Bulletin Board
The place where you can stay up to date with the latest events, stories, news, and opportunities for our City Relief community.
Shelter Isn't Housing - Here's Why That Matters | Our Efforts Week 5
Last week, I introduced you to James. A man who, on paper, qualified for help, but in reality, couldn’t access it. Not because he didn’t want it. Not because help didn’t exist. But because the system required something he didn’t have: stability.
And that’s exactly why approaches like Housing First were created. Because for someone like James, asking him to get stable before giving him housing is like asking him to solve the problem without the very thing that makes a solution possible.
But to really understand why that matters and why the conversation around homelessness can feel so confusing, we need to get clear on something foundational:The difference between shelter and housing.
Housing First, Not Housing Only - Our Efforts Week 4
So even though help technically existed, it remained out of reach. That gap between eligibility and accessibility is where people like James get stuck. Which brings us to one of the most talked-about approaches to homelessness: Housing First.
Housing First began in the early 1990s through the work of Sam Tsemberis in New York City. At the time, most programs required people to prove they were “housing ready” before being given access to permanent housing.
Housing First flipped that.
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.”
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.
Why listening matters…
As an advocate for homelessness, I wanted to share a powerful story that I recently came across in the New York Times. The article, written by Tracy Kidder, is about a doctor named Jim O'Connell, who has dedicated his life to caring for the homeless population in Boston. What makes his approach unique is his commitment to listening to the stories of the people he serves.