Welcome!
Journey Home works collaboratively for sustainable solutions to homelessness in the Greater Hartford Area.
Journey Home is expanding its efforts to bring public awareness to more individuals in the community, as well as to raise funds for this important mission. As part of that effort, Journey Home is now a participant in the 2012 Birdies for Charity program, which is part of the Travelers Championship golf tournament this summer.
All we need to do is find sponsors!
We are asking all of our friends for pledges based on the number of birdies (scores below par on any hole during the tournament). There is an average of 1,500 birdies per year (last year there were 1,839), so a 1 penny pledge would become a gift of $15, while 5 cents would become about $75. That’s the nice part: you don't need to make a large gift – it’s the small gifts that add up, helping us to advance our mission while also helping us build awareness.
Please click here to make your pledge today.
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Four students from Amity High School in Woodbridge, Connecticut are donating the proceeds from their marketing class project to benefit Journey Home. The boys, Skye Zawadski, Dan Hecht, Timmy Fox and Nick Walker (left to right), found Journey Home online and decided to organize a raffle to raise money to help us in our work to end homelessness. Raffle tickets have been for sale during lunch periods to other students with winners to be drawn on May 18th. All of the items up for raffle have been donated by local businesses to help them in their effort. Journey Home would like to offer a huge thank you to the four young men and the local businesses they turned to. We could not continue our work without thoughtful actions like yours!
Gilead Congregation Church: Once Again a Blessing for a Newly Housed Resident
Hartford, CT-On Sunday, May 6th, members of Gilead Congregational Church in Hebron, donated household furnishings to a previously homeless Hartford resident moving into her own place. A bed, sofa, dining room set and kitchen supplies were among the items collected and delivered on Sunday evening. The excited and motivated new tenant, Oletha, is working with Chrysalis Center and Community Renewal Team to get back on her feet, and has just started a new job. She was incredibly appreciative for the kindness of these individuals and their church community. Oletha’s rental certificate was made available when one of Chyrsalis’ clients graduated from permanent supportive housing into one of Journey Home’s Moving On units.
Youth Take Time From Their Spring Break to Paint a Property in Hartford
On Friday, April 20th, youth from Gilead Congregational Church in Hebron, helped landlord, Carlos Valinho, to paint a rental property on Hungerford St in Hartford. 10 units at this location are part of Journey Home's Moving On initiative which encourages individuals and families to move out of permanent supportive housing into more independent living situations. We would like to extend a big thank you to the youth from Gilead Congregational for taking the time to make this property more of a home for the residents that live there!
Presentation to Women’s League of Voters
West Hartford, CT- On March 22, Journey Home staff and partner, Mercedes Soto, Director of Housing for Community Renewal Team, were given the opportunity to present to the Women’s League of Voters Greater Hartford at the West Hartford town hall. The presentation included information about the innovative solutions to homelessness being implemented and developed by Journey Home and partners, as well as a brief summary of what the homeless population currently looks like in the Greater Hartford Region. The presentation was followed by a Q&A period that sparked interested discussion. We would like to give a big thank you to Sandy Fry with the LWVGH for the invitation to speak to the League.
Hilton Hartford Donates TVs and Furniture to 23 Area Non-Profits
HARTFORD, CT - Journey Home, Inc., the nonprofit organization leading greater Hartford’s fight to end homelessness, is teamed up with the Hilton Hartford, located at 315 Trumbull Street, to facilitate the donation of nearly 225 TVs and 225 armoires to area nonprofits and faith-based organizations which provide temporary or transitional housing, health care and related services to greater Hartford families who are homeless or in need. READ MORE
Twenty-three agencies arrived at a storage facility in Windsor on February 23 to receive the donated items for use in transitional living, health care, and social service facilities. Many of the TVs will be used by agencies in their community rooms or for improving their technological capacity to educate and serve clients. Other televisions and armoires will be passed on to the families served by these non-profit agencies.
“This is a great way for the Hilton Hartford to give back to the community,” says Duane Schroder, General Manager of the Hilton Hartford. “We have upgraded the TVs and furniture items at the hotel as part of an improvement plan, yet they are still very functional and in good condition. The nonprofits in this area work so hard every day to help people, and hopefully this will make their work a little easier.”
One of the agencies that benefited from the donation was the North Central Area Agency on Aging, located in Hartford. According to Executive Director, Carmen Reyes, the items they were picking up were going to consumers with the Money Follows the Person Program, that transitions elderly people with disabilities from nursing homes “back into the community, with services, that’s safe, and with dignity.” Both Carmen and her co-worker, Linda Cobbs, expressed their sincere gratitude at being able to share this “blessing” with their consumers.
Pastor Al Royal from the Life Church, of Granby, was similarly grateful for the blessing of the donations for their church members. “We have a lot of families that are in need. A lot of them have moved to different locations, some of them have been homeless. So what we’ve been able to do, is by connecting with Journey Home is being able to leverage an opportunity, like this, to help these six families.” Pastor Al and eight others loaded several vehicles to assist their fellow church members and then eagerly assisted other agencies to load their trucks.
Employees and clients from The Open Hearth Association, Inc., who collected items for their extended transitional living and half-way-house programs, similarly spent many hours loading and unloading trucks for other agencies as well. Marilyn Rossetti, Executive Director of Open Hearth, stated, “The donated items will be so helpful to these programs, which serve so many in our community.”
Journey Home works to increase collaboration, provide support and bring new resources to the fight to end homelessness in the Greater Hartford region. “By attracting resources through corporate partners such as the Hilton Hartford, Journey Home can help other agencies and the people they serve, and have a significant impact on their lives.” says Matt Morgan, Journey Home’s President.
WNPR - Where We Live: A Look at Homelessness
Featuring Journey Home’s, Matt Morgan, and other partners in the effort to prevent and end homelessness here at home.
New Apartment Signals A 'Journey Home' For Hartford Man
by Kim Velsey (Hartford Courant)
Medically Vulnerable Homeless Individual Housed...
On Sunday afternoon, members of Gilead Congregational Church, donated their time and home wares to turn one man's new apartment into a home. The tenant, a chronically homeless man with chronic health issues, has been on Journey Home’s Vulnerability Index Survey for two years running. The apartment, obtained through Hands on Hartford, was made available through Journey Home's Moving On Initiative, which helps residents of permanent supportive housing move on to more independent living situations as their service needs decrease, freeing up their units for those with greater needs, such as the tenant who moved in on Sunday.
Spirit-filled Congregations Support Journey
Home, Inc.’s work to End Homelessness
Recent News Articles:
- A Report Card On Ending Chronic Homelessness By 2015 - NPR
- Report Charts Progress In Effort To Reduce Chronic Homelessness - Hartford Courant
- In Bad Economy, Hartford Reduces Chronic Homelessness - CT Mirror
- 100,000 Homes Campaign - Year 2
- Vulnerability Index 2011, Hands on Hartford
- Common Ground's 100,000 Homes Campaign
- Hartford Becomes First Campaign Community to Meet Housing Goal
- 46 Near Death are Housed
- Journey Home Announces New Executive Director
- Journey Home Releases Vulnerability Index Findings Report
- Susan Campbell, "Recasting Homelessness as Life or Death"
- Francesca Martin Joins Journey Home Board
- Diane Whitney Joins Journey Home Board
- Bishop Tyrone Carlton Black Joins Journey Home Board
- Craig L. Sylvester Joins Journey Home Board
- Susan Campbell, "Out of Sight: No Homeless Solution"
- Conversations News from the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving
- Homelessness Back in the News
- Governor Rell: State Directs $10.8 Million in Stimulus to Combat Homelessness