Homeless Remembrance Blanket Project
Blanket the Capitol and Cover the Homeless With Care
Everyone deserves a safe place to call home. Yet, for many in our country, that has become increasingly impossible. A severe shortage of affordable housing has forced many not just into shelters and unstable and unsafe housing, but also into the streets.
“In many communities, unsheltered homelessness is increasing, leaving more of our neighbors living on the streets, in abandoned buildings, or in other places not meant for human habitation,” according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition. “Black and indigenous people are most to likely to experience homelessness, and people with disabilities and indigenous people are disproportionately represented among those who are unsheltered. For the first time since data collection began, more individuals experiencing homelessness in 2020 were unsheltered than sheltered. Over 10 years, the number of unique homeless encampments increased by 1,342%.”
From our advocacy colleagues at LAMPa in Pennsylvania: “Our ministries in Pennsylvania are stretching to meet the need and calling attention to the plight of our neighbors. Last year, the Rev. Matthew Best of St. Stephen’s in New Kingstown, which has a truck-stop ministry that includes dinner church with people experiencing homelessness, partnered with other local advocates to remember those who were living and dying outside on the longest night of the year. Watch/Read news coverage from 2021. They camped outside in a Carlisle park, while covering the steps of nearby First Evangelical Lutheran Church with nearly 200 blankets that were then given to those in need.
“This year, ELCA Witness in Society is partnering with Best and allies to blanket the lawn of the U.S. Capitol as part of the Homeless Remembrance Blanket Project — again, on the longest night of the year, Dec. 21. The art installation will serve as a visual reminder of unsheltered neighbors during a press event, broadcast and call to action on the state of homelessness in America. Blankets will be arriving from each state in the country, with letters and invitations to lawmakers to visit an agency or ministry with those experiencing homelessness in their district.”
Your opportunity to get involved
Does your congregation work with communities experiencing homelessness? Are you willing to host a site visit with a member of Congress sometime in the coming year at your congregation or ministry, highlighting the community’s needs and concerns? If so, Contact us with the word “Blankets” in the subject line. In January, LAMPa and WiS will hand-deliver your invitation to your member of Congress along with a quilt square from the blanket event, as well as information on homelessness and housing resources and a cover letter with a legislative ask.