Dear A Safe Haven Friends and Supporters,
I hope this newsletter finds you all safe, healthy and in good spirits,
during this difficult time.
At A Safe Haven we are proud to announce that we are bringing back our
original slogan that we officially originally trademarked in 2003!
"Housing is Healthcare"(r)
We originally used this slogan to try to get people to see homelessness as
a public health issue and a health imperative, we wholeheartedly believed that
no one can heal from whatever ails them physically or mentally without being
able to live in a safe environment with a roof over their head. But believe it
or not, for decades, our idea was not resonating.
The Pandemic has now changed that resistance to our idea. Thankfully today,
it is a term that we believe that public health leaders around the world are now
embracing housing as a crucial first step to helping heal the pandemic and to
keep it from spreading! We want to help amplify this message and we hope you all
will agree and embrace this concept too!
I am also grateful to say that our team had the amazing foresight to move
quickly in advance of the pandemic to do our part to ensure that we implemented
the most rigorous infection control policies, starting as early as
January!
Today, we are continuing to diligently do our part to provide safe,
semi-private and private accommodations to over 1,400 homeless and low income
individuals and families that we serve throughout our transitional housing and
supportive housing system and the good news is we have only had 4 reported
COVID-19 Positive cases at 3 separate locations and ZERO deaths, thus far. We
know that statistic can change at any moment so we are doing everything we can
to remain vigilant and to abide by our strict stay at home policies, social
distancing, frequent handwashing and universal masks throughout our systems to
ensure that we continue our good fortune of having ZERO outbreaks throughout our
40 real estate locations throughout the Chicagoland area.
We have also increased our distribution of food through our food pantry to
the community and we are now delivering food to the many tenants that we have
throughout our system that are families with small children, verifiable disabled
and home bound seniors.
As a battle tested, subject matter expert on homelessness we are working
tirelessly to respond to calls to participate in discussions, panels and
speaking engagements at the Federal, State, City and Community level to make
sure that we are doing everything we can to be a part of the solution.
Beyond the health risks and death rates from COVID 19 that we are seeing
add up here in Chicago and around the globe, the economic fallout from the
shelter in place orders and the loss of jobs that are already being reported
being at depression level is yet to be seen, but we are preparing for the worst
and hoping for the best. The studies and the data that we shared in this issue
about the potential number of people being impacted by the loss of jobs
accompanied by the significant rise of people being impacted by behavioral,
mental and opioid use disorders is being confirmed on the front lines across the
country.
If you have never given to help the homeless and always wanted to do
something to change their situation and also want to give to inspire a change to
the entire broken delivery system, now is the time! If you already have given to
help the homeless, then now is the time to do it again! We hope you choose to
give to A Safe Haven. We truly need all hands on deck to be prepared to prevent
and reverse the homeless epidemic along with all of the root causes of
homelessness in a way that helps people get back on their feet. Let's do it for
our kids and for all of our future! Want to talk about how we can partner to end
homelessness? Call me at 773-435-8355 or email me at neli@ASafehaven.org
Thank you, Stay Safe and God Bless!
Love, Neli Vazquez Rowland, President & Co-founder
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