By Michael Padilla
Phil Arzino says he does not think his motivation to helping individuals is unusual.
“I believe that as a human race we all, with rare exception, want to help others in a meaningful and lasting way,” he said.
Arzino helps equip individuals to become Presbyterian lay pastors,also known as commissioned lay pastors (CLPs), who are then deployed in a variety of fields including efforts to end involuntary homelessness in the Bay Area and to provide food banks to those in need.
The CLPs are ordained elders in the Presbyterian Church USA who help lead efforts to end involuntary homelessness, manage food pantries, organize efforts to stop sex trafficking, develop multicultural churches and leadership centers and more.
“These are often individuals like me who have chosen other career paths and are taking on these
callings either as a volunteer, bi-vocationally or sometimes as a new or post-career path,” Arzino said. “There is usually not much money involved so the motivation is intrinsic.”
CLPs take 10 hours of seminary-level instruction per month — not counting study and assignment time — for 12 months, are mentored by ordained pastors and undergo examinations, nominations and approvals to become commissioned. The lay pastors also have continuing education requirements, annual reviews and a recommissioning every three years. Arzino leads a team to organize and make all of that happen.
Shepherding, encouraging others to help
“I help to shepherd and encourage the students through the process,” he said, adding that there are several paths to help end involuntary homelessness in the Bay Area.
Some of the CLPs are helping those efforts in a variety of ways through the First Presbyterian Church of Hayward. The senior pastor and the CLPs he is supervising have envisioned a networking model that involves temporary to more permanent solutions and takes an approach of partnering with cities, counties, other churches, businesses and community volunteers to offer a variety of sheltering and housing options, accompanied by social and support services.
The Hayward team has developed an infrastructure and a non-profit organization called Firm Foundation Housing that has already built several tiny home communities in the Bay Area and are moving
individuals over time to more permanent housing solutions.
One creative nuance was the recent building of several tiny homes behind Fairmont Hospital in San Leandro to provide temporary housing along with nursing and social service support to homeless individuals being discharged from surgery or serious illness to improve the likelihood of recuperation.
“It is vital to value the individuals that we are serving above the services that we are providing,” he said. “We quickly learn that we have more commonalities than differences and will develop a greater capacity to love one another.”
Building homes abroad
In addition to the work Arzino does in the Bay Area, he has helped build houses for those in need in Mexico. He has worked with teams over several years to build 15 homes and a six-room schoolhouse. In those efforts, local organizations in Mexico identified who should get homes and sent plans and specifications.
While in Mexico, Arzino helped assemble teams, purchase supplies, brought the tools and did the work. The teams always spent time building relationships with the recipient families, often working alongside them and making some modifications to the plans to meet a special desire.
The teams wired most of the houses for electricity but none of them had plumbing, as there was no infrastructure for running water. Many of those trips involved taking high school students during spring breaks for 7-10 days.
He said the most memorable part of volunteering is seeing the amazing work that is accomplished by the CLPs who complete the commissioning. “This is far beyond what I could have imagined or accomplished myself,” he said.
