Adding Seats To the Table: A Community-Based Approach To Family Homelessness

Adding Seats to the Table: A Community-Based Approach to Family Homelessness was created to support grassroots community organizing and coalition building among homeless, formerly homeless, and at-risk families in three capitol city communities. The Fund sought to break with traditional service provision strategies by directly supporting community organizing and self-advocacy efforts among homeless, formerly homeless, and at-risk families. Although the three local groups were each distinct, their community organizing efforts displayed similar approaches, strategies, and outcomes. Common to all was the use of blended community organizing strategy that took the best aspects of different organizing models and tailored them to the uniqueness of each community. The groups learned to work in coalition and partner with other groups despite differing political perspectives. Collectively, their outreach strategies were successful not only in attracting homeless families to their organizations, but in maintaining on-going involvement. (Authors)

Publication Date: 
2001