On Wednesday December 4th, Our social justice group met with Stacy Cedeno who works for the DHS (Department of Homeless Services), and we got lots of valuable advice and information from her about our topic. She is the Deputy Director of Community Prevention Services, which means she helps people find alternatives to going to a homeless shelter. What her department does is solely data based but she had lots of good connections and organization. She spoke about Home Base which is an organization that helps people who are at risk of losing their homes get financial assistance, take life skills classes, and get jobs with non-profits, the only problem is that not enough people know about it and therefore lose their homes and end up in shelters when they had other options. We were given around 50 flyers and we intend to put them in St. John’s food pantry to spread the word. Stacy was really nice and when we told her about our goals and ambitions she seemed very ready to help and support us in any way. We have heard twice now about something called ‘Hope Counts’ where a group of volunteers goes out on one of the coldest nights of the years and goes out to count people who have so little resources they have to sleep on the street. The volunteers talk to them and try to get them under a roof or to Home Base so they can have a warm bed. The walk is on January 27th and starts at 9pm and goes on for about 4 hours. Stacy will send the link with more information and they could always use more volunteers so anyone from our class could come. Stacy also said that she may be able to find some clients from Home Base that would be willing to be interviewed. She has to get permission from the media department at the DHS, but if all goes well we may be able to get 4 to 5 interviews from her. We had a great experience with her and really hope to be involved with the Hope Counts walk.
