Weekly e-Newsletter | January 3, 2024

We're Changing our Names

Our mission, vision and commitment to those we serve and to ending homelessness remains steadfast.

Beginning in 2024, Human Services Campus, Inc. will be Keys to Change with the tagline: Working together. Ending Homelessness.

The Human Services Campus will be Key Campus with the tagline: Unlocking The Way Home.

Why the change?

The year-long process with a working group including an outside consultant, board and staff members, partners and clients explored a new name and brand identity that better reflected the energy and ambition of our goals and the breadth of services we provide both now and in the future.

We wanted new identities that captured our personality as a compassionate connector and our role as a strategic partner in a leadership role working to end homelessness.

We also wanted to smooth over confusion caused by having the same name for the campus location at 12th Avenue and Madison and for the organization while ensuring a strong connection between the two.

The new name and tagline leverage the idea of our work as “key” and reinforce a frequently used phrase by our founder, Mike McQuaid: “the way home.”

In the coming months, our website and other materials will reflect the changes.

This has been a deeply creative and rewarding experience for all of us on the working committee and for the board of directors. We look forward to having you join us in our exciting next chapter.

Reflections From Amy Schwabenlender, CEO

It's been 32 days since my last post. In that time, the Human Services Campus, Inc. held the 19th Annual Mike McQuaid I am Home Breakfast and announced name/branding changes that will roll out in 2024. The numbers of unsheltered people in the neighborhood of the Campus are hovering around 100. The sheltered number on Campus in four spaces is exceeding 900 people nightly.

For the last eight days I've been out of the fray, celebrating and enjoying the holiday season with family out of town. The physical and mental distance from the Campus and homelessness creating a time for disconnection from the work. The time instead spent connecting with family, relaxing, enjoying, and recharging. We made a decision many months ago to plan a big, possibly once in a lifetime Christmas vacation on Maui.

None of us knew when we made the plan that the historic and beautiful town of Lahaina would suffer the obliterating fire of August 2023. Having visited several times in the past, it is heart breaking to see an entire seaside area in black remnants, trees charred, vehicles left in place burned, white fences melted downwards over bricks. We stayed in a rental home on the north side of Lahaina, surrounded by opulent resorts with easy access to pristine sandy beaches. Driving the Lahaina bypass is jarring, temporary barricades around properties yet with the hilly area it's possible to see over the barricades and fences at the ashen destruction. There is a stretch of road with large portraits of those who lost their lives posted, the humans affected and not seen in this physical devastation.

For me, knowing what homelessness can mean, I see the loss of home and wonder how people will recover. [Read More...]

Take a Tour of the Campus

On the first Wednesday of every month we host a tour at 9:00 am of the Key Campus at 12th Avenue and Madison. Spend an hour with us visiting the 13 acres and eight buildings, learning about the 15 partner organizations working collaboratively to serve people experiencing homelessness. If you are interested in joining us, the next available tour is February 7th. If you have already visited, please share this invite with a friend! We appreciate the help in spreading the word.

To register, please contact us at admin@hsc-az.org or call (602) 282-0853. 

UMOM New Day Center (UMOM) CEO, Jackson Fonder, and HSC CEO, Amy Schwabenlender, are joined by Mila Valle, CPO at UMOM, and Monique Lopez, COO at UMOM, to discuss how their organization is addressing the needs of the growing number of households with 5 and more family members on UMOM’s waitlist. In the segment, the panel also discusses a substantial grant that UMOM received, and how the funds will help UMOM’s clients immediately.

Want to join us in the STN studio at a future episode? Email amys@hsc-az.org if you would like to attend.

Watch Episode 4 of Season 3 Here