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Sal Pina (remember him?) was homeless for 20-some years, and then he got an apartment back in May. And yesterday, a nice guy named Ken made good on a promise he made when Sal’s story ran in the Courant, and he took his fellow Mets fan to a game. So this is what my friend …

Look what they did in Hartford’s Bushnell Park on Sunday

My friend Sara Capen Salomons and Journey Home, with the help of some awesome restaurants, fed some 200 people — men, women and children — in Hartford’s historic park.

So how’d the 100-day challenge go statewide?

Watch this video and catch yourself up. In short? It. Was. Awesome. That picture is of Sal Pinna, recently housed through the 100-day effort after 20 years of homelessness, most of those spent in Hartford. He’s hugging Sara Capen Sal0mons, of Journey Home, whom I am proud to call my friend. That’s Sal’s apartment, the …

I’ve never understood cynicism

On Sunday, I wrote a column for Mother Courant about the need for providing household goods for people who have been homeless, but now are being housed through Greater Hartford’s 100-day challenge. The response has been, in a word, incredible. Sara Capen Salomons is the contact person for Journey Home, the lead agency in the …

This is the last week of the 100-day challenge

Since March, activists, advocates, policy makers, legislators, and folks who want to do something awesome have devoted the last 100 days to open 100 homes for people who desperately need them. People have put in insane hours and moved insurmountable mountains to make sure people like Sal, Jack, and Shannon now have a place to …

Helping recently-housed people-who-were-homeless get housed

The 100-day challenge to end chronic homelessness in Greater Hartford is going great guns, but handing people a key is different from getting them settled. Sara Capen Salomons, my friend at Journey Home, is looking for people to help with household goods. Can you help? I wrote this for Mother Courant.

Working together overcomes hate

This is an interesting Relevant article about faith groups coming together to overcome a common challenge — say, ebola. What if we approached homelessness the same way? What if faith groups put aside their beefs and their gigantic egos (Lord, those egos) and their “we’ve already tried that” and their “we’re doing that already” to …

So someone offered to take Sal to a Mets game

Sal Pinna was homeless for 20 years, and then, through the efforts of advocates in Greater Hartford’s 100-day challenge to end chronic homelessness, he was housed in late April. I wrote about him for Sunday’s Courant and I’ve been reporting his story for WNPR for a few months now (the latest installment will air this …

Sal gets his normal life

That’s what he called it, Sal Pinna, a man who’d been homeless for 20 years. He called the life the rest of us live a normal life, which meant — for him — a kitchen and a television and a door he could lock behind him. Oh, and a television not ruled by other shelter …

Want to be a part of the 100-day challenge?

Talk to your clergy. In Greater Hartford’s 100-day challenge to house 100 chronically homeless people, consider what that means. That’s 100 people — at least — who are moving into apartments with nothing more than what they’ve carried on their backs. Pictured just above is Sal Pinna. He’s one of the people who’s about to …