Administration for Children and Families, United States Department of Health and Human Services. "Promoting the economic and social well-being of families, children, individuals and communities is the heart of our mission. "

Foundations | Grants and Support | Housing | Outreach | Policy & Study

Society's Careening Wreckage

Like a runaway freight train come loose from its tracks, it's still moving along with a frightning speed and power. When something as huge as a human society crashes, it's an incredibly ponderous event, with forces that can crush any mere individual like a fly beneath an Abrams tank. It's so powerful - but it's quite often so slow. There are people moving within the incipient wreck, trying to rescue the damned and the doomed, to take them to a safe place, or to at least remove them from the most dangerous parts of the collapsing machine as it hurtles towards certain doom for all, even as the rich, all unawares, party in the first-class cars, oblivious to the impending crash.

Try reading some local-opinion here (Washington, DC, USA), at the CyberHerald.

Take a look at the Alternatives to Scattered Site Housing in Washington, DC for an interesting approach to housing for the District's most impoverished.

Volunteerism

DC Cares.

Volunteerism is alive and well in Washington DC!

Emergency

Emergency Food and Shelter National Board Program.

Outreach
DC Community for Creative Non-Violence (CCNV).
Homeless Shelter, Services, Outreach.
DC Food Not Bombs". This is a charitable group which volunteers time and resources to collect produce from grocers and distributors as it nears the end of its shelf-life, and then prepares and distributes it to local homeless and impoverished people. If more folks got involved in this, we could no longer say that America throws enough food away every day to feed all of the five-million kids who go to sleep hungry every night in America.
Homeless Online. Don't laugh - I have been homeless. I wish there had been such a resource available at that time.
Helping Individual Prostitutes Survive (HIPS).
Maryland Center for Poverty Solutions.
Montgomery County Maryland Resources Locator. This is dandy little reference, with some 2000 listings of Montgomery County's services providers, State, County, City, and Charitable.
Housing Opportunities Commission - Montgomery County MD.
National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. This award-winning site has a searchable database with nearly a thousand missing children.
Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network.

Grants and Support
The Ford Foundation. The goals of the Ford Foundation: "Strengthen democratic values, Reduce poverty and injustice, Promote international cooperation, and Advance human achievement."
Soros Foundation. Their mission: "supporting the development of open society. To this end, they operate and support an array of programs and initiatives in education, civil society, independent media, Internet and e-mail communications, publishing, human rights, arts and culture, and social, legal, and economic reform."

Medical

Whitman-Walker Clinic.
The Whitman-Walker clinic has been doing absolutely outstanding work in the Washington DC area for over 20 years. Primarily serving the gay and lesbian community, it also as a major focus on anyone infected with HIV or AIDS. In this last regard, their efforts have been absolutely invaluable in terms of impact on the impoverished, homeless, or addicted communities of Washington DC.

Housing
Habitat for Humanity International. Very nearly the largest homebuilder in the US.
Washington, DC Habitat for Humanity.
National Housing Council. This is the top-down site.
The NeighborWorks® Network "promotes the creation of healthy communities through affordable housing, home ownership and investments in neighborhood revitalization through local partnerships of residents, nonprofits, lenders, business community and local government."

Policy & Study

American Institutes for Research.
"The American Institutes for Research is an independent, not-for-profit organization that provides governments and the private sector with high-quality services by applying and advancing the behavioral and social sciences to solve significant societal problems. We invite you to browse our Web site to learn about our organization and the work that we perform. "
Welfare Information Network.
This is an excellent site, providing not only scope and depth to a wide range of issues related to Welfare, but also provides a great deal of content on its own site, as well as serving asa portal to other sites.