Opportunity PlaybookCity Relief
IMPACT: Each week, City Relief’s outreach buses provide eight outreach “block parties” where those in crises can get hot meals, hygiene kits, socks, and more. Serving over 30,000 people each year and partnering with over 250 organizations, City Relief seeks to connect guests to specific shelters, job programs, detox, or rehab, depending on their individualized needs.
MISSION: The Relief Bus exists to respond to God’s heart for the poor and broken by going to the streets to offer food, compassion, and connections to resources that lead to life transformation. To accomplish this mission we partner together with volunteers and care giving organizations.
POPULATION: Homeless Individuals
LOCATION: Elizabeth, NJ
Humanizing the Homeless
City Relief provides those struggling with homelessness and extreme poverty the help, hope
and resources they need to live a transformed life. Each week, City Relief’s outreach buses host
eight “block parties,” where people in crisis can get hot meals, hygiene kits, socks and more.
Alongside more than 250 partner organizations, City Relief serves over 30,000 people annually.
It seeks to connect guests to specific shelters, job programs and detox or rehab facilities,
depending on their individual needs. Their three-step relief model encompasses:
- Step One – Compassion: Outreaches are pop-up care centers where staff and volunteers serve hot meals, distribute hygiene kits and socks, and pray for those in need.
- Step Two – Connection: City Relief connects guests to resources to help them build a better tomorrow. These resources include Life Care Visits, one-on-one meetings that provide hope through individualized action plans. Each visit involves listening, encouraging and praying with guests who are struggling. Guests are then matched with the appropriate emergency shelters, job programs and detox or drug rehabilitation programs as needed.
- Step Three – Community: Guests are introduced to City Relief’s Follow-Up Care Team, which helps guests connect with community partners, nonprofit agencies and government programs. Follow-up can mean anything from assisting with paperwork to attending meetings to advocating on guests’ behalf. Through its work to humanize the homeless, City Relief is determined to create an effective—and ultimately, enduring—addition to homelessness services, particularly in urban areas.
What’s the play?
City Relief has a proven track record of serving homeless individuals with dignity and respect, opening the doors to greater opportunity and personal responsibility for those they serve.
Contact Our Team
Contact the Roundtable’s Programs team to learn more about this investment opportunity.
