A Place at The Table

Homeless Summit 2

Held on Saturday April 9, 2005 at St. Matthias Episcopal Church, Whittier

The second summit was hosted by the church but religion had no bearing on the purpose or goals of the Homeless Summit

        Purpose: To build upon the last summit in order to develop action plans to help the homeless in the Whittier community. To bring awareness to the community and build communication between members of it in order to define the issues that effect the homeless and people at risk of becoming homeless.

        Process: People were seated at round tables with each member representing a different aspect of the community. People in attendance ranged from the homeless, church goers, Reverends,  police, college students and teachers, uptown merchants, to the Mayor of Whittier. Every person attending had to follow the "Principles of Conversation", which allowed every person to be treated as equals. The discussion process was one of "Mutual Invitation", where each person had a chance to talk without being interrupted or judged. This let every person answer the session questions while excursing full thoughts.  Through round table discussions, roles and issues became defined.

        Outcome: From each table's perception of issues affecting the homeless, people chose to be apart of action groups to tackle the problems. Action plans were developed through various action groups that came from the tables. Each group had a defined issue that they were willing to handle. Committees were then formed to achieve one of the goals that were created in 2005. The second summit proved to be successful since it brought people together outside of the meeting to work on the existing problems relating to homelessness that effect the Whittier community.