A national network of funders supporting strategic, innovative, and effective solutions to homelessness

Announcing a New Partnership: Bay Area Homelessness Funders Network

Posted by 320sc on August 20, 2020

 

 

 

Funders Together to End Homelessness (FTEH) and Northern California Grantmakers (NCG) are pleased to announce the Bay Area Homelessness Funders Network (BAHFN).

We are joining forces to advance racial equity and coordinate across the region to prevent and end homelessness in the Bay Area by creating a space to connect and facilitate action. The network draws on NCG’s expertise in bringing philanthropy together to build healthy, thriving, and just communities and Funders Together’s work mobilizing philanthropy in using its influence, expertise, and voice to advance lasting solutions to end homelessness, including addressing structural and racial inequities.

“We're creating a space for strategic thinking and collective action through this network. By collaborating and centering the voices of grassroots leaders and those with lived experience, we can advance regional work while supporting statewide and national efforts.” says Sarah Frankfurth, NCG’s Director of Regional Programs and Partnerships.

While people often associate homelessness with visible tents and encampments, many more people experiencing homelessness remain out of sight – living in their cars or moving around to stay with friends or family when they can. People of color, particularly Black and Indigenous people, face the additional hurdle of policies that have long excluded them from equal access to housing, community supports, and opportunities for economic mobility.

“We are already seeing the impact of COVID-19 on the Bay Area’s existing homelessness crisis. Making a significant difference requires centering racial justice, including those with lived expertise as decision-makers, and using an intersectional approach to facilitate action in philanthropy,” says Amanda Andere, CEO of Funders Together to End Homelessness.

Cities across the Bay Area have been intensifying their efforts to respond to the pandemic and protect people experiencing homelessness, and stakeholders are lifting up regional strategies and solutions. BAHFN hopes to align these efforts in addressing the structural and racial inequities to advance lasting solutions to end homelessness. The network is hosting its virtual launch event on August 25, 2020 at 10:30 am. Register here to learn more and join the efforts.

We joined Funders Together because we believe in the power of philanthropy to play a major role in ending homelessness, and we know we have much to learn from funders across the country.

-Christine Marge, Director of Housing and Financial Stability at United Way of Greater Los Angeles

I am thankful for the local partnerships here in the Pacific Northwest that we’ve been able to create and nurture thanks to the work of Funders Together. Having so many of the right players at the table makes our conversations – and all of our efforts – all the richer and more effective.

-David Wertheimer, Deputy Director at Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Very often a lack of jobs and money is not the cause of poverty, but the symptom. The cause may lie deeper in our failure to give our fellow citizens a fair chance to develop their own capacities, in a lack of education and training, in a lack of medical care and housing, in a lack of decent communities in which to live and bring up their children.

-President Lyndon B. Johnson, 1964 State of the Union Address

Funders Together has given me a platform to engage the other funders in my community. Our local funding community has improved greatly to support housing first models and align of resources towards ending homelessness.

-Leslie Strnisha, Vice President at Sisters of Charity Foundation of Cleveland

Our family foundation convenes local funders and key community stakeholders around strategies to end homelessness in Houston. Funders Together members have been invaluable mentors to us in this effort, traveling to our community to share their expertise and examples of best practices from around the nation.

-Nancy Frees Fountain, Managing Director at The Frees Foundation


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