Over the years we’ve done our best to create an approachable community where people can feel welcome at all of our outreach events no matter who they are and what they are going through.

This week we want to unpack the Housing First approach, one of several effective and proven methods to reduce homelessness.

This week we want to take some time to address a question that has been asked so many times: “Should I give money to someone on the street?”

We are reaching out this week with some major updates about homelessness legislation. We were recently made aware that the Tennessee lawmakers passed a bill that would make it illegal for people experiencing homelessness to sleep on public property.

Each week our eight outreaches are a space for our volunteers to draw close to God’s heart. To discover what the Gospel might mean outside of our usual comfortable lives. Tom D’Antonio volunteered with us towards the end of 2021 and took the time to write us this letter about his experience.

“Walk in the Dust” is a day during which someone on our staff walks in the footsteps of many of our outreach guests. Most recently, our Follow-Up Care Coordinator, Nelson Maldonado, had the opportunity to Walk in the Dust and he shared his experience with us.

This past July marked my first year with City Relief. And in the past year, I have pondered this question constantly. I came on staff when the world was seemingly on fire. At the onset of a global pandemic, I joined a collective of individuals compelled to run into the fray rather than away from it. And though I was once in awe of what they can do, I found myself more in awe with who they are. At the core of what brought each person to this team was not solely their merit, but their wounds and scars. These are what inspire them to work, even against the current of a cataclysmic reality. After all, I think we can all agree that this past year has been wounding. Especially for our friends on the street.

This month’s Street Story comes from on of our Follow Up Care Coordinators, Zach Winterowd. July was actually Zach’s last month with us as he and his wife Shayna move onto the next phase of their lives back in Texas. His time with us was spent talking with guests to make individualized next steps, or a plan that they can realistically achieve, and then walk alongside them for as long as they need. It might look like helping someone get an ID card to helping a couple get married. (true story!) Zach talks about one need he has seen in almost every person he’s spoken with: the need for human connection.

I was nervous about serving with City Relief. Ten years ago, I spent my first week with this organization and fell in love with the neighborhoods of New York City and New Jersey, the ministry, and with the friends we had made on the streets. Every year I would countdown the weeks before I could return... but this year was different.

This month’s Street Story comes from our Director of Outreach, Lauren Lee. Lauren just celebrated her 5 year anniversary of working with City Relief on our outreach team. Her story is about assumptions and misconceptions that we often bring with us, and how people are always more than they appear.

This month’s Street Story comes from our Director of Follow Up Care, Tricia Philbert. Tricia and her team stay in contact with our guests after our outreaches end. They walk alongside each person that that is looking to make positive changes in their lives. Tricia’s story is about Mary and her family who were evicted when they couldn’t pay for their apartment during the pandemic.

God’s Kingdom is backwards from the way our world works. “The first will be last” or “That you must die to live” are ideas so contrary to the way we live that we often easily forget. This week Chief Executive Officer, Josiah Haken, got a reminder, at 7-Eleven.

I called him the “Rolling Prophet.”

Carlito was in a wheelchair when I met him. He was an older man, frail and sick, but all smiles. He had a gray beard and sparkly eyes. He looked a little like Santa Claus if Father Christmas was paralyzed and had to go five rounds with chemotherapy. Carlito usually rolled up to us on his electric chair while we were setting up our weekly outreach in Harlem. He couldn’t help us physically, but he would always greet us with an encouraging word or a blessing from scripture.

I don’t know about you, but my definition of a “miracle” is quite lofty and nearly unattainable. There are only a few times I have truly experienced anything that I would slap a “miracle” sticker on with such a distinguished definition.

“Stop complaining. It can always be worse.”

"You’re not as bad off as the next guy.”

“Suck it up, you’re being too sensitive.”

These phrases take up space in our ear and lead us down a rugged, desolate road. Searching for respite from our solitude, we grasp onto them as truths, when they are simply a temporary band-aid.

The weather changed. One day it was 50 degrees and the next it was 26. I’m no mathematician, but I believe that’s a 24 degree drop. 24 degrees in 24 hours. In my family, it meant jumping from sweatshirts to heavy jackets.

Hope for New York helps provide volunteers for various locations and, recently New York City Relief showcased some HFNY volunteers at their South Bronx location. Hear from Beth Tepes, one of the volunteers, and why she was impacted from volunteering.

One of the questions I get a lot when I do workshops or trainings around the topic of homelessness is, "How do I explain homelessness to my kids?" Usually this question comes from parents who live and work in areas where homelessness is self-evident. Occasionally it comes from parents who are planning a family trip into the city and they want to get out ahead of the inevitable questions that will come up as they walk from point A to point B.

This is by no means an exhaustive list, but here are five things I’ve learned over the last seven years about how to best love my neighbors experiencing homelessness.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard Christians justify doing nothing for the poor and the homeless by quoting the words of Jesus found in Mark 14:7: “The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want. But you will not always have me.”

Now, besides the obvious irony of using the words of the same man who told the parables of the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son, the same man who highlighted the significance of the widow’s generosity, and the same man who constantly warned of the dangers of greed, in order to excuse not lifting a finger to help the poor, there is also another fundamental problem