X Committee Members Add Value and Take Away Knowledge at Annual Conference

This year, approximately 35 people received scholarships from Como Northtown Community Credit Union to attend the annual conference.

In comparison, this large number of individuals utilizing scholarship money is on par with previous years. The scholarship recipients, many of whom are or were experiencing homelessness, made up about 10 percent of total conference attendance.

This financial support showed that the philanthropic community believed in the potential of these individuals to not only gain skills through the workshops and training sessions, but to have the ability to disseminate the knowledge they gained to positively affect the homeless community at large.

In more recent years, those who are or were experiencing homelessness have had an increased presence at the conference. Perhaps more importantly than this increase is the shift of this group’s focus and participation.

“One significant change is that we are getting people there to train them as organizers,” said Michael Dahl, Executive Director of the Coalition. He went on to say that in the past, the focus has been on learning how people experiencing homelessness feel about the direction of our work and the value of our advocacy.

More recently, though, scholarship recipients attending the conference are seeing themselves as potential leaders in the community, rather than just a voice of experience.

This year, about ten people that identify as members or affiliates of the X Committee were present. Members of this group gained a lot of knowledge about housing and homelessness issues and became more aware of new topics in their field of work.

Doug Fountain, the current chair of the X Committee, explained the insight he gained in the issue of homeless youth. “I didn’t know youth were so affected by homelessness, and now I know a bit about how to deal with the issue,” he said. Doug plans on educating people experiencing homelessness about this issue and hopes to get more youth involved in various X Committee projects.

Anthony Johnson, current vice chair of the group, was motivated to be involved in the conference in order to gain more resources to improve The X Committee’s Peer Sobriety Mentor Project.

“As a mentor, it’s important to learn the problems that could make people relapse,” said AJ. “I made a lot of connections, got a lot of good information, and gave a lot of information out on peer mentoring.” Hence, members of the group were not only given the chance to further their own abilities, but also had the opportunity to educate people on the organizing work in which they have participated.

Overall, the conference was an opportunity for diverse people, working and living in all kinds of situations, to come together and connect.

Tony Lynn, a member of the X Committee, learned the importance of connection in organizing. “I saw the way that groups come together to help the homeless population and saw how people experiencing homelessness can learn how people work together to create change.”

For Jesse Wiley, another X Committee member, the experience of making connections and meeting various groups of people was crucial for him. He met many informative people that had a lot to offer in terms of professional and personal experience.

When asked why it was important for people experiencing homelessness to participate in the conference he explained:

“People experiencing homelessness are the experts. If you want to know about homelessness, ask a homeless person. It makes no sense to have a conference without them.”