Active members: Betsy Morris, Joan Clement, Ludmilla Bade, Susan Cozzens. Past member: Chris Ferguson.
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. We are Friends seeking to place housing and homelessness in the context of our testimonies: equality, environmental stewardship, peace, community, and others.
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. We expect all these conditions to get worse without a huge change in course direction.
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.
Minute of Concern annotated with links to references [under construction]
Please join us! We invite readers to share their experiences – what is inspiring them in their communities, and to share their ideas and projects. Let’s bring more Quaker voices and actions to this discussion.
You can contact us at housing.cod@quakerinstitute.org. Another way you can join us is 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.
See our essay on the Moral Foundations for Housing Justice here. Chris Ferguson, a former group member, has an article on housing as a human right, in the May 2025 issue of Friends Journal. That issue also includes several accounts of involvement of individual Quakers and Meetings with homeless neighbors and providing housing and shelter.