Bulletin Board
The place where you can stay up to date with the latest events, stories, news, and opportunities for our City Relief community.
One Size Does Not Fit All - Our Efforts Week 3
One of the things that makes our work at City Relief so difficult to quantify is that no two experiences of homelessness are the same. I often remind people in training sessions that every person we meet brings a different story, and that story shapes what stability actually looks like for them.
The path forward for a man in his forties whose marriage fell apart isn’t the same as it is for a senior trying to survive while the cost of living keeps rising faster than their fixed income can handle. And it certainly isn’t the same for a young person who just aged out of the foster care system with nowhere stable to land, as it is for a woman fleeing a domestic violence situation with little more than the clothes on her back.
How a Story About Starfish Tells the Tale of Homelessness. Our Efforts Week 2
A few weeks ago, I was having breakfast with a longtime donor, and we found ourselves circling a familiar frustration: it feels like all the money New York City is spending on homelessness isn’t actually making a dent.
I get why it feels that way. A recent Washington Post headline said it plainly: Spending More Money on Homelessness Isn’t Helping. In March of 2025, City Relief was pushed out of our weekly outreach location on 14th Street in Manhattan. A local developer threatened our partner with a cease-and-desist, arguing that our two-hour pop-up was attracting more people experiencing homelessness than it was helping transition into stability.
Why Our Efforts to Solve Homelessness Are Falling Short (Week 1)
I met a woman last week at our Chelsea Park outreach. I’ll call her “K.”
K is articulate, soft-spoken, and in her forties. She’s the kind of person you could stand next to in church, sit beside on the subway, or pass in line at Starbucks and you wouldn’t think twice. She doesn’t panhandle, use drugs, or experience mental illness (at least not from what I could tell).
She graduated high school and took some college classes. She’s thoughtful, aware, and doing her best to navigate a system that often feels impossible to understand. And yet, K is experiencing homelessness. She’s currently living in a shelter, trying to survive on about $200 a month in SNAP benefits and $22 a month in cash assistance.
The power of giving yourself for the sake of someone else
We live in a culture that celebrates self-sufficiency. Figure it out. Handle your own problems. Don’t ask for help. It sounds like strength. It even feels right sometimes. But on the streets, that idea doesn’t last very long.
One Friday in Harlem, I was helping someone with a referral when a fight broke out right next to me. One man accused another of talking to the police. Within seconds, it escalated—shouting, then a punch, then chaos. And I froze. Clipboard in hand. Blood on the page. I didn’t step in. I didn’t know how. But someone else did.
Lessons from Kilimanjaro (Week 4) - No One Summits Alone
The longest day of the climb started at 5:00 a.m. By God’s grace (and the power of modern medicine), I woke up feeling much better than the night before. I still didn’t know if I’d attempt the summit, but I knew my only way down… was up.
The plan sounded simple on paper: climb the rock wall above camp, follow the ridge for hours, descend into a ravine, climb back out, grab a quick lunch, and push to base camp. From there, we’d rest briefly before a midnight summit attempt.
When I stepped out of my tent, the wall loomed above us looking dark, steep, and unforgiving. Derrick, one of our guides, looked at me and said something that felt less like advice and more like a promise, “You stay with me.”
Lessons From Kilimanjaro: When the Only Way Down Is Up (Week 3)
The storm had passed by morning, but the mountain hadn't made any promises.
The sky above camp was wide and blue, almost offensively calm. If you hadn't been there the night before, you would assume everything was fine, but my body knew better.
The violent shaking was gone, but I wasn't restored. My appetite had disappeared, my head felt heavy, and my legs felt hollow — not weak exactly, just empty.
Lessons from Kilimanjaro - What a Storm and a Lost Bag Taught Me About Vulnerability (Week 2)
Last week I wrote about rhythm — how the mountain forces you to slow down.
This week is about the storm.
Lessons From Kilimanjaro - Why I Climbed Africa’s Highest Mountain (Week 1)
I didn't climb Mount Kilimanjaro because I needed an adventure.
I climbed because I lead an organization that depends on generosity.
When a group of nonprofit leaders invited me to join a fundraising expedition up Africa's highest peak, I saw it first through a strategic lens. If shared challenge inspires generosity, maybe this could help more people move from crisis toward stability. Maybe it could open doors. Maybe it could strengthen City Relief's work across New York and New Jersey.
WEEK 7: Disability Discrimination & the Systematic Exclusion of People Who Are Different
I had planned to land the plane on this series about the complexity of homelessness—why the tidy stories we tell ourselves are incomplete and, often, harmful. But last week, I only brushed up against a reality that deserves far more attention: the intersection of disability discrimination and homelessness, and the quiet ways people are excluded from support long before they ever fall into crisis.
WEEK 6: He Had Heart Surgery. Then He Was Back on the Street.
This week, I want to zoom in on another layer of complexity that makes accessing safe and sustainable housing so difficult: healthcare, mental health services, and long-term care for aging or disabled loved ones.
WEEK 5: Those Who Don’t Know History Are Destined to Repeat It
Over the past few weeks, I've written about the complexity of homelessness—why congregate shelters aren't a solution for everyone, why creative approaches matter, and why the data we track doesn't always capture the full reality of the problem.
Underneath all of it is a more fundamental question: How did we get here, and why is homelessness so hard to fix?
WEEK 4: Why Counting Homelessness Isn’t the Same as Ending It
Part of the challenge in addressing homelessness is that many of our public conversations focus on managing the most visible effects of the crisis rather than understanding the deeper systems that keep people stuck in it. In city halls, community board meetings, and policy discussions across the country, the way we measure the problem often shapes what we believe is possible in responding to it.
WEEK 3: Creative Solutions for a Systemic Problem
Last week, I shared some of the reasons why traditional shelters don't work for everyone, and why sleeping outside is not usually a first choice, but a last resort.
So the question becomes: what are the alternatives, if any?
WEEK 2: The Shelter System That Pushes People Outside
I'll never forget the first time I toured the Bellevue Intake Shelter in New York City when I began working at City Relief.
Walking toward the former psychiatric hospital—now the primary intake point for single adult men entering the city's shelter system—I immediately felt uneasy. The building looked like something out of a Batman comic, the kind of place designed to contain danger rather than do any good.
WEEK 1: Why One-Size-Fits-All Fails
Over the years, I’ve noticed something about how we tend to talk about homelessness: We want it to be simple.
We want one solution. One program. One policy. One clear fix that, if implemented well enough, would finally “solve” the problem.
I understand the impulse. Complexity is exhausting. Nuance takes time. And when human suffering is involved, we’re understandably eager for answers that feel decisive and hopeful.
But, like most things on this side of heaven, homelessness is not simple—and pretending it is often does more harm than good.
The Growing Faces of Homelessness
I hope 2026 is beginning with a sense of hope and anticipation for you. A new year always invites reflection—and for us at City Relief, it also brings clarity. After a brief pause between Christmas and New Year’s, our team is back on the streets of Newark, Paterson, and New York City, stepping into what we believe is a pivotal year.
The Power of Not Walking By
This week, I want to go a step further and talk about how loneliness is interrupted not just by noticing people who are struggling, but by choosing to engage with them.
A Lonely Christmas for Our Unhoused Neighbors and What We Can Do About It
The Christmas season is officially here. Twinkling lights, packed calendars, school recitals, and Amazon boxes arriving at the door around the clock (just me?). And somewhere in the garage sits the bin of decorations we promised ourselves we'd organize last year. It's a beautiful kind of chaos. At least for most of us.
But in the middle of all that holiday hustle, while we're sprinting from one thing to the next, many of our unhoused neighbors are standing still, quietly overlooked as life moves around them.
The Week I Became the Good Shepherd (Guest Newsletter from Dan Sadlier)
On the morning of October 30th, 2024, our apartment—usually alive with six kids—was quiet. Around 8 a.m., our son Judah went to check on his oldest sister, our adopted daughter, "M." She wasn't there. I walked upstairs, assuming she was out with the dog or in the shower. But her room was empty, and her phone, something no 21-year-old ever leaves behind, sat on the table. Within minutes, our quiet morning became every parent's nightmare.