On February 3rd, Reverend Andrew Armstrong of First Church of Nashua, addressed the Rotary Club of Nashua regarding, his work with the GNCOC to address hunger and homelessness in Nashua. Reverend Armstrong has served as a pastor at many locations prior to assuming the Reverend position at First Church. He is active in religious education at numerous universities. He is a curler and biker. He is married with 2 adult daughters.
He informed us there is no candle lighting tradition in the Protestant ritual (many churches had burned from lit candles), so Candlemas not a big thing for the Protestants.
First Church stated mission is to address hunger and homelessness in the community. It became obvious that this issue was becoming more significant when in the recent past a homeless person entered the church off hours and lit a fire in the sanctuary to warm up. Policy changed to lock the church and begin to address the needs of the homeless population
Andy does a lot of group organization work to help with strategic planning. Homelessness is a multi-faceted issue. He works GNCOC to develop and coordinate community support from the 85 different agencies providing help. GNCOC helps to coordinate and connect all these agencies. Some of them are Veterans Residences home, Front Door agency (women with children). Some agencies supply housing as well as other resources needed to help the homeless. Family Promise helps when families (or any portion of a family) find themselves homeless.
All communities with homeless issues need coordination of the available services. The coordination serves to gather data, review, find best practices, equip all local agencies with this info to help provide the most help. Stable housing is the key to solving homelessness. There are national best practices as well as local best practices. Drivers of homelessness can be addiction, lack of work, mental health, housing costs and low wages.
GNCOC shares agency data and info with community non-profit agencies and the federal government which is often involved in providing funds.
A brief Q and A followed.
Thanks for visiting today, Andy!