Friday Round-Up: This Week in the News

• “One of the goals of Calvary Women’s Services is to help women find housing during the time they are settled in the shelter.” A Fresh Start on Good Hope Road (Street Sense)
• “Numerous studies have been conducted on the brains of children and adults to see how childhood sexual abuse, neglect, and other forms of maltreatment affect survivors.” Witnessing Domestic Violence Decreases Gray Matter Volume (GoodTherapy.org)
• “The United States actually has less pre-tax/transfer poverty than a number of places, including France and Germany, and about equivalent pre-tax/transfer inequality to those countries.” Here are 315 Charts on Poverty and Inequality. Satisfied Yet? (The Washington Post)

12th Annual Hope Awards a Great Success!

Thanks so much to everyone who made our 12th Annual Hope Awards Dinner on Tuesday such a great success! It was an awesome evening of great food and drinks, amazing silent auction items and packages, an exhilarating live auction that won’t soon be forgotten, inspiring speeches by Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton and Calvary programs graduate Sandra – all emceed by the talented JC Hayward and brought to life by the energy and love that filled the room!

Two fantastic videos were premiered at the event – a thank you to everyone who helped make our Good Hope Road expansion possible, and a slideshow of all the work that went into transforming that space from an abandoned building into a safe, caring place for tonight; support, hope and change for tomorrow.

Also, be sure to check out photos from the event on our Facebook page and Flickr – as well as on Bisnow.

Thanks again for making this event such a great success!

Friday Round-Up: This Week in the News

• “Without a safe and stable home, survivors of domestic violence have little chance of escaping abusive environments and rebuilding their lives.” To Curb Domestic Violence, Start With Housing (Huffington Post)
• “The latest design is a lightweight, self-heated and waterproof coat with pockets, a hood and a section that pulls out to become the foot of the sleeping bag. It can be rolled up and turned into a shoulder bag for the warmer months.” Sleeping-Bag Coats Warm, Employ Detroit Homeless (ABC News)
• “Coaches are role models, and they have a tremendous opportunity to teach youths not only about teamwork and game strategies, but also important life lessons of what healthy manhood looks like.” Verizon Foundation, A CALL TO MEN, NFL Representatives and CBS Sportscaster James Brown Enable Coaches to Promote Healthier Manhood (Stockhouse)

From the Archives: Photos From Last Year’s Hope Awards Dinner

Board member Kymber Messersmith celebrates onstage at the Hope Awards

Executive Director Kris Thompson with honoree Sandra Evers-Manly, emcee Steve Rudin of ABC7/WJLA-TV, and Board President Tracy Ballard.

One week from today we’ll be heading down to the Hope Awards Dinner! Every year brings new surprises, guests, awesome auction items or vacations, stories and inspiration. As Calvary is entering our 12th Annual Hope Awards Dinner and our 30th year providing services for women who are homeless in DC, we have a lot to be thankful for – and a lot to celebrate! Take some time time to enjoy some of the great moments from last year’s dinner from our Flickr page, and get excited about attending an event that does good and feels great.

Friday Round-Up: This Week in the News

• “Federally extended benefits, which may last for up to 47 weeks, kick in after a jobless worker has exhausted state unemployment benefits, which last up to 26 weeks.” For the unemployed, no reprieve on budget cuts (CNN)
• “Advocates claim there is not enough public and low-income housing to accommodate the hundreds who have relied on FEMA-subsidized hotel rooms for the past six months.” Thousands still homeless after Sandy (rt.com)
• “For the poor living in poor countries, particularly the profoundly unstable ones, gains have been harder-fought and slower, a trend that the World Bank’s own economists describe as worrisome” Is It Crazy to Think We Can Eradicate Poverty? (New York Times)

From the Archives: Katie Couric as the 2012 Hope Awards Honoree

Last spring at the Hope Awards Dinner, we were proud to honor Katie Couric with the Hope Award. As a nationally recognized leader in television journalism, host of her own talk show “Katie!”, and ABC News special correspondent, her words of encouragement and support for the women at Calvary were powerful!

Take a look, and share in our excitement for this year’s Hope Awards Dinner – only two weeks away! Tickets are still available here. 

Friday Round-Up: This Week in the News

• “Citing the recent clearance of a homeless encampment across from the Fallsway shelter as an example of the attitudes she’s perceived, Clarke suggested those attitudes are also present on the council.” Council Bill Would Make Homeless a “Protected Class” (City Paper)
• “Despite being employed for at least 27 weeks out of the year, individual and household earnings still placed large numbers of US working families below the poverty line in 2011.” Poverty in America: More than 46 Million below the Official Poverty Level, More than 10 Million “Working Poor” (Global Research)
• “The police threatened Ms. Briggs with eviction because she had received their assistance for domestic violence.” Shut Up or Get Out: PA City Punishes Domestic Violence Victims Who Call the Police (Huffington Post)