Videos

Denver has started a 10 year initiative to end homelessness within it's city.
Denver isn't New York, but the facts are still interesting.
In Denver 60% of the homeless are people in families with children.
29% of homeless respondents are women
40% of the homeless are working
The most commonly reported reasons for homelessness reported in Denver are loss of a job (28%), housing costs (23%) and the breakup of a family (20%).

Recent studies estimate that the people of Denver give more than $4 million a year to panhandlers. And the truth is many panhandlers aren’t homeless and most of the homeless don’t panhandle.

Sharon Moriarty of Change.org has compiled some of the best videos regarding homelessness that have been created in the last year. Check them out here.

Volunteer Needed : Website Designer and Programmer

Use your Geek powers for good!
In Met Council's Family Violence Program we try to help our clients with everything we can to help them get back on their feet. One of our clients owns a small business and she needs help updating her website. It would be a tremendous help if someone with website design skills could help this client.
If you are interested please contact Stefanie at sgreenberg@metcouncil.org or (212) 453- 9619t

Invisible People

Reposted from Mark Horvath's vlog. Invisible People (invisible people on Vimeo):

Debbie is a mother of three and has been homeless off and on for 16 years. She lives in a camping trailer with five other people off a side street in Hollywood.

In most cases, the "mobile homeless" (those living in vehicles) are new to the streets. Many have just lost their job and apartment and are doing everything they can to keep their car. Usually, these newly homeless need basic outreach services to get back on their feet and become financially independent.

Sadly, the mobile homeless are becoming more common in our weak economy, yet in some areas of the country, such as LA County, it is illegal to live in a vehicle. Advocates are trying to change the law in LA but face fierce resistance from potential abutters in areas pegged for rezoning. Seems the mobile homeless are unwanted throughout the city.

Since the holiday was just two days away, I asked Debbie if she had any plans. But to Debbie, and other homeless people across the country, Christmas is just another day to survive.

Take Action Round Up: December 29

Inauguration Day is coming up in a couple of weeks and one of the changes that Obama and Biden are testing is to give government back to the people.

You can now Tweet (use Twitter) to get in touch with your Congress people at TweetCongress. Even if your representatives are not currently on Twitter, you can suggest that they do. This is another way to have your opinion heard and get involved in the conversations that are happening on Capital Hill.

Obama's administration has listed their agenda on many topics that they hope to address in the upcoming years, you can find the list here at change.gov. Check out their plans to get Americans out of poverty. Leave feedback here! Yes! Your government wants your feedback and wants to hear your story and what you think are the most important issues to work on!
You can also join in the discussion about a variety of policy issues here. You can leave your comment about the posted question, and respond to others comments.

One.org will present a petition to Obama asking him to make a clear declaration to ending poverty in his Inauguration address. Sign the petition here.

Photos from the Cocktail Party

Thank you again for all of you who made our very first Young Professional Cocktail Party a huge success! We had 175 people in attendance! Met Council's CEO Willie Rapfogel, Board Observer Dustin Blumenthal and Council Member Eric Gioia spoke briefly about the work that Met Council does, and how we couldn't do it without you! 1/5 of Jewish families in NYC are living in poverty, and we hope that after events like the one last week at Bungalow 8, more people will get involved in ending poverty in New York. More photos can be found here.

Yeshiva Students Give Metro House a Face Lift

Last week students from Yeshiva University as part of their Outreach day helped our clients at Metro House, (our low income housing for our mentally and physically handicapped clients) by painting the walls inside and out. The building looks great! Thanks gals!

Project 4 Awesome

Check out YouTube's Project 4 Awesome videos. Awesome people created videos about their favorite charities. This man explains what it's all about. Then you can search for Project4Awesome on the YouTube, and check out what awesome videos were made about awesome non-profits.

Thank you!

The Young Professionals event went really well last night! Thank you all for attending and making it so successful!

Seeing the invisible

Mark Horvath moved to Hollywood to make movies, he ended up living on a park bench. He now makes a vlog (video blog) about the Hollywoodians who are currently living on park benches.

See the rest of Mark's videos at invisible people

We are so famous!

Take Action Round Up: December 15

• It turns out that just like volunteering, giving is also good for your health. Donating money might not always be an option, although cleaning out the change from under your cushins is a good place to find money to donate, but maybe you can donate goods or services that you have access to (like gift cards from the shop that you work at or offer your diaper cleaning services to the local family shelter), or items that you have handy, like all those cans of beans in your cupboard. Lots of other great ideas by Susan Glairon here.
  
  
• Try giving something away every day for 29 days. It doesn't have to be big, it doesn't have to be material. See how you feel 29 days later. Take the 29 Day Giving Challenge.
  
  
• Pay it forward or play it forward? Akoha is a card game designed around doing good for your friends or strangers and then hoping you've made such an impact on them, that they want to do the same thing for someone else.
  

The Give List

The Give List: How to give this season to those who really need it, without spending money. Allison Fine and Marnie Webb started The Give List via Twitter. As Allison says, even though you may be poor, you don't have to be stingy. The New York Times also picked up on this really great list and wrote this article. If you have Twitter and want to add your ideas, Twitter using the #givelist hashtag.

Winter Campaign

Met Council has begun our Winter Campaign to raise money to help keep those in need from being cold, hungry and alone this season. If you can't donate money, consider donating coats or food. Everything helps.

Tyson Foods

Go to Tyson's (of chicken fame) webpage right now, read the article, comment at the bottom. Tyson will donate 100 pounds of food to The Greater Boston Food Bank for every comment.

Twitter!

We are now on Twitter! We are 80MaidenLane.

Do you have a Twitter account? How have you used it? Who do you follow?

Take Action Round Up: December 8

• Sharon Moriarty, from Change.org, lists 10 Actions to end homelessness.
  
  
• Feeding America, formerly called America's Second Harvest, has ideas about how to keep people well fed. Volunteer, donate, advocate, get notices about what food initiatives are on the table in Congress.
  

• Feed the hungry in Africa while you're feeding the hungry people in America. Breadline Africa is having a Blogger Bake Off! Vote for your favorite nutritional, traditional or unusual bread recipe or submit your own. And then make some bread!

Holiday Gift Ideas

I honestly really hate holiday shopping, which is why Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday; you get all the perks of Christmas/Chanukah, but without the stress of buying things. I also really dislike gift idea lists; I find them all impersonal and expensive. I make $5 an hour, I cannot afford to buy that gold plated humidifier for my sister. And why would I want to? So I thought I would share with you the couple of gift idea lists that I've come across so far that are not entirely materially driven and of course follow the theme of Met Council and this blog, of alleviating poverty as much as we possibly can. I've given family members shares of llamas from Heifer Project on several occasions. In one recent study, 84% of people said they would prefer getting a gift that would benefit someone else. So lets give and feel extra good about it!
Things to get your friend serving in Ameri/Peace corps , hip stuff from SocialVibe, Britt Bravo's list, soap and stuff, and a variety of gifty things.

Social Actions

I have heard Social Actions mentioned so many times in the blogs I read, but didn't actually look at it until today. It's wicked nifty! Social Actions works as a user friendly search engine for ways to get involved in on any number of issues. They collect their data from places like Care2, Change.org, DemocracyinAction, Idealist, Kiva, and VolunteerMatch, and the results will list all the volunteer events, petitions, mico-loans, campaigns, fund raising events and whatnot that you could participate in to change the world. Awesome! You can also add actions for other people to take.

Homeless Count

One night, every year New York City's Department of Homeless Services counts the homeless population in order to increase accountability and improve programming targeted towards homeless New Yorkers. On the night of January 26th, 2,500 volunteers, throughout every borough will count the homeless sleeping on the streets, subways and subway stations. Volunteers will work in teams of three and be accompanied by a police officer throughout the night of the count. Training will be provided before your teams is sent out at 10:30PM, and most teams finish surveying their assigned area by 2AM.
More information can be found at the HOPE webpage. If you sign up via the HOPE web page please indicate that they are volunteering through Met Council by selecting the our name under the question, “Are you associated with a member of the NYC Continuum of Care?”

If you are interested in participating in the count, please contact Stefanie Greenberg at 212.453.9619 or sgreenberg@metcouncil.org

Thanksgiving Dinner Project

Last weekend several quick fingered volunteers took on the task of chopping celery and peeling potatoes to make dinner for 30 seniors at the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Residence on Lexington Ave. With the help of Sandy, a professional personal chef, we made amazing stuffing from scratch, roast sweet potatoes, turkey, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie and apple pie! Another group of fearless volunteers served the meal on Monday night. Although we had some early problems (the food wasn't heating up as fast as we thought it would), it was a very successful event by the end of the evening! The food was delicious, the volunteers were great and everyone went home happy and full! Thank you for all who helped!


And thanks to Rikki Rahmani, these are her photos from the event on Monday night, since ours seemed to have become lost somewhere in the digital wasteland.

Take Action Round Up: December 1

Welcome back from Thanksgiving! Now that we are full and jolly, lets think about what we can do for other people, who are perhaps less full and jolly.

• Our president-elect wants the people to be involved in our own democracy again. Change.org is collecting ideas about what you want to see changed in America. Post your own suggestion, or vote for one already made. The top 10 idea will be presented to Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden on inaguration day. Ideas for Change in America.
  
  
• Capital One credit card is making is so hassle free to donate money, without you having to spend a dime. You can donate your points to the charity of your choice, and 100% of that donation goes to that non-profit. (Met Council is a charitable option!)
  
  
• It's getting cold. What should you do when you see a homeless person on the street when it's below freezing? What do you do if they look unconscious? Boston Health Care gives tips about how to help.