By David Gordon, associate editor
JONAH (Joining Our Neighbors, Advancing Hope) already has a clear idea of how it will use the $75,000 grant it received earlier this week.
JONAH Organizer Lynn Buske said the grant will fund a project whose goal is to change government policies that create barriers for people seeking affordable housing. She added that it will also look at policies that create barriers to health care.
“People who have experienced the need for affordable housing or barriers to housing” will be recruited to help “develop a strategy for policy changes that will help eliminate those barriers,” she said in an email interview.
This “Rising from Poverty” project will also establish a connection between at least one health system and “people with lived experience” in confronting barriers to health care, “so their needs can be heard and understood by those working on their behalf,” Buske added.
Grant funds will come over 18 months
The grant was awarded by Community Catalyst with funds provided by the Kresge Foundation, she said. JONAH, a faith-based group concerned with a variety of social justice issues, will receive the funding over an 18-month period, starting immediately.
The Kresge Foundation was established in 1924 in Detroit. One of its goals is to help create healthy communities by “aligning and integrating systems to better serve the health of people with low incomes,” according to its website.
It added that over the past decade, the foundation’s Health Program “has partnered with communities to make sure people have access to resources that support health,” including “safe, affordable housing.”
Community Catalyst was launched in 1998 and is headquartered in Boston. Its website says that it aims to represent “consumers, especially the most vulnerable, wherever important decisions about our health and health system are made.”
JONAH will partner with EXPO
Buske said JONAH will partner with the Chippewa Valley EXPO (Ex-Prisoners Organizing) group on this project. She will head the project and Sarah Ferber, the local EXPO organizer and EXPO’s statewide associate director, will also be involved, along with a part-time outreach coordinator who will be hired to help organize people who have encountered various barriers.
Rev. Sandra McKinney, JONAH’s president, said in an email that the group “is thrilled that the work our faith community leaders have been doing for the past 12 years is being recognized with this generous grant.”
She also emphasized the need for this project to include people who have first-hand experience with problems that exist in seeking health care and affordable housing.
“Those voices are needed when seeking solutions. It is the only way we will make lasting change,” McKinney said. “When charity takes the place of justice, we continue to put band aids on social justice issues.”
Buske said that Community Catalyst contacted WISDOM – the statewide organization of faith-based groups that focus on social justice issues – for suggestions when it learned this funding was available. This contact was based on WISDOM’s record of successful work with marginalized communities, she said.
Liners recommended JONAH
David Liners, WISDOM’s director, recommended JONAH for the grant because of its strong relationship with the City/County Health Department and its commitment to the goal of affordable housing, according to Buske. In addition, JONAH has a close working relationship with EXPO, which has learned that the lack of affordable housing is a huge barrier for ex-prisoners as they work to reintegrate themselves into society.
EXPO and JONAH will provide training for the people it recruits from among those who have dealt directly with the need for affordable housing, Buske said. The goal is to have them work with the members of JONAH’s affordable housing task force to develop strategies to change government policies that hinder access to such housing, or to health care.
“Through conversations with (City-County Health Department Director) Leiske Giese and our Affordable Housing Task force members, we have developed some ideas for policies to work on,” Buske said. “We want those individuals who have (experienced the barriers to be the ones to identify those policies.
“This project represents what JONAH does best – building bridges, bringing groups together to solve a problem, and raising up people who have been marginalized,” she added. “I am very grateful to the grantors for this amazing opportunity. I can’t wait to see what we accomplish.”
NOTE: Rev. Sandra McKinney is also a member of the CVPost’s Board of Directors.
If this story was useful to you, please remember that there are costs involved in providing news. The CVPost has no paywall, and we rely on our readers to help us meet the costs of reporting community news and information you often won’t find elsewhere.
An annual CVPost membership is $50, but contributions of any amount also matter. Please consider helping community supported journalism survive by clicking the Donate button below.