INTERFAITH ACTION OF GREATER SAINT PAUL

Project Home provides safe, comfortable overnight shelter for homeless families. 40 beds are available every night. Congregations and other organizations provide space and volunteers to help operate the shelter. Project Home is an ongoing program, offering shelter 365 nights per year. Interfaith Action began providing shelter in 1997, and, our shelter program has only grown since its inception.

The families who stay with Project Home  literally have no where else to go. Project Home is a fundamental component of Ramsey County’s Continuum of Care plan. We are the only shelter for families when the County's primary emergency shelter for homeless families--Catholic Charities Family Service Center--is full (most of the time), or when families have come to the end of the 30-day time limit at the Family Service Center. Most of the families who stay with us stay less than four weeks, and during the last year, only five of the 580 families we served met the federal definition of "long term homeless." We serve a temporarily, transitionally homeless group of people who need a safe place to stay while they get back on their feet.

The Twin Cities Interfaith Youth Connection engages youth of different religious and ethnic backgrounds in interfaith dialogue, community listening, and service-learning, equipping a generation of leaders to serve and improve a multi-cultural, multi-religious world—now and in the future.
 
A Youth Leadership Team 15-25 youth (grades 8-12) from multiple faith backgrounds determine Coalition activities with support from program staff and other adult allies. Activities include a retreat, one to two meetings per month during the school year, planning and evaluating the Day of Service for 300 of their peers, and learning and addressing issues facing the community through shared service-learning and advocacy.

These interfaith leaders re-define reality by abandoning an "us vs. them” mindset and telling a new story of pluralism, creating a place where every person supports every other person’s right to thrive. Students learn about one another through shared dialogue, research needs in the community, and build bridges across differences to overcome barriers and address community issues.

Opportunity Saint Paul harnesses the transformative work of volunteers to strengthen economic mobility and reduce poverty in our city. This unique program matches dedicated volunteers with pre-selected nonprofits that have proven records of effectively addressing barriers to economic mobility. In addition, we provide these motivated volunteers with quality learning opportunities that build community and advance understanding of how to make a meaningful dent in poverty.