CALLING ALL SOCIAL CONCERNS COMMITTEES, YOUTH GROUPS, CONGREGATION/PARISH LEADERS, AND OTHERS INTERESTED IN HOUSING FOR THE HOMELESS!
ST. VINCENT DEPAUL MIDDLETOWN HAS A SHORT-TERM, TIME LIMITED, BUT INTENSIVE AND VERY REWARDING PROJECT JUST FOR YOU!
We’ve just received a contract from the CT Departments of Housing and Mental Health & Addiction Services for more units of supportive housing for the chronically homeless. During the next two-three months we will be finding and leasing apartments for individual adults (not families) who have been homeless for many, many years and have no belongings. We are looking for faith communities to adopt an apartment and help us to prepare it for a person. This would involve leading a furniture drive at your local church/parish/synagogue and begin to collect a living room set, a kitchen set and a bedroom set of furniture. It can all be used but should be in decent condition. Once we get the apartment leased up we’d like the church to actually bring the furniture to the apartment, set up the apartment and turn it over to the new tenant “ready to move-in”. In addition to the furniture, we’d also need things likes pots and pans, bowls and plates, silverware, a broom, vacuum cleaner, cleaning stuff, dish towels, bath towels, sheets, blankets, maybe blinds or shades, a television, lamps, etc.
This may sound like a lot, but we’ve used the model before and it has worked beautifully. Most parishioners have some furniture that is available for donation and everyone has household stuff and can share a little. A couch here, a bed there, a kitchen table & chairs . . . Nothing has to be new. The biggest job here is the coordination of all this, and then the actual move-in day. You might need to coordinate with pickups, or rent a U-Haul. You’ll also need a place to keep the donated furniture unless everyone brings it to a central location on move-in day. The beauty of this project is that it is self-contained and time-limited. It will involve a lot of coordination for a couple of months and all the schlepping & setting up on the actual move-in day itself. Once the person is in, you have the satisfaction of knowing that a formerly homeless person is now in his or her new home.
When we’ve done this in the past, a couple of the parishes got to know the individual who moved into “their” apt. and have maintained a relationship with that person. This is really an opportunity for a direct connection with the issue of homelessness and the solutions proposed by the Middlesex County Ten Year Plan to End Homelessness. I don’t know if anyone in your congregation would be up for this kind of commitment, but think and pray about it. Let me know if you’d like any more information about this. I’m sending out a similar plea to many churches/parishes/synagogues in the area who have been such faithful supporters of St. Vincent DePaul and the Amazing Grace Food Pantry.
Blessings and peace,
Ron Krom
