Letter from Our CEO: Moving Forward for Justice in the Light of History | August 2019
Hello,
The National HCH Council is on the move. After holding an extremely successful conference in May in which more than 900 people joined us in “Working Together for Justice,” we are continuing to move forward on many fronts in our work to end homelessness:
- The staff continues to advance in Strategic Planning by creating a workplan for the three strategic priorities approved by the Board: 1.) Expand our advocacy on policies and practices that prevent and end homelessness, 2.) Work to expand medical respite, and 3.) Support health centers and medical respite programs to use their data better. After a hiatus, we’ve engaged a consultant to help us develop and finalize our workplan.
- Last week the Council concluded its first-ever HRSA site visit. Due to a strong team effort, we were extremely well-prepared. There were no findings, and we received valuable recommendations to become even better.
- We will hold a Medication-Assisted Treatment and Recovery Symposium in Portland, OR on September 16-17. We are expecting 150 clinicians, consumers, administrators, and advocates to gather to share best practices, learn from each other, and advance our understanding of how to combat the opioid epidemic and help people recover. It should be an outstanding event, and I hope you will consider attending. More information is in this edition of Council News.
- Plans are underway for the upcoming meetings of the Steering Committees of the National Consumer Advisory Board, HCH Clinicians’ Network, and Respite Care Providers Network meeting in Nashville on October 1-2. The Leadership Summit on Homelessness & Health Care will follow on October 3-4 and is a great opportunity for networking, learning, and getting refreshed and rejuvenated to do our work better. The Summit is for the designated representatives of Organizational Members, Board members, and representatives of the Steering Committees. Please consider attending—it is the highlight of the year for many of us.
A common thread among all the Council’s activities cited above is that they each involve people from different walks of life, different backgrounds, and different parts of the country all working together for a common goal—to address the needs of people experiencing homelessness while we work to end homelessness. That stands in stark contrast to a historic anniversary this week—the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the first African slaves in the English colonies of North America in August 1619.
I’ve been musing a great deal on how that event has shaped our nation’s history and character. The very idea of slavery can only be justified by creating unjust philosophies, pseudosciences, laws, and theologies that seek to turn differences into “Otherness,” using these perceived differences to devalue “Others” and treat them differently than we would like to be treated.
No one is an “Other” to the Council. Our enduring strength is that we are a community in which everyone—from world-famous doctors to people forced to live on the street—is valued equally. We seek to uphold the dignity of every person and to secure their human rights to health care and housing. Because we are not perfect, we have started some hard conversations about how we can attack unjust public policies that result in overrepresentation of people of color among people experiencing homelessness. We realize that we cannot end homelessness without attacking the root causes of it, including racism. Because our member organizations exist in a larger society, we are aware that some of our practices may be inadvertently perpetuating injustice, and we want to help make changes where needed. The Council can hold these difficult conversations because our commitment to our fellow humans and ensuring that their human rights are realized trumps all our differences.
It is only when we bring our history and current practices into the light, that we can see how to make changes. I look forward to working with you to making a better society for all people.
In solidarity,
Bobby Watts
Chief Executive Officer
National Health Care for the Homeless Council
bwatts@nhchc.org