World Homeless Day

Shepherds of Good Hope is proud to be hosting our second annual advocacy day in support of World Homeless Day and World Mental Health Day on October 10th. We are coinciding the first day of this week long campaign with the release of our 2020 Impact Report, which can be found here.

We are inviting politicians to share messages of hope and to make concrete plans to end homelessness in Ottawa. We will be sharing these messages on social media throughout the week leading up to World Homeless Day on Oct. 10th. Make sure you follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn: @sghottawa.

We also ask our community to send in a message to your local representatives (municipal, provincial, and federal politicians) to ask them to support measures to create more affordable housing in our community. Housing is the solution to homelessness. Together, we can end homelessness in Ottawa.

If you’re a super-star sewing aficionado, please send in homemade masks or gowns to help protect people in staying with us. You can find the sewing instructions here, we promise it’s pretty easy!

We also ask that you donate what you can to support Shepherds of Good Hope and the thousands of people we serve every year. If you would like to send in a message too, download our mask template and write a message on it so we can hang them in our soup kitchen. You can email or mail in the mask to our mailing address (233 Murray Street, Ottawa, ON. K1N5M9).

Together we can end homelessness.

BACKGROUND

World Homeless Day is October 10, which is also World Mental Health Day. World Homeless Day is an international day to bring attention to homelessness, with an emphasis on particular issues and solutions at the local level.

Shepherds of Good Hope hosted our first World Homeless Day event in 2019 as a way to increase our advocacy and community outreach activities. Last year’s theme was “Lend a Helping Hand”. For this event, elected officials and candidates served breakfast in our soup kitchen. Students across Ottawa wrote messages of hope and solidarity to people experiencing homelessness, while older students also wrote messages to the elected officials to advocate for change.

This day helps to raise awareness about the need for more affordable and supportive housing in our community and the need to end stigma against people experiencing homelessness.

Homes for all. Community for all. Hope for all.