Weavers of Justice present program aimed at education

By David Eck

DAYTON DEANERY — A collaboration of 16 Dayton parishes, parishioners and Catholic institutions is studying the homelessness problem in the Dayton area with the hope of developing a strategy to help address it.

CT/DAVID ECK

Kathleen Shanahan, housing and homeless solutions coordinator for Montgomery County, speaks during a Weavers of Justice class on homelessness in the Dayton area.

At the first session, Sept. 5, Kathleen Shanahan, housing and homeless solutions coordinator for Montgomery County and a parishioner at St. Rita Parish in Dayton, said there are about 125-150 people that are chronically homeless in the county, and thousands more experience some sort of homelessness.

Businesspeople, urban neighborhood residents and the faith community all benefit by reducing homelessness, she said.

"This is a win-win issue. We need all of us at the table," she said. "We need all those players."

Keys for reducing homelessness include poverty reduction, prevention, housing and a multi-system response to the issue, Shanahan said. The county plan has a goal of creating 750 temporary and permanent supportive housing units and 1,800 affordable housing units in the county within 10 years.

"It’s an ambitious plan," she said. "It’s an expensive plan. It will take a lot to pull it all off."

Future speakers during the collaborative course will include Tom Stricker, manager of the DePaul Center, a supportive housing program for homeless men, and Judith Barr, executive director of the Samaritan Homeless Clinic.

About 45 people showed up for the first September session, including religious, social justice advocates, members of parish staffs and some who just wanted to find out more about the issue.

"I really think that the homelessness, I’ve seen increase in my lifetime," said Jessica Faraci, a parishioner at St. Charles Borromeo Parish in Kettering. "It’s just that we have such a horrible problem."

The same course will be repeated in October.

The fourth session of each course will be devoted to developing a strategy for the coalition.

CNS PHOTO

The collaborative, Weavers of Justice, recently began a four-week course to educate the faith community on the issue and encourage them to become advocates. The effort ties into a larger local government plan to end chronic homelessness and reduce all homelessness in the Dayton area within 10 years.

Weavers of Justice is made up of St. Albert the Great, St. Charles Borromeo and Ascenison parishes in Kettering; St. Francis of Assisi and Incarnation parishes in Centerville; St. Luke Parish in Beavercreek; St. Peter Parish in Huber Heights; Mary, Help of Christians Parish in Fairborn; and St. Anthony, Corpus Christi, St. Helen, Holy Trinity, Our Lady of Mercy, Precious Blood, Queen of Apostles and Queen of Martyrs parishes, all in Dayton. CSA, Catholic Social Services of the Miami Valley, Fitz Center for Leadership in Community, Good Shepherd Ministries, Sisters of the Precious Blood and St. Vincent de Paul Society, all in Dayton, are also part of the collaborative.

The collaborative, now in its second year, chose to focus on poverty and racism in 2007, which is where the homeless issue fits.

"We believe there’s an important role for the faith community to continue to play in helping to solve the issue of homelessness," Thibodeau said. "In doing this we stand on a long tradition of Catholic social teaching. Prioritizing the poor is what Jesus did. The poor were His first priority."

The issue also fits the group’s goal of working for social justice.

"We were looking for something that had some energy behind it," Thibodeau said. "It was just an obvious fit because it’s such a community effort right now.’’

As part of the first class, the group came up with several parish ideas to help address the issue including sharing homelessness statistics with parish staff, working with parish leadership and councils on the issue, creating hands-on opportunities for parishioners to see and work with the homeless, providing resource listings for parishes, and identifying properties within parish boundaries that could be used for supportive or affordable housing.

Still, a key benefit of the course is to educate people about the issue, which is a first step toward addressing the problem.

"The one thing that we know needs to be done at every parish is education on this topic," Thibodeau said. "In addition, we’re going to identify a much more specific plan or goal."

The October sessions will build on the ideas formulated during the September course, Thibodeau said. The sessions will be held on Oct. 17, 24, 31 and Nov. 7 from 11:45 a.m.-1 p.m. at Trinity Center in Dayton. The cost is $20, and registration is required. For more information, call 937-224-3026 or visit www.catholicsocialaction.org.