The REACH Board of Directors is pleased to announce the results of elections held at our Annual Meeting on September 11.
Photo: Reach Board of Directors at the Annual Meeting
REACH Board of Directors serving for one-year terms:
Chair: Andy Carey
Vice-Chair: Patrick Tobin
Secretary: Sarah Peters
Treasurer: Matt Alexander
Executive Team Member: Deb Peiffer
Reelected Directors:
Matt Alexander
Janelle-Duda Banwar
Patrick Tobin
New Directors:
Patrick Hanna
Marcia Reaver
Peter Peters
With deep gratitude, we say farewell to the departing Directors:
Joe DiFiore, Larry Knox, and Peter Peters
Peter and Larry will continue with the Advocacy Team as active members.
Project Haven News
The first eight months of operation of Project Haven have been truly amazing. There is a great deal of struggle and a lot of hard work involved when starting and operationalizing a six-site, 80-bed shelter, but there is also great reward. We have had over 11,800 nights spent in the shelter system with over 200 different guests.
One of the most frequent questions we are asked about the Tiny Home Village as permanent supportive housing is, “Why would anyone want to do things differently if they can get a place to live with all expenses paid?” Yet, there is ample evidence that meeting a person’s basic human needs allows them the time to focus on addressing the issues that led them to where they were the day before they were no longer homeless.
As the late Bruce Popper of SEIU 1199 said in his spin on Susan B. Anthony’s words, “We need to educate, organize, and agitate to succeed.” Bruce was right; we need to educate ourselves about the state of our housing policies. Then, we must design a campaign to spread the word as effectively as possible. Finally, we need to agitate to bring about change.
Our Advocacy Team meets on the first and third Wednesdays. We welcome anyone interested in our work to join us as Active or Supporting Members. Active members are individuals who regularly attend our meetings. Supporting Members are anyone who is ready to join our actions. Both Active and Supporting members play vital roles as REACH Agitators! Please take a look at our next meeting dates in the Upcoming Events section below.
There will be a free screening and discussion of two films, "July '64" and "Home: Access Denied" on Thursday, September 28 at 7:00 PM. Explore Rochester's history of racism with the Antiracist Curriculum Project and The Little. Full event details can be found here.
An Opportunity You Won't Want to Miss
RMAPI is hosting a Housing Prototyping Summit on Friday, September 29th. Please click here to register and view additional information about the summit.
Thank you to our readers!
We are grateful for your generous support of REACH Advocacy.
