Faith And The City Mentor A Family Program
Now Aiding Hurricane Evacuees

Faith And The City e.Letter
Sep. 16, 2005

Drawing on five years of experience helping hundreds of men, women, and children in working homeless families to transition from shelters into permanent housing, the Faith And The City Mentor A Family Program is now expanding its services to aid Hurricane Katrina evacuees in the Atlanta metro community.

Mentor A Family works closely with the metro area’s faith and civic communities. Through partnerships, the program helps congregations and other organizations to “mentor” working homeless families over a period of months – helping them to get off the streets, out of shelters, and into stable housing. In short, the program and its partners facilitate the efforts of homeless families to achieve enduring independence and self-sufficiency.

Based on its existing program materials, Mentor A Family has developed a guide to help congregations address the needs of evacuees relocating from the Gulf Coast to the metro area. The Hurricane Katrina Evacuee Relocation: A Guide for Congregations, includes information on identifying an evacuee family, working with people faced with poverty and homelessness, and community resources available to assist them.

“We want to be absolutely clear,” said Doug Gatlin, executive director of Faith And The City. “We are continuing to serve the working homeless families that we have served for years.” We are simply expanding our scope in response to an unprecedented national disaster.”

Gatlin added that there is considerable overlap between the needs of thousands of hurricane evacuees steaming into metro Atlanta and the estimated 10,000 already homeless residents living in the area. “It’s one and the same problem,” he explained. “Many evacuees are either homeless or one step from joining the already swollen ranks of homeless individuals and families throughout our metro community.”

The Faith And The City Mentor A Family Program – endorsed by the Regional Commission on Homelessness – has worked in partnership with scores of congregations and other organizations spanning the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim communities. These partnerships have helped hundreds of people – half of them children – to escape from homelessness into secure and stable lives.

To request a copy of the Guide for Congregations or for more information, contact a member of the Mentor A Family staff:

Margie Shannon Telfair, program manager, 404.523-5554, ext. 230, or mtelfair@faithandthecity.org.

Yolanda Frierson, MSW, family liaison, 404.523.5554, ext. 229, or yfrierson@faithandthecity.org

Rev. Debra A. Walters, congregation liaison, 404.523.5554, ext. 224, or dwalters@faithandthecity.org.

Resources

Download a copy of the Mentor A Family Program’s Hurricane Katrina Evacuees Relocation: A Guide for Congregations in the Metro Atlanta Community

Resource Guide: Hurricane Evacuee Relocation Guide for Congregations

(Note: You will need to download all three sections of the Guide)

Guide for Congregations, Part 1: Download PDF
Guide for Congregations, Part 2: Download PDF
Guide for Congregations, Part 3: Download PDF

Download the LIRS Guide for Sponsoring Displaced Americans at the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service at www.lirs.org.

For more information on how you can help and an extensive listing of resources, visit the United Way of Metropolitan Atlanta website at www.unitedwayatl.org.

For additional ways to help, visit the Regional Council of Churches of Atlanta website at www.rccatl.org.