Columbia’s War on Poverty: Hats off to Project Homeless Connect
This week’s column is just chock full of opportunities to get on soapboxes related to local poverty. For starters, do we need to say again that we have within us the ability to solve sustained poverty here in Columbia? You realize we could absolutely do it, right?
More than anything else in quite a while, the recent Columbia event Project Homeless Connect provides a powerful example for what we need to do. It spotlights that we have the resources, if we work together, to help people have better lives and rise out of homelessness.
Working together is everything.
Project Homeless Connect has been around for quite a while and these days it is maintained by the Boone County Coalition to End Homelessness. Jessica Macy is this year’s lead, serving as spokesperson and keeping everything moving in the same direction.
The event happens every six months and assembles organizations and individuals with all sorts of resources into one room that can make life easier for people facing homelessness, as well as provide a path to a better life.
A big shoutout, by the way, to the Missouri United Methodist Church for providing the space for this event to happen. It is right in the center of downtown Columbia and provides an easy place for folks facing homelessness to gather (and gather they did, lined up out the door and down the block, ready to get help that is actually always available to them, if they only knew where to find it).
In that one big room, for one day, people facing homelessness can get a haircut, they can find dental and other health care assistance, they can get information about so many resources that are available to them, and they can get plugged into a network for ongoing assistance.
What if there was always a room like this? What if there was always a place where someone facing homelessness could go to find all the things that are available to help them get to where they want to be?
At the same time, all of those organizations, individuals and entities – Voluntary Action Center, The Salvation Army, Love Columbia, Central Missouri Community Action, even the Humane Society and so many others – are all in one place and have the opportunity to communicate and coordinate. They have the ability to work together so much better than they normally do, solving problems over the course of the day. Even decision-makers such as the city and county’s Steve Hollis are there.
Someone comes in to get food for the week and they get a haircut and they get their dog immunized (yes, there are an awful lot of dogs in our homeless community) and they meet someone who will help them some other way next week. Or the best example is the family of five that came in to get assistance for their three children and stumbled over shelter space so they would not have to sleep in their car that night.
All the while, local media is there sharing everything that is happening, giving every single member of our community the opportunity to be a part of the solution.
If Project Homeless Connect existed year-round; if all of the resources could be available in this way and the organizations could cooperate so completely and basically effortlessly, we could solve sustained poverty in Columbia this year. We could marshal our resources, spend the money where it needs to be spent and best serve those who need to be served.
Let’s work our way toward this end. Hats off to Project Homeless Connect. Let’s make it an all-the-time thing.
Major Kevin Cedervall is a leader of The Salvation Army in Columbia. The Salvation Army provides a wide range of community services to address poverty and other issues, seeking to rebuild lives and create lasting change.
This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: Columbia’s War on Poverty: Hats off to Project Homeless Connect
