TENT CITY

Started in 1990, our annual Tent City is a weekend-long Project Connect/Stand Down event that unites the entire community in a “Festival of Compassion" being staged not for, but with the unhoused and those marginally housed, 1 at a time. Ranged by the state of the economy, 800 to 1,100 people are served by 400 volunteers, many seeing homelessness for the first time.

Tent City provides medical, dental, food, clothing, the return to housing, critical documents, haircuts, and other services to those in need, 1 at a time. Whether volunteer or guest, each person truly connects with another, with new opportunities and perspectives, to create mutual accomplishments. That’s a 1Matter's Tent City. 

PROJECT CONNECT

As a matter of process, we want to create programs to identify and serve the more difficult or under-served areas of need. Rural homelessness is one of those, so we crafted a way to implement CCL to help rural communities identify and serve those in need.

A grant from the Toledo Community Foundation’s ProMedica Advocacy Fund allowed us to provide start-up funding and technical support to create independent events in surrounding rural counties including Hancock, Defiance, and Lenawee counties. Lenawee County continues this event today, leveraging it by using it as part of their annual Point in Time Count.

1MATTERS New Program Development

After the founding of 1Matters.org in 2007, the program development expanded regionally, including funding for the Project Connects and street papers. Local program development grew to include programs such as Help Portrait Toledo, Within, (a program to address student and youth homelessness), and others. 

The Veterans Matter Homeless Veterans Housing Program is our first national program.

Additionally, using Toledo as a test-bed, several other programs are in pilot development including programs to assist veteran employment, a Guardian Angel Fund to provide needs outside the scope of direct housing, and a program to further engage the music industry.