Volunteers help us reach beyond our limits as service providers by bridging the gap of services and resources. Volunteers can help out with things such as the homeless street count, advocacy events, fundraisers, office work, building maintenance, helping homeless clients move into their new apartments, and outreach activities that provide food, clothing, blankets, and other necessities. Be sure to let us know about your outreach activity!
Outreach activities are our most popular form of volunteering. Our staff and volunteers walk the streets of central Louisiana, going under bridges, in abandoned buildings, over levees, etc. to find the homeless where they are and provide them with basic essentials and refer them to community resources. If you have any questions about outreach please email Joseph at JosephB@cenlahomeless.org. To protect both our voulnteers and program participants, all volunteers must complete a saftey orientation prior to participating in CLHC sponsored street outreach events. All volunteers are paired out with a CLHC staff member during CLHC sponsored outreach events.
If you are intersted in volunteering, please Join Us and select which activiites you're interested in volunteering for! Scheduled volunteer opportunities are listed to the right and provide links to register!
With the extroardinary help from our Cenla community, our unsheltered homeless population now have a place to shower, wash their clothes, get their mail, use the phone, and much more! Your dollar continues to make a difference for these people. Each dollar you donate to the Central Louisiana Homeless Coalition helps to maintain our Homeless Resource Center for people experiencing homelessness. Your donation will help keep the building up and running, including paying the water and electricity bills, cleaning supplies, and other essentials.
In-Kind donations are just as important as monetary donations! Our homeless rely on the generosity of others to help them get by with essential items (soap, shampoo, toothbrushes, toothpaste, deodorant, lotion, razors, bug spray, hand warmers, blankets, etc.)! CLHC also tries to provide the homeless with nonparishable snack items (beef jerky, canned meats, peanut butter, crackers, fruit snacks, hydrating drinks, etc.).
Moving somewhere can be stressful! Especially when you're moving from the streets, with nothing to your name, to an apartment. When CLHC helps a homeless person/family move into permanent supportive housing, we hope to have them a house warming basket with household essentials, to help them get started. House warming baskets can include laundry baskets, trash cans, small set of pots/pans, plates, bowls, forks, knives, spoons, kitchen utensils (can opener, pizza cutter, sponges, etc.) kitchen towels, toilet tissue, cleaning products, etc. You can find a list of items we need for all of our programs by clicking on the link here.
The Central Louisiana Homeless Coalition annually identifies and assesses a number of people who are deemed chronically homeless to determine the acuity and medical vulnerability of each person. Then, together with our member agencies, we attempt to permanently house these individuals, beginning with the most acute and most vulnerable persons. Sponsorship dollars support the coordination efforts led by the Coalition to identify and assess each individual. Without your sponsorship, there would be no one coordinating this effort to house our most vulnerable homeless individuals across all homelessness programs.
In 2013, the Central Louisiana Homeless Coalition began tracking the number of chronically homeless persons placed into permanent housing units. By December of that year, our Coalition had collectively housed 38 chronically homeless persons! Then, in 2014, our Coalition was able to permanently house 63 chronically homeless individuals, with most of them being homeless veterans! Your sponsorship ensures that the most medically vulnerable and chronically homeless individuals receive the top priority when a housing unit becomes available.