Poverty and Homelessness Action Week 2008

Poverty and Homelessness Action Week 2008: Opening Doors, Opening Hearts is about opening hearts to hear the stories people have to tell about being homeless, badly housed, and poor. It offers opportunities for dialogue, springing from the conviction that together we can open doors to a better housed, better paid and more just society.

The success of Make Poverty History has highlighted the need for a domestic equivalent: far too many people in the UK fail to share in our prosperity as a nation, and continue to struggle to make ends meet, or suffer the consequences of homelessness or bad housing. 2008 will see churches coming together with other groups for a year-long campaign to highlight the persistence of poverty and homelessness across the country – and to press all political parties to sign up to a goal to end poverty in our nation by 2020.

In 2008 Homelessness Sunday and Poverty Action Sunday are only one week apart. Poverty and Homelessness Action Week is your chance to make a difference.

Local events
During Action Week, local churches and Churches Together groups all over the UK, working in partnership with local projects, CABs and other agencies, are holding Poverty Hearings and similar events.

The events will be about hearing the voices and stories of people experiencing poverty and homelessness in their own towns and neighbourhoods. Each event will draw out the three most important issues around housing, homelessness and poverty in the local community, and suggest possible solutions.

If you would like to run an event yourself, please contact the CAP office (0161 236 9321 or jvc@church-poverty.org.uk), and we will provide advice, support and resources.

• visit our events map and see which one is nearest to you;
• download a list of all events (coming soon - watch this space), with contact details for the local organisers.

Resources
There is a resource pack - Opening Doors, Opening Hearts - which contains all the materials that are needed for Homelessness Sunday, for Poverty Action Sunday, and to organise events during Action Week. You can order a copy from Housing Justice. Use the materials to pray, reflect and act on homelessness and poverty; to encourage your church to get involved; to uncover the reality of hidden poverty or homelessness in your community; to celebrate what is already going on locally; and to work with others.

You can also download detailed notes to help you plan services during Action Week, prepared by Philip Jakob from the Catholic diocese of Hallam in Sheffield.

Poverty and Homelessness Action Week is organised by Church Action on Poverty, Housing Justice, Scottish Churches Housing Action, the Church Urban Fund and others. This will be a major opportunity for local churches to join in the challenge to the persistence of poverty and exclusion within our own communities.

Action Week is working together with the Hope 2008 initiative, encouraging churches across the UK to take action in their communities.