This is part two of a segment by our guest, Mark Boorse. Last month he reflected on a community project to address the needs of individuals experiencing homelessness during the pandemic. In part two, he offers some ideas for addressing other common issues in our communities.

Often, we see people struggling with an issue like homelessness, mental health issues, substance use, and we think, “there’s a service for that”. And that’s true, there are services that are helpful to many people. However, when we think about helping primarily in terms of getting a person to a service or treatment, we run the risk of missing some of the bigger picture, and we end up with “gaps”:

• Services have a “bandwidth”; a focus, a duration, a piece of a person’s experience that they respond to. Often, there is a larger, human context beyond the scope of the service that is fundamentally important to a person’s well-being. For example, I might seek treatment for depression and find that my symptoms of feeling withdrawn and isolated are much improved. And, I can still struggle to find important relationships and purpose.
• Meaningful help for most of us comes from different places, many of which are outside the scope of services. As humans, we share some pretty universal needs: connection, being valued, a way to contribute to something bigger than ourselves, purpose and meaning. Many times, these things happen in other parts of community life; faith communities, civic groups, mutual support groups, volunteer opportunities.

There are things that each of us, as part of our communities, can do to find those gaps and address them in a collaborative way. There is a model of doing this called “collective impact”; it focuses on issues that are bigger than any one section of the community can address. It also recognizes that solutions lie in aligning our efforts towards a unified goal. Here are a couple of practical ways you can get started engaging your community in working on common issues:

• Frame the issue in community terms. Homelessness is in every community, even if it is hidden. Mental illness, suicide and bullying effect all of us in some way. The opioid epidemic has shown us that the impact of addiction touches all of us as well. Clearly naming how these issues impact a local community is an important first step.
• Invite everyone into a public conversation. Zoom has become a good platform for “townhall meetings”. Invite people who are interested in the topic to come. Include people with proximity to the issue; people who have experienced the issue themselves or who have lived “in the trenches” with those who do.
• “Network for action”. Find others in this process who are like minded in wanting to address an issue across the community. Set a common goal and share resources within the group to get started.

This may feel like a daunting task. We have found that a lot of good things happen when people gather and talk, learning from each other and sharing ideas. It might feel vague and indirect at first but often it can lead to agreed on action.

Through a grant from SAMHSA, Access’ Intersect program has developed a training series to assist both the faith community and service providers in collaborating to address mental health issues. The title of the training is, “Better Together: How faith communities, mental health providers, and government can collaborate to promote wellness”. If you are interested in learning more about this training, please contact Dave Eckert at deckert@accessservices.org.

The link below is to a short article with very practical tips for churches in considering how they might impact homelessness in their communities. It also describes collaborative activities and relationships from across the community. If you are coming from a church perspective, what strikes you as something that your congregation could do as a practical step? If you are from another part of the community, how might these suggestions apply to your perspective?

Looking for a way to help those in your community?