The Connection Shelter at historic First Presbyterian Church in downtown Mankato, Minnesota, has welcomed homeless people to spend the night from 5 p.m. to 8 a.m. in their second-floor adapted facility from October through April since the fall of 2020. Homeless guests must sign up in advance. Dinner is provided by volunteers from sponsoring churches and from the community at large. When the guests depart from First Presbyterian at 8 a.m., they walk a few blocks to Centenary United Methodist Church for breakfast served by Holy Grounds staff and volunteers and then proceed to the nearby Salvation Army for shelter during the day if needed.
Isaac Adlerstein, the executive director of Broadway Community at Broadway Presbyterian Church in New York City, whose efforts helping the city open shelters in New York City faith communities for asylum seekers was reported here, was the guest recently on “A Matter of Faith: A Presby Podcast,” hosted each week by Simon Doong and the Rev. Lee Catoe.
A woman with lived experience as a homeless veteran brought home the importance of ongoing support for veterans during a recent webinar that explored issues related to poverty among veterans and how churches can help.
By extending an invitation to love everyone no matter what, as Jesus did, Pamela Atkinson, who grew up in the slums of London, has helped shape the life of First Presbyterian Church in Salt Lake City. It has even earned her the nickname “the Mother Teresa of Utah.”
Churches in the Presbytery of Denver are reaching out to their neighbors without homes in traditional and even system-altering ways, including a successful effort to get the Aurora City Council to alter zoning on a tract of land to permit development of much-needed affordable housing in what’s become the seventh most expensive place in the nation to own or rent a home.
According to a 2020 count, Los Angeles County had 66,433 homeless residents, about the same population as two of California’s college towns, Palo Alto and Davis. Churches including First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood and its indominable director of Urban Mission and Community Outreach, Amie Quigley, became “the model for how church-based homeless ministries work in collaboration with city, county and private agencies,” said the Rev. Heidi Worthen Gamble, Mission Catalyst for the Presbytery of the Pacific.
Churches in the Presbytery of Denver are reaching out to their neighbors without homes in traditional and even system-altering ways, including a successful effort to get the Aurora City Council to alter zoning on a tract of land to permit development of much-needed affordable housing in what’s become the seventh most expensive place in the nation to own or rent a home.
During a recent virtual meeting, the Presbyterian Hunger Program Advisory Committee heard about a variety of approaches that are being used by faith communities to address poverty and homelessness, from taking a group bike ride to paying off medical debt.
In an effort to deepen its commitment to the Matthew 25 invitation, Anchorage Presbyterian Church in Louisville, Kentucky, has been holding a series of weekly sessions it’s calling A Place at the Table. Sunday’s discussion on affordable housing in and around Louisville featured Tony Curtis, executive director of the Metropolitan Housing Coalition. Curtis’ slides are here and his talk may be viewed here, along with a previous talk by retired attorney Bill Wilson about the history of housing and redlining in Louisville.
