A Place to Rest: “Compass Commons” Provides Valuable Housing, Belonging

Christ Lutheran Church in Pacific Beach has always had a heart to help the unhoused members of their community.

“Within the first few months after I came here, we had someone from the unhoused community join us for worship,” recalled Rev. Kindlee Lund, Pastor at Christ Lutheran. “It was their first time here, and during worship they fell asleep and started snoring very loudly… [after the service,] a church member came up to me and said, ‘Isn’t that so great? Nobody woke him up, I’m so happy he felt safe enough to get the rest he needed while he was here with us.’

“This is an amazing culture here that’s been built of grace and mercy, of loving God and loving our neighbor, just like Jesus said. So it wasn’t too hard of a sell to take this next step.”

The “next step” to which Lund refers is the installation on the church’s campus of six sleeping cabins to provide temporary residential homes for the unhoused.

Dubbed “Compass Commons,” the new effort is part of an ongoing partnership with Shoreline Community Services, a neighbor of Christ Lutheran and a frequent collaborator in caring for the surrounding community. Shoreline already had an initiative called The Community Care Crew, and this seemed like a natural offshoot.

“The Community Care Crew is a social enterprise,” said Caryn Blanton, Executive Director of Shoreline. “It’s transitional employment for unsheltered individuals that includes paid work, case management, career counseling, and helping them figure out what comes next.”

Part of what comes next for some members of the Community Care Crew came about through a grant offered by San Diego County to provide six eight-foot-by-eight-foot, prefabricated sleeping cabins.

“[At Shoreline],we’ve talked for a long time about adding a housing piece, but it’s nearly impossible,” said Blanton. But once she heard about the grant, she took the idea to a few pastors in the area, including Lund.

“We had a group of pastors who’d been meeting together for years and years, and I brought it to them to see who would be interested. Kindlee and I decided to put our heads together and try it.”

Lund was on board, so now the next step was to present it to the church council and cast the vision there.

“There were people [in the church] who felt some reluctance, since there were unknown variables, especially since we’re the first to apply and move through the process,” Lund said. “But also when you’re creating housing on your campus, even if it’s temporary, there are a lot of question to be answered. So we had months of conversation with our leaders and congregation members, but after three or four months of honest conversation of getting into the details of how to make this successful, people have come on board.”

Now that the church was ready, Lund, Blanton, and the team applied for the grant, not knowing they were settling in for a nearly two-and-a-half-year process.

“The biggest thing was that nothing like this has been done in the city of San Diego before, so we didn’t fit neatly into a box,” Blanton said. “Making change is not linear, so there were lots of stops and starts, and going backwards, and difficult conversations. It took a lot and we were very tenacious, and now here they stand.”

The cabins are the very first of the grant to be installed, making the parking lot of Christ Lutheran a historic place. Spare but comfortable, the cabins feature a bed, chair, writing area, lamps, and climate control. The parking lot has nighttime security, and residents of the cabins have access to bathrooms on the church campus and membership to a nearby gym for personal hygiene.

An additional bonus is that many of these new occupants are people who are already connected with Christ Lutheran.

“We already contract with the Community Care Crew to provide janitorial services for our campus, so we have relationship with a number of the crew members,” Lund said. “It’s so great to help play this pivotal part to help them get to those last stages of independence.”

“This first year will have a lot of learning,” Blanton said. “We’re prepared to walk beside people and come to solutions, even when things are challenging and there are struggles. We’re committed to being shoulder to shoulder with them. That's part of being in the program is that you’re not alone, you have a support system.”

It’s a challenge that both the residents of Compass Commons and the congregation of Christ Lutheran are ready to embrace.

“The congregation is incredibly excited,” Lund said. “They’re proud to be the location where these first cabins are going up and are excited to see the sort of lives that they will impact in positive ways.”

“I ask people who are moving in what it means to them, and one of them said ‘Now I’m part of a community, I’m not just a team member,’” Blanton said. “He feels like a neighbor now."