MATERIAL AID AND ADVOCACY PROGRAM INC
This organization has already been registered
Someone in your organization has already registered and setup an account. would you like to join their team?Profile owner : c***d@m****a.o*g
Mission Statement
The mission of the Material Aid and Advocacy Program (MAAP) is to support and empower community members who are unhoused or underhoused through material aid, access to resources, and advocacy and organizing opportunities and support. Learning from and organizing alongside unhoused community members and allies, we seek transformative systemic solutions that address the root causes of homelessness, poverty, and inequality. Housing justice, racial justice, ending the racist war on drugs, prison abolition, decriminalization of homelessness, accessible and comprehensive healthcare for all are our work. While doing this we offer people support in meeting their basic needs through outreach and our drop-in space where they access resources, build community, care for each other, and organize. MAAP works at the intersection of multiple crisis — homelessness and the increasing criminalization of unhoused people, the affordable housing crisis, the overdose crisis, and a persisting global health pandemic.
About This Cause
MAAP works on two levels - supporting people in meeting their self-identified basic material and survival needs while also offering an organizing home and support for unhoused community members so they can advocate for their self-identified needs, goals, and transformative evidence-based solutions to the interconnected crisis they are fighting to survive every day. At the core of MAAP's work is providing a twice-weekly community drop-in space. At MAAP, community members spend time in a space free of judgement, harassment, and criminalization. They access hot and freshly made food, water, coffee; and “shop” in our free store for clothing, hygiene and survival supplies such as tents, sleeping bags, and tarps. People take naps in this space, meet with our housing navigation partner, problem solve and safety plan with staff and each other, connect with healthcare and legal support, use laptops and phones, charge their devices, dress wounds, care for each other, and organize. People are treated with dignity and respect, and participants help take responsibility in running the space. One participant described MAAP as “a community where I can actively work towards escaping my homelessness, meet my basic needs and help others do the same. Where my contributions are valued and I'm able to fight for my community”. MAAP also offers encampment sweep support and response - helping people move and replace belongings, liaising with police and DPW, sharing know your rights information, observing and documenting alongside our legal partners, and offering resources and connection to medical and legal support. MAAP joins with, amplifies, and supports unhoused people in sharing their experiences, needs, goals, and vision in advocacy and education efforts and hosts a weekly organizing meeting, providing support and skill building opportunities so our unhoused organizers can lead this work. We’re co-creating a vision of evidence-based solutions to the interconnected crisis our community is surviving - including housing as a right, expanded healthcare - including voluntary treatment on demand and harm reduction services, and ending systems of harm. MAAP collaborates in coalitions advocating for truly affordable low-barrier housing, overdose prevention centers, community crisis response, and ending the criminalization of unhoused people. MAAP offers trainings, workshops, and teach-ins to the broader community and tailored trainings to organizations. Current community offerings include overdose prevention and response - including considerations to make if deciding to call 911, and supporting people surviving poverty in public. We tailor organizational trainings to the needs and goals of the organization and the participants they are serving and supporting. Trainings may include background and local context around homelessness, drug use, and mental health; philosophies, practice, and approaches; crisis response and de-escalation in public spaces or program spaces including overdose recognition and response, responding to multiple crisis and perceived crisis, and responding in the presence of police or other entities that police. We also offer ongoing safety planning and problem solving, and reworking of policies and procedures that prioritize participant and staff safety and autonomy.