The pandemic is raising what has always been an important question, but which has now become an urgent question: Is shelter obsolete?

CSP has adopted the process of community-based surveillance — used in Sierra Leone during the West African Ebola outbreak a number of years ago — in which every member of the shelter community has an important role to play.

Ceciley Bradford and Kathy Meck are part of the leadership team that is effecting the renaissance of what was, 100+ years ago, the Traveler's Aid Society and is today Families Forward Philadelphia.

"The value of harm reduction is that it puts things in very simple terms," says guest columnist Andrew Huff, "How can we respond to this situation without causing more harm?"

Columnist Andrew Huff argues it does. But even if you disagree, he says, the disciplinary practice represents a "gross failure in homeless services."

“Quality education for every child should not be a luxury, it’s a basic need,” says Project HOME's cofounder and executive director Sister Mary Scullion.

Less than a fifth of what we've spent on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in the past 17 years is all we would need to address extreme poverty worldwide, says guest columnist Rob Wetherington.

Those who work in human services care about human rights, says guest columnist Andrew Huff. As such, he goes goes on to say, they should know whether or not their work upholds international human rights agreements.

Toronto Community Housing uses it. And now the Bethesda Project's Church Program has adapted it for use in one of its shelters. The participatory budgeting model is readily scalable, says guest columnist Andrew Huff.