Working Group > Homelessness and Hunger

Page history last edited by Robert Hackett 3 wks ago

 

Member Campuses  |  Resources  |  Organizations  |  Issue Briefs

Foundation Staff:  Becky Grinstead

 

Member Campuses link to campus issue profile and lead contact name with email address

 

 

Resources training & educational resources  |  readings  |  websites, blogs, etc.

 

Add key readings and books:

such as:

  • McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act 
  • Same Kind of Different as Me - it is a memoir written by a homeless man and a local art dealer that form a unique friendship through the dealer's volunteer work at a homeless shelter. The narration switches back and forth between the two men, providing a first-hand account from both perspectives of life on the streets and bridging the gap between two seemingly distinct worlds. [From Erin Payseur epayseur@columbiasc.edu]
  • Ordinary Poverty:  A Little Food and a Little Cold Storage by Bill DiFazio, a full Professor of Sociology at St. John's University in New York City. It tells the story of hunger and homelessness by telling the story of individuals who come to Bread and Life for food, companionship and assistance.  St. John's Bread and Life provides a comprehensive set of services to the people who live in Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn-one of the poorest areas of the United States.  Bread and Life is also one of the largest soup kitchens in NYC and more information on this wonderful outreach program can be found at http://www.breadandlife.org  [From Janet Mangione mangionj@stjohns.edu]
  • Sweet Charity?: Emergency Food and the End of Entitlement written by Janet Poppendieck.  Tens of thousands of programs across the U.S. distribute free food to the hungry, a type of charity, according to the author, that "comes with a price tag." In a hard-hitting, radical analysis of a national crisis, Poppendieck, director of Hunter College's Center for the Study of Family Policy in New York City, calls the food programs a Band-Aid approach to deepening poverty, which counterproductively relieves pressure for more fundamental solutions by enabling government to shed its responsibility for the poor. Poppendieck, who has participated in or observed food distribution programs in nine states across the country, meticulously investigates the factors she cites as driving people to the soup kitchen or food pantry: low wages, unemployment, high housing costs, homelessness, disability and shrinking public-assistance benefits. She calls for a nationwide political movement to pursue an antipoverty, antihunger agenda vigorously through a reformed tax system, affordable housing, a stronger federal safety net and vastly improved public education and training. This is a book to prick the nation's conscience. [From Larry Meade LMeade@cns.gov]
  • The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical

 

Videos:

 

 

Regional & National Organizations  current or potential partner organizations

  • Bread for the World (local chapters)
  • Community Gardens and Farms; Second Harvest centers
  • Food Stamp assistance programs and local government offices
  • Restaurants and grocers
  • Salvation Army and Goodwill programs
  • Soup kitchens and food banks
  • Shelters and multi-service centers
  • Vocational and job training programs 

 

PolicyOptions.org Issue Briefs

 

 

 Summary of Campus Issue Profiles 

 Service  |  Academic Work  |  Education & Training  |  Capacity Building  |  Deliberative Democracy 

 

Specific Issue Areas

  • Addiction Recovery
  • Affordable Housing
  • Community Gardens and Farms; Gleaning
  • Disaster Relief
  • Emergency Assistance
  • Food Banks and Soup Kitchens (Hunger)
  • Foster Care
  • Domestic Violence
  • Job Training
  • Mental Health
  • Shelters 
  • Welfare to Work Programs
  • Veterans Rights
  • Prison Re-entry
  • Food Policy/ Subsidies
  • Nutrition
  • Farm to Table Programs
  • Foreclosures/ Legal Aid
  • International Food Crisis

 

Types of Service   short-term  |  ongoing school year  |  summer

One-time and Short-term

  • Empty Bowls Projects

  • Food Drives

  • Gleaning and Harvesting

  • Holiday Food Baskets and Drives; Turkey Paloosas

  • Housing Rehabilitation projects; Habitat Builds

  • Hunger and Homelessness Week

  • International Trips

  • Midnight Runs

  • Oxfam Hunger Banquets

  • Poverty and Homelessness Simulations; Save a Life Shadowing Program

  • Service Saturdays or events with Soup Kitchens; Into the Streets projects

  • Urban Plunge

      

Ongoing School Year and Site-Based Teams

  • Campus Kitchens
  • Meals on Wheels
  • Domestic Violence Prevention Programs/Shelters
  • Food Banks and Shelters (sponsor ongoing volunteers and teams)
  • Food Coops, CSAs, Gardens, Farmers Markets (like City Fresh)
  • Habitat for Humanity sites 
  • Urban Home Works (Twin Cities, MN)

 

Summer

  • Micky Leland Fellowship (DC)
  • Oxfam Change Leader Program
  • Emerson Hunger Fellowship
  • Shepherd Poverty Program (alliance with Washington & Lee) 

 

Advocacy & Direct Action

  • Bread for the World chapters/campaigns
  • Food Stamp Programs/Assistance
  • Mental Health Advocacy campaigns
  • Courses with advocacy components 

 

Academic Work   courses  |  service-learning  |  CBR and policy research   |  departments and institutes

Courses and Programs of Study

  • Civic Engagement Minors
  • Peace and Social Justice Minors
  • Franciscan Service Advocacy Minor (Siena)
  • Values Social Ethics Action Minor (Allegheny)
  • Leadership and Public Service Certificate (Young Harris)
  • Advocacy Institute for Bonners (Berea) 

 

Departments and Institutes

  • Economics
  • Gender and Women's Studies
  • History
  • Political Science
  • Sociology

 

CBR and Service-Learning Examples 

  • (need more specific examples of the types of research and projects)
  • Advocacy planning and implementation - integrated into co-curricular training/courses
  • Elijah's Promise and Middlesex County College (course)
  • North Albany Institute (Siena) 

 

Education & Training   forums  |  workshops  |  reflection activities

In addition to trainings and educational materials that may be found through the organizations/links above, schools have utilized:

  • Faces of the Homeless panels/speaker series (National Coalition for the Homeless)
  • Conferences (National Student Campaign Against Hunger and Homelessness)
  • Community partner speakers (such as from food banks)
  • Simulations (sleep outs, interactive workshops)
  • Oxfam Hunger Banquets (guide for planning online) and other events
  • Hunger 101 (Atlanta) 

 

Campus and Organizational Capacity-Building   training  |  fundraising  |  resource development

  • Some campuses have working with other departments on campus to create student administrated and awarded mini-grants for anti-hunger and homelessness work in the community
  • University of Pennsylvania and the WEPIC program are looked to as a model for community development (economic development, job training and creation, etc.)
  • VISTAs can be utilized to build the campus and community capacity in this area
  • Some campuses have coordinated and sponsored issue-based forums (using National Issues Forum or other models)
  • Some campuses also create non-profit capacity building workshops and other supports for infrastructure that may benefit agencies in this issue area 

 

Research, Policy Analysis, Deliberative Democracy   evaluations  |  policy research  | issue forums  |  advocacy

 

Contacts   staff  |  faculty  |  students  |  community partners (local, regional, national)

  • Add names and emails 

 

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