Correcting the terrible affliction of homelessness
A letter from a writer facing homelessness
A new year is almost here!
Here’s a year-end blessing Benjamin Franklin:
Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you a better [person].
As we wrap up 2024, will you support Speak Up with a tax-deductible donation?
For thirteen years, Speak Up has been sharing stories of homelessness and offering avenues for opportunity and dignity to our neediest neighbors.
This year we’ve launched the writing workshops model: a space for people facing homeless to find dignity, a voice, and community. We look forward to multiplying these workshops into many communities in 2025. Want to help?
Here’s what Michael, who is currently homeless, wrote about the workshops:
Dear (Someone with Potential),
I want to talk to you about a subject very dear to my heart. It has some real potential for the advancement of all of us. When you talk about the homeless you automatically want to ask “what terrible thing happened to this person?” But that particular area of thought is wasteful. Shouldn’t we [instead] think how we can correct it?
The best way I can think to do this is to add a workshop to the existing network of workshops that already exist.
Your contribution could not be better used to correct the terrible affliction of homelessness…
He followed up later with more thoughts via email:
In addition to all the wonderful things the workshop does for me, it also gives me something to look forward to on Tuesdays.
As I'm sure you can imagine, being in a homeless environment is not a “ray of sunshine.” But that all changes for me on Tuesdays as I look forward to attending the Tuesday writing workshop for the opportunity that it brings for me and I'm sure for others. After every writing workshop I always leave in a better mood because I was able to share and listen to and digest what others shared as well.
Speak Up is a charity funded by your tax-deductible giving.
Help us reach our year-end general goal of $15,000 to seed the next season.
Michael’s original letter:
