City of Refuge Founder Bruce Deel on Rebuilding and Honoring Trust

By Stacey Lindsay
December 05, 2020

For twenty-three years, Bruce Deel has been a conduit for people facing crises. He's given meals. Provided shelter. Lent a listening ear. Rallied support. Deel's done all of this through City of Refuge, the 'one-stop-shop” Atlanta-based transitional environment he founded that provides support to those going through hard life passages.Helping people is Deel's life work and he makes it look easy. (At least, he makes it sound easy…Deel is an incredibly friendly conversationalist.) But given the challenges facing the people he helps it is anything but. The one element that has always propelled him through this work is radical trust. Seeing and honoring the integrity, ability, and strength in someone, no matter where they've been or what they've done, is the most essential and critical thing we can do in life, Deel believes.But in truth, trust can be elusive. It can also be fragile and hard to build (as eloquently pointed out here). We called Deel, who has authored a book on the subject, Trust First, for his wisdom on how trust works, whether it can be restored after it has been broken, and why it is so vital. Deel's personal insight can serve as a tool for rebuilding fractured connections…with others and ourselves. 'As I have learned to trust others," says Deel, 'I've been able to trust my own instincts more.”

Stacey Lindsay

Stacey Lindsay is a Seattle-based journalist and senior editor of The Sunday Paper. Her forthcoming book, BEING 40: The Decade of Letting Go—and Embracing Who We Are comes out May 5th from The Open Field and is available for pre-order.

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City of Refuge Founder Bruce Deel on Rebuilding and Honoring Trust

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