Join our "Loving Your Neighborhood" webinar on Thursday, Aug 6, at 7 pm

You are invited to join a webinar sponsored by Western Friend and led by Anthony

Anthony spent the night sleeping on the street with
friends and homeless neighbors to pray and advocate for homeless
housing on this vacant, city-owned site

Manousos called  “Loving Your Neighborhood” on Thursday, August 6, at 7 pm. 

To learn how you can be part of the movement to end homelessness and make decent housing a human right,  register in advance for this meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUqceChrDsuE9ealBspC7ihrOY1Gq1ovthz 

Together we’ll explore what Quakers have done, and what we can do now, to address the homelessness and affordable housing crisis during this time of pandemic. Learn how George Fox called on Parliament to turn over church land to the poor, and how churches today are seeking to use their excess land for affordable/homeless housing. Find out how the Quakers started Self Help Enterprises to enable farm workers to build their own homes—the inspiration for Habitat. Discover ways you can help organize your community to make affordable/homeless housing happen and transform lives. 

Twenty years ago Jill Shook, an Evangelical Christian who loves Jesus and justice,  intentionally moved into a predominantly African American neighborhood and was mentored by an African American leader named John Perkins (founder of the Harambee Center and the Christian Community Development Association). Upon marrying Jill, Anthony moved into this neighborhood, which is  close to Orange Grove Meeting. 

Thanks to these diverse neighbors, his  eyes and heart have been opened in ways he  could never have imagined. He came  to love his neighborhood and see more clearly his role as an ally of people of color.  Concerned about gentrification, homelessness, and the need for affordable housing, he and his wife started a nonprofit called Making and Housing and Community Happen (https://www.makinghousinghappen.org/). 

Using a faith-rooted approach, MHCH has convinced our City Council to approve 134 units of homeless housing and strengthen their inclusionary ordinance to require that 20% of all new housing be affordable. MHCH has started committees to create a Community Land Trust, Safe Parking for those living in their vehicles, affordable accessory dwelling units (“granny flats”) and a congregational land community to help religious institutions have affordable/homeless housing built on their excess land. This work has all been done with the support of Orange Grove Meeting, which has become a center for housing justice in Pasadena. 

Anthony Manousos is a Quaker peace activist, teacher and author, his most recent books being "Transformative Quakers" and "Howard and Anna Brinton: Reinventors of Quakerism in the 20th century." He serves on the board of directors for several organizations, including the Friends Committee for National Legislation and Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace (icujp.org). For ten years he edited "Friends Bulletin" (now called "The Western Friend") and edited or wrote six books as well as several pamphlets for Quakers. He is currently a member of Orange Grove Monthly Meeting and lives in Pasadena, CA, with his wife Jill Shook, housing justice advocate and author of Making Housing Happen: Faith-Based Affordable Housing Models (2012).