The NCR describes a shift – The Society of St. Vincent de Paul is looking to bring people living in poverty together with business leaders, social service providers, government agencies and faith communities under a new neighborhood-based initiative to find long-term solutions to the challenges of being poor.

The Neighborhoods of Hope effort is seen as a way to address the needs of struggling people by hearing from them and then developing a program to address a community’s specific needs, explained Jack Murphy, an Atlanta business management expert who serves on the society’s National Council.

“We want to concentrate on specific geographies where we can have an impact. Let’s be sure we’re doing things that do matter in the community,” Murphy told Catholic News Service.

“There’s a community organizing element to this. What we hope to accomplish is true partnerships to solve problems and not people at opposite ends of a power base struggling to communicate,” he said.

Blending the old and the new approaches

The NCR article continues,

The initiative represents a change in culture for the society, which has long built its brand on developing one-on-one relationships among Vincentian volunteers at the parish level with individuals and families in need through home visits.

The home visits will not end, but Neighborhoods of Hope is being developed as a way to build connections between the people the society serves and wider resources with the goal of actually reducing poverty, said Michael Pazzaglini, executive director of the society’s Diocesan Council in Dallas.

“The home visits will help illuminate where we need to focus,” Pazzaglini told CNS.

Murphy said details of the effort continue to be refined. In the end, he said, its purpose is to give a voice to low-income people who are experiencing everyday challenges of hunger, unemployment, low-wage jobs, inadequate transportation to get to work, the inability to pay for child care or the lack of affordable housing.

The National Council shared the concept with Vincentian leaders during a workshop at the society’s midyear meeting March 22-25 in St. Louis.

From the Press release of the Society

Society of St. Vincent de Paul^® effort to fight poverty on community level  The National Council of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul has launched Neighborhoods of Hope (NOH), an effort to tackle poverty at the community level. The program, which will enhance and maximize Vincentian poverty-fighting initiatives already taking place, was officially introduced at the Midyear Meeting in St. Louis, Mo., where the Society’s National Council was founded in 1845.

Sheila Gilbert, president of National Council, said, “Over 43 million people are living in poverty in our country, so clearly we can do more. Too many of the people we serve struggle to get on a path to sustainability. NOH is a new tool that Vincentians will have in our Systemic Change toolbox to change that.”

NOH will coalesce stakeholders, including those living in the neighborhoods served, and representatives from all sectors around a common agenda to combat poverty in specific communities. Two things that make NOH unique are that it brings people in poverty to the table and that it focuses on a neighborhood, rather than an entire community.

Jack Murphy, National Council board member and a NOH program leader, commented, “We can’t move the needle on poverty in our communities until everyone gets to the table, recognizes they have a role to play, and agrees on a common agenda. I’m excited that NOH will bring business leaders, service providers, the faith community, and the people we serve into a single conversation.”

Neighborhoods of Hope is built on the principles of collective impact, which tackles complex social problems in a collaborative and metric-driven way.

“I thought the session to introduce Neighborhoods of Hope was helpful in that it illustrated culture change. We are trying to change our results, therefore we need to change what we are doing to get there,” said Michael Pazzaglini, executive director of the Society’s Dallas Council.

One of the largest charitable organizations in the world, the Society of St. Vincent de Paul (www.svdpusa.org) is an international, nonprofit, Catholic lay organization of about 800,000 men and women who voluntarily join together to grow spiritually by offering person-to-person service to the needy and suffering in 150 countries on five continents. With the U.S. headquarters in St. Louis, Mo., membership in the United States totals nearly 100,000 in 4,400 communities.

SVdP offers a variety of programs and services, including home visits, housing assistance, disaster relief, education and mentoring, food pantries, dining halls, clothing, assistance with transportation, prescription medication, and rent and utility costs. The Society also works to provide care for the sick, the incarcerated and the elderly. Over the past year, SVdP provided over $1.2 billion in tangible and in-kind services to those in need, made more than 1.8 million personal visits (homes, hospitals, prisons and eldercare facilities) and helped more than 23.8 million people regardless of race, religion or national origin.

For more information about this release, please contact:

Gary Stevens at (314) 576-3993 ext. 209 or (314) 378-5583 or e-mail gstevens@svdpusa.org or Tom Mulloy at (314) 576-3993 ext. 215 or (216) 554-0571 or e-mail tmulloy@svdpusa.org.