Nov. 17, 2022
The local Housing Visions Continuum of Care group recently hosted the 2022 Catawba County Homeless Panel Discussion as part of this year’s Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week.
The event was highlighted by a great conversation among the panelists: Chris Johnson – Catawba County Schools Assistant Principal; Ed Sain – Newton City Council member; John Hays – Strong Life Ministries Executive Director; Catie Lawson – Exodus Homes Medically Assisted Recovery Director; Liz Smitherman – County Code Compliance Technician; Wendy Hague – Jason Herman Insurance and Teena Willis – Partners Behavioral Health Housing Development Manager.
Catawba County United Way Executive Director Mark Bumgarner moderated the discussion, which highlighted the different perspectives of homelessness in our county from the points of view of the panelists as well as from the audience.
The Housing Visions event organizers – Renee Neal, Catawba Valley Community College Director of Student Help and John Bailey, Catawba County United Way Dir. of Community Impact wants to thank everyone who helped with this event. They include The Corner Table Soup Kitchen who catered lunch, City of Newton Parks and Recreation Department who provided and set up the space at the Newton Recreation Center, Michael Boone Exec. Director for the Office of Professional Excellence at CVCC who created a pre-and post-event survey, the Catawba County Library System, Wanda Horvath and Sandra Bailey.
Housing Visions looks forward to continuing the conversation started this week into next year, so if you would like to be involved call 828-327-6851 to learn more about the mission of Housing Visions. The next meeting will be Dec. 8 at 12 p.m.
