Gaining Momentum?

I recently attended a "housing meeting" sponsored by the Foundation for the Carolinas to gather feedback from a variety of stakeholders in the community regarding homelessness and affordable housing. Part of the Foundations' purpose was to learn more and see where they might be of assistance. It was an impressive collection of diversity and the conversations were informative and encouraging. I know many may be thinking, yeah, another meeting, just what we need! I had the same reservation going into the meeting but left feeling the afternoon was well spent.

It also seems like there is at least one news article in the paper or on television each week discussing the issue of homelessness and highlighting positive efforts like Hall House, the collaborative effort to provide homeless families with children in Mecklenburg County schools temporary housing until the end of the school year.

At Uptown Shelter our staff have committed themselves to serving more men during this harsh winter and so we're averaging over 300 per night since the week before Christmas. Kudos to all the front line folks in our shelter and throughout the community who have stepped up to serve more with less!

The federal government has actually increased some funding resources available to emergency shelters and crisis assistance programs the last couple of years. In addition, there are several faces friendly to the issues of homelesnnes in new positions in state government - Moses Carey (former Orange County Commissioner and Chair of the Orange County Partnership to End Homelessness) as head of the Employment Security Commission and Janet Cowell (former Raleigh City Council Member and State Representative) as State Treasurer are two good examples that I know.

At last count, I think there are now about 15 communities in NC with 10 Year Plans to End Homelessness - Greenville/Pitt County being the latest (congratulations!).

For all the talk about not enough being done to prevent, address, and end homelessness - I'm probably one of the loudest voices - it appears that maybe, just maybe, we're beginning to gain some momentum. I'll take every little gain we can make!