Bishop’s Task Force on Homelessness

** I apologize to John Hoyte for the incorrect spelling of his name in the June 28 column, whose name appears here in its’ correct form.  Thankfully, John is still speaking to me. The Taskforce has been keeping an eye on the Supreme Court relating to Johnson V. Grant’s Pass.  In this case, the city challenged the law which disallowed its’ ability to remove the unhoused from public places without providing shelter as well as being able to Impose a

What part do relationships play in outreach at your parish? As I think about the programs highlighted in this column over the past year, what strikes me is how integral relationships are to each program. The relationships we build with those we serve. The relationships we build with our fellow parishioners. The relationships we build with the ecumenical groups with whom we partner. While at an outreach gathering for my own church, I reflected on how much I respected and

From Don Fornoff, Bishop’s Task Force on Homelessness: Please allow me to make something as clear as I possibly can. I look for articles and information about homelessness not so much to inform but to give hopeful insight into what we, as Jesus’s people, can do about it. Motivation to do so is also a factor. In any given week, I rarely fail to find and read articles about homelessmess (as I call it). Not all that is in print

From Don Fornoff, Bishop’s Task Force on Homelessness: Homelessness continues to be an in-front-of-us topic in the news, the Supreme Court, and politics. The Supreme Court case Johnson V. Grant’s Pass is due for a decision to be made public in June. Interestingly, I read that Mayor Harrell of Seattle says the decision for or against cities won’t make any difference for Seattle, as the priority is to provide as much shelter as the city can provide. A report in

From Don Fornoff, the Bishop’s Task Force on Homelessness: The title is the name of the St. Luke’s redevelopment project in Ballard (North Seattle). About such a project, it isn’t often any of us get to observe something special, much less experience that activity in some way, and very rarely do we meet and talk with one or more of the leaders of that effort. So it went for me over the past few weeks with my encounter with the

From Don Fornoff, Bishop’s Task Force on Homelessness: Your task force met last Saturday, sharing and considering many ideas as we are wont to do – and I want to share one of them. We met a week earlier than usual in deference to the gathering of the Diocese to elect a new bishop. So, keep that event in mind and check in by Sunday to see who will lead us into the future. The main discussion centered on a

From Don Fornoff, the Bishop’s Task Force on Homelessness: Your Taskforce correspondent spends a lot of time reading articles for up-to-date information on homelessness. Others I read to gain more and better understanding of the depth and breadth of homelessness. I write of these to help our parish supporters develop answers for problems that need to be solved. One article said building more housing won’t make it more affordable. It made me annoyed that this thought was likely planted by

From Don Fornoff, the Bishop’s Task Force on Homelessness: I wish I could say that many activities to address homelessness are taking place these days. It sometimes feels as though all there is is a big complaint session. Finding solutions locally and in general seems to be out of reach – just read the papers (or online) to find lots of money is being spent but without a lot of success. That is why our Task Force continues to emphasize

From Don Fornoff, Bishop’s Task Force on Homelessness: I have enjoyed writing this column on behalf of the Bishop’s Task Force on Homelessness because I want to keep all of our parishes up-to-date on current outreach efforts. That is faith-based outreach, social, non-profit, and governmental efforts. I am constantly on the lookout for ideas and for what is being published about the extent and reasons for homelessness. I use numbers that I myself haven’t vetted but that can be relied

From Don Fornoff, Bishop’s Task Force on Homelessness: Over the past several written pieces for the Diocesan Enews, I have misspelled the word homelessness as I type and corrected it each time so that it wasn’t written homelessmess. At one time, I wanted to leave it alone as homelessness in the geography of our diocese IS a mess. It is a mess for many reasons- but not for reasons that point to faith communities and our parishes as not doing