Catholic Charities of Santa Clara has partnered with the local county to launch a shared housing program, connecting renters with housing providers amid California’s high housing costs.
“We are incredibly excited to be partnering alongside the County of Santa Clara’s Office of Supportive Housing for this much needed housing resource for our community,” said Lindsey Caldwell, director of Emergency Programs and Housing Services for Catholic Charities of Santa Clara. catholic charity news
The board of supervisors for Santa Clara County approved a $1.5 million contract with Catholic Charities on April 3. The program officially opened on August 20, but candidates had been applying since the spring.
The contract money will be used to launch the program. Over the next two and a half years, Catholic Charities aims to match 100 households annually, connecting renters to house providers as well as renters with other renters.
According to rental website Rent Cafe, Santa Clara County’s average rental is over $2,700 a month. The average studio apartment costs almost $1,900 and a three-bedroom rental is more than $3,400.
The home sharing program is based on a national model. Catholic Charities will interview applicants to determine if they qualify for the service, inspecting income, references, and criminal background checks. Home providers will receive a one-time $200 incentive after a match successfully lasts for 90 days.
Priority will be given to applicants with a lower than median income. Catholic Charities suggested that the program could especially benefit senior citizens – who may own a house but are looking for additional revenue – and young adults.
Full story at Catholic News Agency.
Catholic Charities should first spend their funds on educating Catholics about their faith. We have two generations of baptized Catholics (ever since they started closing our schools) that haven’t a clue of what our faith is about. Ask one to tell you what mysteries of the rosary are or to recite the Our Father or the Apostles Creed. Spending millions for the homeless has no benefit.
Educating in the faith is not the function of Catholic Charities. It is the function and duty of the Catholic family. Parish schools and catechism classes assist parents in educating their children. Adult education is necessary as well. It occurs in the parish and in some diocese as well. An adult Catholic should read all educational materials put out by their Bishop’s Conference and by the Vatican. ( And not just the sentences that internet bloggers put on their websites.) Spiritual reading is a necessity for Catholics.
For whatever you do to the least of these you do to me.
Catholic charities exemplifies what’s wrong with the corporate bureaucratization of the church. The church relies on multi million dollar government contracts to do work, and the employees of catholic charities are all left-leaning Democrats. It’s really Democrat charities.
Like the above poster said, money and time would be better spent on catechesis and quality worship.
Or use the money to relocate people out of California where housing is affordable.
Anon, you have it wrong. Your comment that the church relies on multi-million dollar government contracts is the opposite of the truth. The government relies on the churches to administer the programs for them. About all the charities, of many faiths, will get out of these programs is enough to pay salaries for workers and benefits. They don”t make a profit on these programs. Its not as if the money is given to the charities to do with as they wish.
RL and Anon .. What I hear you saying is that the Church should not pursue the Corporal Works of Mercy until .. until what? Until Catholic education and practice reaches the standard you set? As for your political party preferences, a hot meal is neither Democrat or Republican nor is a blanket or roof over someone’s head.
Nowhere did Jesus instruct us to sell all our neighbor has then use the money to lobby Caesar.
Let’s be honest, Catholic Charities is in cahoots with the secular State to put a Band-Aid on an ulcerous cancer, an economic cancer of the regulatory secular Nanny State’s own creation.
Serving the poor by bureaucrats who get salaries and benefits through tax dollars (theft/extortion) doesn’t ordinarily qualify as corporal works of mercy. Bureaucracies and bureaucrats are not beacons leading people to Christ. There is little genuine love (caritas) in this process, if any at all.
Lord, please send us another Pope St. Pius X, to “restore all things in Christ.”
Pope Pius X would rebuke you.