Peter Laarman of Los Angeles is executive director of Progressive Christians Uniting and an ordained United Church of Christ minister. He is editor of the just-published Getting on Message: Challenging the Christian Right from the Heart of the Gospel (Beacon Press, 2006) and knows a lot of other groups active on this subject.

Room in the Inn is a coalition of nearly 200 congregations in Nashville, Tennessee, that provide shelter and other services to the city’s homeless. It has become a model for similar programs around the South. Contact executive director Rachel Hester.

Greg Boyd is senior pastor of Woodland Hills Church in St. Paul, Minn., and author of The Myth of a Christian Nation: How the Quest for Political Power is Destroying the Church, in which he says American Christians should seek to build the kingdom of God instead of building political power.

Jan G. Linn is author of Big Christianity: What’s Right with the Religious Left (Westminster John Knox, 2006) and a co-pastor of Spirit of Joy Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Minneapolis. A former college and seminary professor, Linn calls himself a “recovering fundamentalist” who wants to reclaim the idea of Christianity as generous, or liberal, and tolerant.

Sister Joan Chittister, a Benedictine nun, lecturer and writer, has been especially active on peace issues. She was a guest on an April 16 Meet the Press panel about faith and politics.

Operation Safety Net is a health care outreach program operated through the Pittsburgh Mercy Hospital System and Catholic Health East. It provides medical care to homeless people living on the streets of Pittsburgh and recognized as one of nation’s first, targeted, full-time street medicine programs. Dr. Jim Withers started the program in 1992.

The Rev. Pamela D. Couture is the inaugural holder of the Jane and Geoffrey Martin Chair in Church and Community at Emmanuel College of Victoria University in the University of Toronto. She is the author of Child Poverty: Love, Justice and Social Responsibility and Seeing Children, Seeing God: A Practical Theology of Children and Poverty.

Richard Axtell is an associate professor of religion and college chaplain at Centre College in Danville, Ky. He is concerned with issues of hunger and homelessness, has served as director of Louisville United Against Hunger and also was a case manager working with homeless men through the St. Vincent DePaul Society. In his teaching and […]

Camillus House is a Miami organization dedicated to caring for the city’s poor and homeless. The organization’s website includes information and resources on homelessness. Contact Paola Iuspa-Abbott.