Homelessness Task Force

The Homelessness Task Force works with agencies to provide services/support to homeless people, develop strategies addressing issues related to homelessness, and improve ways of better attending to the root causes of poverty. Working with other task forces and congregational initiatives, we build a stronger community of support that extends our potential to address issues of homelessness that uniquely afflict our community. Taking into account the intersectional barriers that cause and perpetuate homelessness, this task force works broadly to address our congregation’s commitment to the 8th principle's journeying to dismantle racism and other oppressions.

Our community initiatives include:

Based around the shifting seasons and needs at Shalom, we advertise and collect resources for distribution at the center informed by regular staff and volunteers.

Organizing local artists and outreaching to the community, we use art to draw attention to our task force initiatives through hosting concerts, media screenings, and other art-based forms of drawing funds and attention to the effects of poverty.

Periodically, we use targeted provision drives to collect and assemble care kits that include things such as food, clothing, and toiletries for distribution at Shalom.

In coordination with the Poverty Abolitionist group, the task force supports the education and actions of root causes of poverty, supporting fundraising efforts for any action items that arise.

In response to the volunteer opportunity and needs of the community services, the task force informs interested congregants of opportunities to volunteer in ways that address homelessness and other related aspects of poverty.

Co-Chairs: Jason Michálek  and Alan Backler