Many of you have read about the successful organizing partnership that the Coalition helped create in 2003 when a small group of people staying in homeless shelters in downtown St. Paul decided they wanted to improve conditions and opportunities for people experiencing homelessness at large.
This partnership has resulted in many successes, including building and siting of about 100 lockers so that people have a safe place for one’s possessions when hunting for jobs or looking for housing, and establishing a sobriety peer mentor project by two recently homeless men in recovery who saw addiction as a major barrier preventing many people from getting and maintaining jobs and getting out of the shelter.
The Coalition hopes that 2006 will see the development of additional partnerships.
In specific, the Coalition has begun to develop partnerships with people experiencing homelessness in Minneapolis, with homeless and at-risk teens in Burnsville, and with high school students in Bloomington.
In Minneapolis, we will partner with Homeless against Homelessness (HaH), a group of homeless adults that meets weekly at Lydia Apartments.
In Burnsville, we will work with staff at the Garage, a teen drop-in center, to create a partnership modeled after that which exists in St. Paul.
If successful, the new partnership will result in a group that is of, by, and for homeless and at-risk teens.
In Bloomington, the Coalition will partner with Bloomington United for Youth and high school students from both Kennedy and Jefferson high schools with the goal of raising awareness about youth homelessness. Because of this partnership, Bloomington area students are organizing and will hold an all night vigil on April 22, 2006, at the State Capitol.
To learn more about how you or your organization can support these and other Coalition organizing initiatives, please contact Mike Davey at davey@mnhomelesscoalition.org or (612) 879-9437.