Words Unspoken, Things Unseen

A downtown homeless shelter, the Settlement, is targeted for demolition during the Great Recession. In its place, the city wants to build a sports complex. Reverend Stephen Bentham, the Settlement’s founder and director, draws on the loyalty of his assistant, the house physician, and a visiting archeology professor to save the hundred beds. A school-age boy also joins the effort. Fending off the bulldozers tests each character. Their own troubled histories compel them to help. One of the toughest challenges is burying the house physician when he succumbs during the fight. Loyalty to one’s faith or to progress or to honor itself are grand phrases. The actual work at a shelter is hard and tedious, like growing a garden out of concrete.