SEPTEMBER 2020 | CwD UPDATE
Celebrating Milestones;
Expanding Our Impact.
City with Dwellings turns THREE on Saturday! We’ve been around a lot longer, but didn’t receive our IRS
non-profit status until September 19, 2017. It’s on this foundational milestone that our grassroots leaders and
brand-new board members will build a strong organization with the staff, funding, facilities, and broad coalitions of support needed for the community building work it takes to end homelessness in our city.
We are here because of you—and the hundreds of volunteers and advocates who generously shared their time, talent, and resources with City with Dwellings. Over the past three years you’ve helped create a unique organization with programs based on the values of hospitality, care, transformative relationships, unlimited second chances, and being in community with individuals experiencing homelessness. It seems crazy, but here we are. It’s September 2020, we’re in the midst of a pandemic, sharing our beautifully renovated Community First Center with individuals in our city struggling with homelessness. All while masked-up and socially distanced, of course!
AND WE ARE GROWING!

I am so excited to share upcoming staffing changes that will enable us to expand and deepen our work with the most vulnerable in our community.  Starting September 28, Lea Thullbery, our intrepid Case Coordinator, will become City with Dwellings’ Director of Diversion and Outreach. Diversion is a strategy that prevents homelessness for people seeking shelter by helping them identify immediate alternate housing arrangements and, if necessary, connecting them with services and financial assistance to help them return to permanent housing. Lea has been successfully using this strategy for several years.

Lea will continue leading this amazing work, with two current staff members joining her team. Krista O’Connell will transition to the position of Diversion and Outreach Specialist, and Mark Dockery will move into a full-time role as our Transportation and Street Outreach Specialist.

The Diversion Specialist position is funded by CARES ACT grant.  Mark’s role is funded in part by a City Emergency Services Grant as well as COVID-19 related state ESG funding.  The pandemic brought hard, new realities to the homeless community, and we are grateful for this funding, which enables City with Dwellings to continue to adapt and meet the needs in the community.

All of us at City with Dwellings are deeply grateful for the support of friends and neighbors who encourage and walk beside us into this new way of being community with those who live on the margins of the city.

Grace, peace, and much love,
Tracy
Help us celebrate this three-year birthday with a gift
of your time, talent and resources! 
My City with Dwellings Story
Reverend Paul Wollner, Augsburg Lutheran Church, shares how the work of CwD has expanded his heart for his neighbors experiencing homelessness. 
Years ago, my preaching professor at seminary told me that "a good sermon is the connection of God's story to the story of your community." When I moved to Winston-Salem three years ago to serve as the senior pastor at Augsburg Lutheran Church on Fifth Street, I knew that I would need to learn the story of my new community in order to be an effective preacher. 

As I met the people of Augsburg, community leaders, and other pastors I started to have a better understanding of our story. But to truly know your community's story, you must see it through a lens other than you own. City with Dwellings made it possible for me to connect in meaningful ways to see the depth of our neighbors' stories.
Emily Norris, now known at CwD as "Pastor Emily", helped me right away to see our story through the lens of the men and women who are the leaders, volunteers, and recipients of the work at City with Dwellings. Through Augsburg's partnership as a Winter Overflow Shelter, I was fortunate to break bread and hear the stories of twenty men each winter evening who sought warmth and security surrounded by the love of volunteers and staff.

City with Dwellings connects the stories of our community that everyone needs to hear. Their "Community First" focus allows a place for all of us to share our gifts in meaningful ways. I am proud to be a supporter of this organization because I know that they are helping to write new chapters in our shared story. What we are witnessing through the work of CwD during the pandemic is a new chapter of HOPE. A chapter that has found homes for many who lacked them before, a chapter that reminds those fortunate of our calling to share, a chapter that is rooted in deeper connection.

As a neighbor and as a church, I know that our work is not done. I am prayerful that we can inspire others to connect to keep writing a beautiful story.
Save the Date
Community Forum
The Advocacy and Education committee of City With Dwellings is excited to invite you to a new monthly virtual program, designed to provide deeper dives into the causes impacting the crisis of homelessness, and the creative ways change can happen in these areas. 

The program, “Roots and Responses,” will bring together folks from the front-lines of this work, leaders from our city, innovative voices, and YOU, to examine a particular area of impact and envision how we achieve progress. This is also an opportunity to hear specific stories from the ongoing work of CWD and to receive updates on ways for you to be involved.   
Please RSVP by September 30th.
Zoom link will be sent to those who RSVP.
"Love is the answer. Community is the context."
We Are City with Dwellings
Thank you for your continued support of the important work of City with Dwellings. Our partners and volunteers have helped create a person-centered, community-based model of support and care for the most vulnerable in our city.

to download the 2018-2019 Annual Report