On February 19, funders from across the country convened at our annual Funders Forum in Oakland. Melissa Stafford Jones, Executive Director at the Dean & Margaret Lesher Foundation, attended the Funders Forum and walked away ruminating on the disparities between income and affordable housing and steps funders can take to address these disparities.
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In this blog post, Maria Foscarinis, Executive Director of the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty, explains what the Martin v Boise ruling means, why it is so important to efforts to end homelessness, and how funders can support momentum on opportunity for progress.
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Funders Together to End Homelessness thanks Matthew Doherty for his service as Executive Director of the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH).
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Past Board Chairs, Bill Pitkin and Janice Elliott, and current Board Chair, Katie Hong chronicle the racial equity learning journey of Funders Together to End Homelessness from naming it as a strategic priority to making its Commitment to Racial Equity.
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On Thursday, October 3, Funders Together to End Homelessness attended a “Stakeholder HUDdle” meeting with U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and Secretary Ben Carson.
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Funders Together to End Homelessness responds to the recent White House Council of Economic Advisers "The State of Homelessness in America" report and proposed federal intervention on homelessness in Los Angeles.
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This summer, Heartland Alliance announced the Pathways Forward Challenge - a call to communities across the country to engage in creating more effective and equitable pathways to employment for people experiencing homelessness. In this blog post, Melissa Young and Carrie Felton of Heartland Alliance, discuss the goals of the challenge and how philanthropy plays a critical role in the success of these goals.
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In June, Meyer Memorial Trust submitted public comments in opposition of the Department of Housing and Urban Development's proposed rule to prohibit "mixed-status" families from federal housing assistance. In this blog post, Meyer Memorial Trust President & CEO, Michelle J. Depass outlines why the Trust took a stance and used its voice to condemn the proposed rule that will fuel racial inequities in housing and homelessness across the country.
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Throughout the Polk Bros Foundation's 30th anniversary year, in its Chicago’s Potential blog series, it is sharing trends and progress the Foundation is noticing across focus areas, and pointing to what they see changing in Chicago that gives them hope. This post from Polk Bros. Foundation Senior Program Officer Debbie Reznick, who leads grantmaking in the Foundation’s Strong Communities and Enhanced Capacity program areas, originally appeared on the Foundation's blog in June 2019. In it, Debbie focuses on areas related to ending homelessness, increasing access to justice through legal aid and building the capacity of nonprofit organizations.
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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