Advocacy Projects

NPIHN promotes the well being of the community and the interests of homeless families through two advocacy programs Interfaith Advocates and Just Neighbors.

 

Interfaith Advocates is a coalition of congregants, clergy, formerly homeless and homesless families working together to advocate for policies that challenge the systemic causes of homelessness and poverty. Based on an orgainizing structure that involves congregational coordinators and membership, Interfaith Advocates volunteer for 12 hours a year of non-partisan advocacy on the local, state and federal level. Specific efforts in the past year have included organizing support for raising the minimum wage in Pennsylvania, opposing cuts to the federal budget for much needed social services, creating a housing trust fund in Philadelphia and working with families to testify at several public hearings on these issues.

 

Just Neighbors is an engaging nine-part interactive educational series on poverty and homelessness in the United States. Each session, which can be held as a stand-alone workshop or combined in a series, opens with a teaching on poverty from Scripture and is ideal for congregational study groups, as well as high school and university students to gain better understanding about the root causes of poverty and homelessness. The program serves as a springboard to social advocacy activities and additional types of volunteer service programs.

 

 

NPIHN has been advocating for more affordable housing for years now. Finally, what we have been talking about has been graphically put into a map.  The below graphic makes it painfully obvious that people working a minimum wage job in any of the 50 states are not able to afford fair market rent.