Paul's Place...

Welcoming IN Families...
Reaching OUT Faithfully

What goes on in other churches?

St. Paul's is one of thirteen (13) faith communities that is part of the Rochester Area Interfaith Hospitality Network (RAIHN). Typically, a family rotates through the Rochester IHN program from facility to facility weekly for about 5-6 weeks before finding a new permanent home. The RAIHN program also manages a Day Center, a transportation van, and counseling for the families.

Who else is involved?

In the Rochester area, a non-profit group has been incorporated to manage the Interfaith Hospitality Program. This group is called RAIHN.

The RAIHN organization will be responsible for management of a Day Center and a passenger van which will be used to transport the families each day to and from the Day Center. The RAIHN organization also funds a full-time professional Social Services Director to manage the program.

There will be a total of thirteen (13) hosting faith communities as well as a number of "support" organizations involved with the program. Host faith communities signed-up thus far include:

- Third Presbyterian Church
- St. Paul's Episcopal Church
- Bethel Christian Fellowship
- Trinity Emmanuel Lutheran Church
- St. Luke's & S. Simon Cyrene Church
- Lutheran Church of the Incarnate Word
- Downtown United Presbyterian Church
- First Universalist Church of Rochester
- Church of the Assumption
- Irondequoit United Church of Christ
- Temple Sanai
- (more to come soon)

There are also four "supporting" faith communities that will be providing volunteers from their congregations, but do not have the facilities to become a "host".

Is this part of something bigger?

Yes. The Rochester Area Interfaith Hospitality Network (RAIHN) is one of over 100 organizations around the country. In total, there are over 2,000 congregations involved and over 90,000 volunteers providing services to the guests as part of the National IHN, which was founded in 1986.

Family Homelessness

Being without a safe, warm place to sleep, eat, and care for children, without the security of familiar people and things; this is homelessness. The loss of a home is a crisis for anyone, but especially for families. Parents must endure the heartache of not being able to provide a secure environment for their children. Without a home, children, who now comprise 25% of our nations homeless population, may spend many of their formative years without the most basic resources required for healthy development.

Prior to recent times, many people believed that only alcoholics or severely mentally ill people could wind up homeless. But these stereotypes never did accurately portray the homeless population, and definitely do not reflect reality today. Families with young children now account for up to forty percent of America's homeless, and they are its fastest growing segment.

The root cause of homelessness is simply the lack of sufficient family income to maintain decent, affordable housing. Hundreds of thousands of American families have found themselves caught in the growing gap between family income and the cost of a home. Low-income renters are often only one paycheck or calamity away from homelessness. The loss of a job, an increase in rent, sudden illness, the gentrification of a neighborhood, the absence of family support any one of these can drive a family into homelessness.

Fortunately, many thousands of people believe that homelessness remains unacceptable especially in the worlds wealthiest, and most generous, society. And there is much that one person can do about it especially in concert with others. The Interfaith Hospitality Network (IHN) is a tangible way many Americans have joined together to provide real help and compassion to homeless families, and to work together toward permanent solutions.