Hello, I hope everyone is having a great and productive week at their host sites! I started off my week by attending an event hosted by COHHIO (Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio) at the Bexley Public Library. COHHIO presented a powerpoint to us pointing out some of the root causes of homelessness and financial insecurity here in Ohio. Learning from COHHIO and the data they took time to collect, we can see that our community still has many systemic areas where we need improvement to ensure everyone has access to basic human needs. However, it was awesome to be in a room full of people from different organizations all coming together to engage in conversations surrounding the advancement of affordable housing and initiatives to end homelessness; this aspect allowed me to see all the great work that is currently being done for the cause in our community. It was interesting to see the way everyone had a different perspective of the issue based on their backgrounds. For example, a woman who owns apartment properties has had experience with tenants who have vouchers, and there were also people in the room who work to distribute those vouchers. With that being said, people had their own opinions on what areas of focus are most important and from what angles we should tackle the issue of homelessness to be most effective. 

This week I have also been working on my assigned projects while my supervisor is on vacation. I have developed our program booklet for our 2024 Founder Awards Ceremony and started coordinating with NBC4 to set up our scheduled interviews with our honorees which will take place the week of 7/29. I am also currently working on press releases to be sent out after the ceremony to highlight our honorees and why they are so deserving of our recognition!