Active members: Betsy Morris, Joan Clement, Ludmilla Bade, Susan Cozzens. Past member: Chris Ferguson. Contact us at housing.cod@quakerinstitute.org.
The members of this Circle of Discernment share a concern for people experiencing homelessness. We want to live in a society where everyone has a basic quality of life that is impossible now for people experiencing homelessness.
In the United States, the number of people experiencing homelessness is rising. Incomes are not keeping up with rental prices. Deeply affordable housing is not being built fast enough. Localities are waging war on people sleeping outside or in their cars, even when there is nowhere that welcomes them in.
Quakers in the United States are sometimes reaching out from person to person, sometimes taking the lead in changing laws, sometimes investing in alternatives to the broken housing market. Our goal in this Circle of Discernment is to deepen that commitment and broaden the action.
See our essay on the Moral Foundations for Housing Justice here. See our evolving set of resources on homelessness and housing justice here. If you are ready for action, see Joan Clement’s suggestions on Where to Begin as People of Faith.
Please join us by taking our survey to tell us what you or your Meeting or Church is doing now with regard to your homeless neighbors. Here is the link: Survey on Homelessness and Housing Justice Concerns in Friends Meetings – Quaker Institute for the Future.
Chris Ferguson, a former group member, has an article on housing as a human right, in the May 2025 issue of Friends Journal.