Learning and growth: The shelter should be a space for people experiencing houselessness and volunteers to interact on equal footing and form friendships in a loving, respectful environment. We believe that these friendships are mutually beneficial, both as ends in themselves and as opportunities for learning.
Accountability: We believe that our ultimate obligation and responsibility is to our program participants. We aim to be transparent about our decisions and responsive to their requests, and to work to make our participants as comfortable as possible. Weekly house meetings at the shelter and our resident advocacy program will facilitate this process.
Participatory planning: It?s important to us to involve other people in the community in our planning and development processes, especially individuals who are unhoused. We hold community meetings and are open to receiving proposals for new project ideas.
Connection with other service providers: People who are unhoused often face difficulties accessing services for which they are eligible. We will work to help our program participants take full advantage of these services by developing an extensive network of partnerships and relationships within the community of local service providers. In addition, Stanford has many student groups that we would like to work with to feed, house, and serve clients.
Allowing program participants to set goals and articulate needs: We believe that people who use services are the experts on where they are in their lives and what their goals should be at that point. Therefore, we feel that the best way to be an effective service is to allow clients to set their own goals and give them space to articulate their own needs in all parts of our service?from case management, to in-house shelter rules, to programs that we develop as an organization.