Resources

Taos (New Mexico) Men’s Shelter: Provides “safe haven for men who have nowhere else to go and whose circumstances bring them to the door.” Community members provide a full evening meal. The shelter offers overnight sleeping accommodations, shower facilities, laundry services and support service guidance. “Our shelter is a humane and effective solution. It saves public funding by avoiding the expense of incarceration or emergency room care.” 

Loaves & Fishes: Loaves & Fishes-Sacramento: Feeds the hungry and shelters the homeless. It provides safe and clean areas for men, woman and children seeking survival services. Loaves & Fishes relies solely on private donations. North of downtown Sacramento, the organization provides a park called Friendship Park with services for homeless people surrounding the area, including: a dining area, an urgent care clinic run by the Sisters of Mercy, a legal clinic, a lawyer to assist with Social Security Disability issues, a women’s empowerment program and a pet clinic. Sacramento Homeless Organizing Committee’s office is on the edge of the park. The group advocates for homeless equal rights and the safety and well-being of homeless people, and puts out a bi-monthly newsletter.

Wounded Warrior Project: Helps injured vets with their rehabilitative and transitional processes. Its mission is to provide unique, direct, “ever-evolving” programs and services to meet the needs of injured service members, including outdoor rehabilitative retreats, peer support, combat stress recovery programs and family support.

Rachael’s Women’s Center, Washington, D.C.: Rachael’s House philosophy is to offer a homelike environment during the day that is a place of “hospitality and hope.”

The house provides safety, shelter, meals and laundry for homeless and formerly homeless woman and offers services that give them the opportunity to “bring forth their forgotten or lost potential.” Rachael’s also reaches out to individuals living on the streets to help them gain access to services and benefits available to them.

Fostering Opportunities Dollars for Scholars: San Diego County-based non-profit, tax-exempt scholarship foundation established to expand post secondary educational opportunities specifically for former foster youth in San Diego County. The foundation is all volunteer and, with support from the community, awarded 305 scholarships to 211 students from 2002 to 2012. With 1,000 volunteer-drive chapters nationally, Dollars for Scholars works to “help ensure postsecondary success for local students.” Dollars for Scholars is part of Scholarship America, a national organization that has helped 1.7 millions students go to college since 1961.

Citizens Against Violence: A Taos (New Mexico) County non-profit program addressing the needs of victims of domestic and sexual violence by providing a 24-hour crisis hotline, an emergency and transitional shelter and advocacy. The organization provides child and adult counseling and support groups, helps with criminal cases, assists with health care needs and performs outreach through prevention and educational programs.

Hope Center Community Development Agency: The not-for-profit works in concert with the community, faith-based and civic organizations, government officials and private entities to coordinate redevelopment plans for East Biloxi, Mississippi. Founded by Biloxi Councilman for Ward 2 and resident William Stallworth two days after Hurricane Katrina destroyed the area (and now called the East Biloxi Coordination, Relief and Redevelopment Agency), the center first obtained funding for immediate needs of food, shelter and basic medical care for thousands of suddenly-homeless families. It has evolved into a center where residents can get technical and logistical support in rebuilding their homes, and share their hopes and concerns for their community during the rebuilding efforts.

Youth Empower Project: A New Orleans-based non-profit started in 2004 as the only program in the state focusing on providing re-entry services to young people returning home to the region from juvenile facilities. The Juvenile Justice Project recognized the urgency to help formerly incarcerated children and address the high recidivism and early death rates of this population. YEP helps these young people obtain their GEDs, develop job skills and find jobs, mentors them and does intensive case management. Many staff members come from the same neighborhoods where YEP youth now reside. YEP has grown from helping its initial 25 clients in 2004 to 1,200 in 2012, and developed more centers for aftercare and educational programs around the city.

Forgotten People: A non-profit organization dedicated to the well-being of Arizona Navajo people living on 2 million acres in the western part of the Navajo Nation. Its mission is to ensure these people have access to safe drinking water, sanitation, low-cost housing and solar electrification, and that they can maintain sustainable agriculture practices. Most of the population speak only Dine, practice their traditional religion and survive by sheep herding and weaving. Forgotten People’s aim “is to teach people how to change from reactive to be proactive to take control of their destiny.”

Antelope Trails Vendors Organization: Since 1995, this organization has helped provide small business for the Bodaway/Gap Chapter area arts and crafts artists on the Navajo Nation. Vendors rent table space from ATVO on heavily-traveled tourist roads to sell their jewelry and other hand made items. Profits from the table rent are used for scholarships to send local students to college, universities and trade schools, and for monetary assistance for funerals and school trips.

Western Regional Advocacy Project: WRAP was created to “expose and eliminate the root causes of civil and human rights abuses of people experiencing poverty and homelessness” in San Francisco Bay Area communities. Its mission is to unite local social justice organizations to work together in a cohesive and effective manner, to influence the federal government to restore affordable housing funding and to develop solutions to end homelessness. Campaigns include one for civil rights and another for housing rights.

The Crawford House: The only private, non-profit residential treatment facility specifically for veterans in Colorado. It provides emergency housing for veterans who are homeless and receiving mental health care and a temporary living environment for veterans in VA-provided substance abuse rehabilitation. It also provides low-cost transitional boarding houses for homeless veterans and case managers who do follow-up and ensure vets leaving the program are employed or have applied for disability, and have long-term health care in place.

Emergency Department Case Management Program: Program developed at San Francisco General Hospital targets frequent users of medical and emergency department services at the facility and provides professional services, support and care to a diverse, vulnerable and socially disadvantaged patient population. It addresses medical, substance abuse and psychological problems. Most of the clients are homeless. Case managers assist with housing, financial entitlements, primary medical care, mental health and substance abuse referrals and other social services.  The program has seen a substantial reduction in emergency room visits, a reduction in clients’ psychosocial problems and an improvement in clients’ self-determination.

Veterans Remember:

A Colorado Springs-based network of active duty soldiers, veterans, families and supporters of soldiers and veterans, and the community at large, who come together periodically to tell of their experiences in war and their experiences back from war. “We talk and we listen. Both are equal in value. All experiences are honored, no matter what they may have been in the military.” The group welcomes participation of spouses and families of soldiers and veterans, “and all those who wish to understand the effects of war on soldiers and their families in these healing dialogues.”

Emory-Tibet Partnership:

Motto: “Bridging two worlds for one common humanity.” Founded in 1998, the partnership between Emory University in Atlanta and the Tibetan Government in Exile has been “committed to bringing together the best of Western and Tibetan intellectual traditions for mutual enrichment and the discovery of new knowledge for the benefit of humanity.”  The Emory Tibet Science Initiative, started in 2006, is a comprehensive science program for Tibetan Buddhist monks and nuns to nurture “a dialogue and cross fertilization between science and spirituality, as both are essential for enriching human life and alleviating suffering on both individual and global levels.”