Spreading Homefulness

Home for us is more than the sum of it's parts. It's not just the roof over our heads, but a nearly indescribable, yet almost universally-recognized feeling. 'Being home,' means belonging, safety, and a sense of peace. Those feelings—more than just a physical space—are what we've come to call homefulness.

While we believe that home should be your favorite place in the world, for far too many, 'home' does not exist in its simplest forms, or most basic functions. We regard the state of homefulness as essential for all of us to thrive.

As such, we created Project Homefulness, an initiative that aims to spread homefulness through a three-pronged approach of supporting long-term solutions, providing immediate relief, and driving community education. We recognize that we can’t do it all, and that the issues related to people experiencing homelessness are complex, and can be very polarizing. As such, we have focused our work primarily on helping women and children in the United States who live without homes, and who are often the most vulnerable and isolated members of our communities. A portion of our profits and other resources are regularly being funneled into organizations that fulfill one or more of our three aims:

Long-term Solutions: We support a housing first approach to helping individuals overcome the cycle of homelessness. A housing first philosophy seeks to provide permanent housing as a first step to people experiencing homelessness. Evidence suggests that providing the dependability and security that comes with homefulness allows individuals to deal with, and overcome, complex issues and challenges that lead to, or perpetuate, a state of homelessness. Long-term solutions are costly, but we believe are where our resources are best spent.

Immediate Relief: While systematized handouts may be perceived to create a cycle of dependency or abuse, there are many circumstances in which people living without homes are particularly vulnerable and need immediate relief for their safety and well-being. For example, every winter, we lose hundreds of people living without homes who die from exposure to cold when resources that provide temporary warm shelter are at their limits. Simple, short-term fixes are needed to save these people, so that they may thrive as longer-term solutions take affect.

Community Education: Because of stigma, the root causes of why people experience homelessness are often misunderstood and over simplified. Since social norms often make it easy to assign labels to people who live without homes, we may allow negative interactions with specific individuals to paint a picture that doesn’t necessarily represent the stories of many others who could benefit from our support. As such, we believe that working to educate our communities to overcome the stigmas and generalizations associated with homelessness is equally important in our mission to spread homefulness.

At the time of this article, resources behind Project Homefulness most recently provided support to the work of Period, a youth-led nonprofit that provides essential sanity products to women living without homes, and Our House, an organization that provides housing, healthcare and vital other services to low-income people living with HIV.

While our resources are finite, our passion for spreading homefulness gives deeper purpose to everything we do at Christopher David. If you are a part of an organization that aligns with our vision, we’d love to hear from you. If you’d like to contribute to our cause, you’re already doing so by shopping our products, and you can also make a direct contribution. Together we can spread homefulness and help others to thrive. - CG

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