Comments at the County Commissioners Meeting

Today, I was able to speak at the Wake County Commissioners Meeting on behalf of the nine agencies that receive fund for homeless agencies.  The county is currently working on budget in which there maybe significant cuts. You can check out a video of the comments at: http://wake.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=7&clip_id=925.  My comments start at 1:14:37.  You can jump to Public Comments. I was the fifth to speak.  (PS. If you watch the video, you will definitely be able to tell that I am nervous but I was so thankful to have the opportunity to share!) 




My comments: 
Good afternoon and thank you for the opportunity to share with you. My name is Danielle Kosanovich and I serve on the board at PLM-Families Together and as a Diaconal Minister at Christ the King Lutheran Church in Cary as the Director of Outreach. 


As one who serves in full-time ministry, I am no stranger to the tension between a limited budget and seemingly endless array of needs. Each year, our faith community makes hard decisions about what to fund and which people will be helped. I don't envy your position to have to make these difficult decisions for all of Wake County. 


Your partnership with organizations that serve the most vulnerable in our society is to be celebrated and I thank you.  I pray that you will continue to partner in life-giving ways with local non-profits knowing you are doing more than merely funding a program but are equipping the least of these to become independent, confident and generous people in our community.  

• Each year an average of 3,330 Wake County Citizens (including 500 veterans) are homeless, living in area shelters, on the streets and in the woods.  
• Wake County Public Schools presently has 1,308 children and youth classified as homeless. 
• Wake County has 80,000 persons living in poverty and those households spend on average more than 50% of their income on housing alone, making them at risk for homelessness.

Without partnerships of non-profits, churches and the county, the three-legged stool that many of our county's most vulnerable people sit upon will falter.  There is tremendous value in our partnering to increase the overall impact of the county funds.  

Being homeless is not just not having a home.  "Being homeless is being without--without shelter, without resources, without support, without recognition, without power to influence society.  Simply survival becomes a full-time, humiliating task.  People who are homeless often lose their sense of self-worth and their hope for the future.  They feel cut-off and alienated from the rest of society." (ELCA Message on Homelessness)  Yet, our partnering reminds them that they are people worthy of dignity. The services offered move people beyond merely surviving to flourishing.  Please continue to fund services for homeless families, especially with significant state and federal cuts to resources that support homeless families with services that attend to the whole person as they get back on their feet.  Your partnership through county dollars rewrites stories--they are no longer without, without, without but people with...with hope, with futures and with homes. 

I look forward to working with you on behalf of all God's children.  May God give you discerning spirits and fill you with wisdom as you continue in your discussion. Thank you.