You know the situation – you’re in your car running errands or picking up the kids, and you come to a stoplight. There you find yourself face to face with someone holding a sign, begging for money. The sign might give some details: they’re a veteran, or they’ve got kids, or they’re simply out of work. “God bless,” it ends. Maybe you give them a smile and a wave. Maybe you give them the granola bar you were saving for a snack. Maybe you pull a couple bills out of your wallet for them. But when you drive away, you don’t know if you’ve really helped. You’re going home to a house, after all, and the sign-holder’s situation hasn’t fundamentally changed at all.

Homelessness takes many forms, most visibly on street corners where people panhandle and in the tent encampments popping up around the metro. But homelessness can also look like a family “couch-surfing” between the living rooms of relatives and friends, or staying at a hotel or shelter while continuing to work their jobs and send their kids to school. It is a deep problem with many causes, and few quick and easy-to-implement solutions.

It is easy to feel overwhelmed when you think about responding to homelessness on your own. One person giving a couple dollars here and there can put a bandage over the problem’s symptoms, and indeed these acts of generosity are needed, but they do little to overcome the enormity of the challenge. But when we join together in community, our small individual actions go further than they could on their own. We can act together to make a real and lasting difference in the lives of families facing homelessness.

This Lent, we are asking you to do just that. We invite you to join our congregation in what we're calling RELEASE, a fundraiser benefitting PRISM's Homelessness Prevention Program. We chose the name not only because our sharing releases people from the burden of debt they carry, but because it frees families to re-lease their houses and apartments and avoid homelessness.

PRISM's Homelessness Prevention Program provides financial assistance, advocacy, and coaching to local families facing eviction, foreclosure, or utility shut-offs. Every $1,500 we raise together means one more family that gets to keep their housing and avoid the trauma of homelessness. Homelessness prevention is cost effective – our gift of $1,500 prevents a yearly cost of up to $34,000 per person of public dollars for chronically homeless individuals. Most importantly, it spares families the trauma and instability of losing their home.

Your giving is needed: From October 2018-October 2019, PRISM’s Homelessness Prevention Program received 576 requests for assistance and helped 102 families. From October 2019-October 2020, PRISM’s Homelessness Prevention Program received 837 requests for assistance and helped 200 families, an increase almost certainly attributed to the uncertainty of life during COVID-19. It’s no secret that this past year has been hard on so many, and through circumstances out of their control a great number of families in our area have fallen behind on rent. Many landlords are lining up to file eviction notices as soon as the moratorium ends at the end of March, and uncertainty around federal aid to states and counties has made PRISM’s funding sources less reliable. But pooling our resources together and sharing them with PRISM might turn the tide for some families.

Lent is, after all, a time of turning. We turn to God in prayer and turn toward our neighbor in generosity. We turn over our excess possessions and resources so that others might receive what they need. We turn with the hope that God shows up in and through every act of love and compassion we muster.

Here's what we’re hoping from you to help RELEASE make a big impact:

• Giving: Each week during Lent, we invite you to give what you can by donating online at moply.org/giving (use the RELEASE line to designate your giving), mailing in checks to church with RELEASE written in the memo line, or keeping a jar of cash and coins that you can bring to church on Palm Sunday (3/28). It doesn’t have to be a lot of money – remember, this is about making a difference together. No one has to do it all on their own.

• Learning: We invite you to learn about and engage with issues of homelessness and housing through a daily calendar of activities we'll put out for each week of Lent. There will be daily readings, questions, or actions for adults. You’ll meet people at Mount Olivet who are making a difference in housing others

• Families: We’ll give families with children one simple activity each week to help your family learn about homelessness, discuss your values, and make a difference. 

Let's RELEASE our generosity this Lent, and raise up to $7,500 to keep 5 families in their homes.

 Pastor Joel