minister, but it may be a social action group within the church.
 
Maxwell: Right, or a board. Sometimes there’s the larger judicatory. Like, for us it’s the diocese—you know, the bishop, or the Presbytery of New York or the Board of Rabbis or whatever they are. You know, they have individuals and individual congregations have particular ministries and work that they’re involved with. But sometimes there’s something that the larger group has committed to so that you can’t always find out exactly who’s going to do that work, but at least you can find a kind of a justification on the larger level that will make people comfortable with doing something.
 
Lewis: [01:01:40] What was always so important for us as Picture the Homeless to engage with faith communities, is that there is so much charitable work,
 
Maxwell: Right.
 
Lewis: either shelter beds, in many faith communities, of all religious traditions… Soup kitchens, so if not specifically around homelessness—around extreme poverty.
 
Maxwell: Emergency food is almost entirely delivered by faith communities. Not entirely, but almost entirely—both soup kitchens and pantries.
 
Lewis: You know, it was a journey—the Potter’s Field work, and we built really powerful relationships with faith communities. But sustaining them… And in some cases it transferred into our—spilled over into our housing campaign work, much less in our anti-police brutality work.
 
Lewis: [01:02:51] But I’m just wondering, from your perspective—what are some important ways… What are some things that Picture the Homeless did that allowed that engagement to happen, in your point of view?
 
Maxwell: Mm-Hmmm. Well, I think [pause] for me it was that there were people who would listen, who had a really compelling story to tell but also could be involved in a give and take about how to try to engage the issues. [Pause] And of course the Potter’s Field thing, you know, we worked on it for a long enough time that we knew and trusted each other. At least just to a large extent, I think. But I think a lot of it was just attention to trying to build relationships.
 
Lewis: [01:04:04] Yeah. It seemed that once we found something, like how the bodies were handled, something that was a concern that was shared,
 
Maxwell: right.
 
Lewis: that was really central to many faith traditions
 
Maxwell: Right.
 
Lewis: but also very important to our members because it was going to be them when they died or their loved ones, often. And so it was a connection that was very deeply held
 
Maxwell: Yeah.
 
Lewis: by faith leaders and homeless folks. It was something in common
 
Maxwell: Mm-Hmmmm.
 
Lewis: that was a deeply shared value.
 
Maxwell: [1:04:54] And I think it also drew on the faith traditions of the homeless folk, you know? It—my experience at Holy Apostles was that many of the people who ate at the soup kitchen were deeply religious and came out of religious backgrounds, not exactly our religious background but nevertheless, you know—they were Christian, and they sort of understood stuff about—in a religious way. They viewed the world in a religious way. And I think that this was one of the places where you could really see that. You know—that human dignity and a sense of what—what it is to be a human being and what God would want. You know, the homeless folks could talk about that just as clearly as the faith leaders could, in many cases.
 
Lewis: [01:05:59] Do you have any other thoughts you want to share about Picture the Homeless before we wrap up?
 
Maxwell: [Long pause] You know, I’m really glad to have been involved during those times with Picture the Homeless. I have a lot of respect for the people that I met, affection for the people that I met, even though it’s been a long time and I haven’t seen them. And I feel as if having the clarity about the dignity of people who happen to be homeless sort of in my face was a very important thing. And I think we need that kind of organizing, and we need those relationships too.
 
Lewis: So I have a story. I have one of our—my favorite Rev. Maxwell stories is in the video that we made, Journey to Dignity, which is on YouTube. And after one of our meetings of the Faith Friends of Potter’s Field? Interfaith Friends of Potter’s Field…
 
Maxwell: Interfaith Friends of Potter’s Field. Yeah, I remember that.
 
Lewis: You’re interviewed, and every time we heard the word “nanosecond” we think of you because in that interview you say, “You know, if you just think about it for a nanosecond…
 
Maxwell: [Laughs]
 
Lewis: you know, it makes sense how people should be buried.” [Smiles] And so every time we—not that we hear that word a lot but every time we would hear it, many people at Picture the Homeless would say, “Oh, Reverend Maxwell”.
 
Maxwell: That’s funny.
 
Lewis: And so you—definitely had a place in all of our hearts, and we were always grateful.
 
Maxwell: Oh, thank you. I’m very glad. You have a place in my heart too.
 
Lewis: Well, thank you for this.
 
Maxwell: You’re welcome.
 
Lewis: Bye.        
 
[END OF INTERVIEW]