Local association of faith groups helps the homeless with straightforward services
For more than four years, the Arredondo family struggled in and out of homelessness in Watsonville, sleeping in their Chevy Suburban when they could not make rent.
But things began to turn around for them two months ago, when the husband, wife and three children found shelter through the Interfaith Satellite Shelter Program (ISSP), a local church-based emergency shelter program first initiated in the 1980s. The program was dormant for most of the last decade, but was revived last February by The Association of Faith Communities (AFC) in Santa Cruz, a collaboration of church pastors, church members and activists dedicated to serving the homeless.