Tag Archives: Homeless

Stearns Conducts Major Effort For HomeAid’s Homelessness Awareness Month

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“Lending Hands for HomeAid” Holidays Campaign a Huge Success

Newport, CA – Jan. 22, 2018 (PRNewswire) HomeAid America, a building industry charity and one of the nation’s largest builders of housing for the homeless, spent the entire month of November holding events and undertaking activities to highlight and help to end hunger and homelessness in this country. The annual event, called HomeAid’s Homelessness Awareness Month, received a huge boost from HomeAid’s national partner Stearns Lending.

Home Aid Logo

As part of this national campaign that Stearns Lending, a leading national provider of mortgage lending services and a national partner of HomeAid America, held a campaign called Lending Hands for HomeAid. James Hecht, COO at Stearns Lending, who also serves on the HomeAid America Board of Directors said, “Thanks to our incredibly generous workforce, as well as our business partners and others in the community, this holiday giving campaign exceeded our wildest expectations. In addition, hundreds of Stearns employees donated items and volunteered their time. It was a powerful demonstration that the ‘I can help you’ culture at Stearns includes making a positive difference in the lives of others.”

During the Lending Hands for HomeAid campaign:

–Over 4,300 Care Kits were built, each including a toothbrush, toothpaste, granola bar, bar of soap, travel-size shampoo and conditioner, and a pair of socks. These items were donated by employees, business partners and others. All Stearns locations had collection boxes to drop off donated Care Kit items.

–At locations in North TX, Orange County, Northern VA, Southeastern Michigan, and Northern California, donated items were assembled into Care Kits by Stearns team members. The Stearns team members presented Care Kits at numerous HomeAid affiliated shelters nationwide, as well as individuals and families living on the streets.

“Our team is really passionate about making a difference in the lives of others, but there is something about the holidays that makes giving back that much more special,” said David Schneider, CEO at Stearns. “Everyone pitched in to help however they could and the results were nothing short of phenomenal. As I watched everyone rally around the HomeAid campaign, I was moved by the outpouring of support and generosity. They did a remarkable job and I am very proud of their efforts.”

“HomeAid is so fortunate to have a partner like Stearns Lending that not only gives us financial support, but rolls up their sleeves and puts sweat equity into their partnership, said Peter Simons, CEO of HomeAid America. “The Lending Hands campaign that they initiated last year and continued with the holiday season are an example for other companies who want to give back to their communities in a meaningful way.”

About Homeaid America
HomeAid is a leading national non-profit provider of housing for the homeless. Since its founding in 1989, HomeAid has completed 500 housing projects nationwide at a value of more than $230 million, housing over 300,000 people. For more information visit www.homeaid.org.

Press Contact:
Peter Simons
CEO – HomeAid America
psimons@homeaid.org

Highlighting The Homeless Problem Using Social Media

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Stephen M. FellsUnder the ‘bizarre’ category Matthew Ferrara made an interesting observation in his recent blog post ‘Bizarre, Cool, Finally and Funny: Observations from the 2009 NAR Annual Conference’:

“Bizarre: Do you think that if the REALTOR convention happens in a city with a high homeless rates, we’d talk about it at a session or two? It seems the height of irony that so many “home ownership professionals” gather in places like San Francisco, San Diego, New Orleans and Washington DC – ostensibly to learn new ways to sell more homes – only to find themselves taking the bus from hotel to convention center because the streets are overcrowded with people without homes. Am I the only one who noticed this, all these years?”

That observation came to mind when I saw the following video on CNN. Created by Mark Horvath, an ex-Hollywood executive who has himself been homeless, the video together with other social tools draws attention to the problem of homelessness in the United States. Leveraging twitter, Facebook, Flickr and a blog amongst his journalistic tools Horvath tells some shocking stories. Poignantly his blog warns “CAUTION: some content may be offensive. Our hope is you’ll get mad enough to do something.”