How one Mansfield church offers friendship and support to the unhoused

Wheels of Hope provides car rides to people who can’t drive due to illness, age or disability for no more than $20. Drivers provide more than just a ride and also provide company to the passenger and help with tasks if they need it.

A homelessness prevention program in Santa Clara County, run by nonprofit Destination: Home, provides targeted financial assistance, about $6,500 per household, to people at imminent risk of losing their housing. Using a risk-assessment questionnaire to identify eligible participants, the program has grown from a $1 million pilot serving 200 households in 2017 to a $30 million annual program serving 2,500 households today.

The high census completion rate in Lee-Harvard, as high as 70%, compared to Cleveland’s 50% as a whole, is the result of regular meetings, pre-pandemic, to educate residents of the benefits of the census and dispel common myths. After the pandemic, volunteers at the community center’s monthly food distribution provided census-related information. A group of retired women, called the Ward 1 Volunteer Navigators, also went door-to-door to make sure everyone got counted. Because many of the residents are long time homeowners, neighbor-to-neighbor relationships also led more residents to complete the census.

Activists in Berkeley, California, are filling in what they say is a gap in homeless services during the coronavirus outbreak. Volunteers are safely delivering food and other supplies to those without shelter.

Groups like the Sidewalk Project are gathering volunteers to provide street medicine and care to people experiencing homelessness, many of whom are trans sex workers in need of basic care items beyond just clothes and food. These volunteers come to those in need with lived experiences, as many of them have experienced homelessness themselves, making them easier to trust as they provide important services like HIV and trans wellness care.

The Idea Works Entrepreneurs Kitchen is a commercial kitchen co-working space that hosts a series of classes to teach seniors how to cook. With the help of grant money, the classes help combat social isolation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, while also helping seniors learn new skills and improve their nutrition.

A father/daughter dentist duo provides dental services to refugees in need of care by setting up a pop-up clinic at a refugee camp on the Greek island of Chios. The pop-up clinic provides much-needed dental care to the refugees who haven’t had the ability to care for their teeth during their journey to Europe and dentists from around the world will take turns staffing the clinic on a volunteer basis.

Café Gozhóó is a restaurant and vocational training program at the Rainbow Treatment Center, which is operated by the White Mountain Apache tribe. Café Gozhóó uses the kitchen to teach therapeutic skills – connecting with ancestral foods, stress management, and teamwork – to people recovering from substance abuse. Café Gozhóó is also filling a critical gap in access to care as many mainstream recovery programs are located far from Native American communities and often lack counselors trained in culturally competent care.

“Take what you need—leave what you can" is the motto etched on the 16 anonymous “Blessing Boxes” set up around Stark County. The wooden cabinets are stocked with non-perishable food, household items, and personal hygiene items. People can access the boxes whenever they need to and can take as much as they would like. The boxes are made and re-stocked several times a week by volunteers. One of the boxes sits outside a local elementary school, not only provided needed supplies to students and their families, but students have also taken responsibility for helping to keep it filled.

Cornerstone Baptist Church is spearheading the redevelopment of Struggs’ Cornerstone Heights Neighborhood. In 2019, the church opened a laundromat and bike shop and last year the Cornerstone Community Kitchen began serving free hot meals to locals experiencing homelessness. The Church is soon launching a community market where local residents can access fresh, affordable food.