Feel Good Friday - Building Futures with Families

The rainy weather in the Bay Area this week made me grateful to have a home and curious to know who is helping our unhoused neighbors. That led me to today’s Feel Good Friday organization, Building Futures with Families.

What started in 1986 as The San Leandro Refuge for Women and Children is now Building Futures with Families. Their mission is “to build communities with underserved individuals and families, where they are safely and supportively housed, free from homelessness and domestic violence.”

Building Futures runs several homeless shelters across Alameda County, California. Some are warming shelters which open up when cold weather or rain is predicted. They offer a warm bed for the night, dinner, breakfast and a connection to housing services. Others are full-service shelters offering a warm bed, three meals a day, shower and laundry facilities, access to computers and telephones as well as permanent supportive housing assistance, linkage to medical services, financial literacy classes and children’s programming. Information on the specific locations and additional resources on homelessness can be found here.

Services for survivors of domestic violence include a safe house, which provides shelter and support services, and weekly support groups for both women and men survivors of intimate partner violence. For those who don’t need shelter services, there is an outreach team that provides advocacy, case management, counseling, and is also available for public education workshops. To access any of these services as well as find resources on domestic violence dynamics, safety planning and boundary setting guides for teens, click this link.

The final program focus is on supportive housing. Building Families has been a “Housing First” agency since 2007, which means their priority is to quickly connect their clients with housing. They do this by running a 52-unit permanent supportive housing community in Alameda as well as partnering with other agencies in the county to place people in permanent housing.

In the last year, as noted in the 2019-2020 Annual Report, Building Families has provided 29,883 nights of shelter, served 84,274 meals and housed 394 adults and children. You can read the stories behind the numbers at this link. 

If you’d like support Building Families you can volunteer your time, donate your money and amplify their work on social media by liking their Facebook page and following them on Twitter @buildingfuture5.

Feel Good Friday - StopWaste

It's the first Feel Good Friday of 2018 and we're making StopWaste our new year's resolution!

I recently moved to Oakland, in Alameda County, and saw a billboard for this organization at a BART station. "StopWaste helps Alameda County's businesses, residents and schools waste less, recycle more and use water, energy and other resources efficiently." Those are resolutions I can get behind!

Beginning in 1976 with the founding of the Alameda County Waste Management Authority, the organization expanded in 1990 after voters approved a measure to create the Alameda County Source Reduction and Recycling Board. While these names may be long, their definition on the website is short: "a public agency reducing waste in Alameda County".

They provide many resources for business and schools, but I'm focusing on what they do for residents. There are guidelines for recycling everything: hazardous waste (including electronics, batteries, and medicines), food scraps, plant debris, and construction debris. I've learned that there's a drop off center close to my house that will accept the paint left by the previous owners! (Too bad the previous owners didn't know about it.)

There are also tons of resources dedicated to preventing waste that can be used by everyone, no matter where you live. Links to stop your junk mail, reduce packaging waste, and tips on how to make your home more green and create sustainable gardens.

The billboard I saw was related to food waste and for good reason. "Nearly 40 percent of all the food produced in the United States goes to waste, and of that, 95 percent ends up in landfills or combustion facilities." In Alameda County, "food scraps and food-soiled paper are the largest single item" in the waste stream comprising 35% of what's thrown away.

If you want to see your own impact you can take this 10-minute food reality check and then visit http://stopfoodwaste.org for guidelines on how to plan, store, eat and compost your food. They've got recipes, shopping lists and videos. I'm eager to get their advice on celery that's lost its crunch.

Whether or not you live in Alameda County, you use this info to make changes to reduce waste in your life. How do you stay in the know? Bookmark the website, like their Facebook page and follow them on Twitter @stopwasteorg.

Happy New Year!