Metropolitan Ministries Still Making Noise

By STEVE OTTO The Tampa Tribune

Published: May 11, 2008

So if that tree falls in the forest and nobody is around to hear it, did it make a noise?

Sometimes - in fact, I would say most of the time - nobody hears the noise that Metropolitan Ministries is making. We're caught up in our own lives, and these days that's more than enough.

Sometimes I lecture our own boys on being aware of the world around them. More and more, you see people walking around with devices in their ears, oblivious to what's going on three feet away. We climb into our cars, close the windows, turn on the radio and we are safe in our cocoons.

It's just as easy to get wrapped up in our own lives, worrying about gas and grocery prices or what's on the tube tonight.

There are moments, usually at Christmas or Thanksgiving, when we pause to remember those of us whose lives have been shattered. That may be changing a little these days, as more stories are about families losing homes, and services to the poor and the sick being cut back. And we realize just how little it might take to turn our world upside down.

The Front Lines

Through all of this - and for exactly 35 years this week - Metropolitan Ministries has been out there on the front lines offering hope to those same people. They're going to be celebrating with a big event Monday night at the Performing Arts Center called "Bridge Builders 2008."

It should be an evening of mixed emotions, a celebration of what the organization has accomplished and the reality of a growing population of not just homeless families but a breaking apart of those safety nets in place to get people back on their feet.

I guess it's been about 25 years since I first ran into Morris Hintzman on a cold January night in downtown Tampa. It was just after sunset, and a small knot of men stood in an empty lot around two big barrels where they were burning trash for heat. It was one of those nights when the city was opening shelters and offering blankets to what were mostly homeless men who had nowhere else to go.

Hintzman had recently taken over as director of Metropolitan Ministries, a coalition of churches organized to minister to that population. Hintzman said that night that he was going to make it his mission to do something about the situation and establish a center that would not only assist these people but work to get them back as contributors to the community.

A Changing Mission

I don't know if he really believed in everything he said, but today Metropolitan Ministries is a conduit for a wide variety of services. Over the years, the mission has changed, with more of an emphasis on the growing number of homeless families, including women and children.

On Tuesday, they take a huge step with the groundbreaking for The Sanctuary town homes on East Waters, just west of Nebraska Avenue. The 12 town homes, built with your help via $600,000 from the city council, will be available to formerly homeless people who are now employed but make less than $27,200.

I know May isn't the time you usually think of Metropolitan Ministries or the homeless, but on this 35th birthday, you might send them more than a card for their remarkable achievement.

Keyword, Otto Graphs,

to read and comment on

Steve Otto's blog.