Supporting Trellis in 2024 and into 2025

Collaboration is more important than ever.  

In a world increasingly divided, separated and suspicious of each other, finding purposeful ways to see, learn from and work with each other to pursue justice, focusing on our most marginalized makes a powerful statement to a hostile world. 

Your contributions to Trellis helped make this kind of work possible.

In 2024, through your generous support we were able to...

• Put on three holiday gift events serving more than 300 kids

• Provide social services and resources to more than 500 folks experiencing economic limitations and homelessness

• Stipend a group of migrant, unhoused and elderly men receiving deliveries and doing inventory management for food distribution through groceries and meals to hundreds of families in Brooklyn

• Honor 12 more incredible humans through our collaborative community organizing art project, Commmunity Heroes

The work this year also included advocating for..

• Fair housing for formerly incarcerated New Yorkers as they come back into community 

• Accountability to improve the Police Department's data-collection efforts and to prevent unlawful encounters with young people of color and other abuses

• Street vendors to have adequate resources and support to do business in serving New Yorkers food 

And now into into 2025, we are inviting your continued support in...

• Building partnership with churches and non-profits in LA to provide holistic care to the unhoused, including clothing, laundry, meals

• Working with organizations to provide supplies and financial support to families and individuals impacted by the LA Fires

• Developing resources, including outreach materials to care for the unhoused through 

• Training leaders and organizations in community engagement, collaboration and outreach strategies in New York and Los Angeles

• Providing mentorship and access to opportunity and resources for formerly incarcerated men in partnership with an amazing organization in Los Angeles

• Doing ongoing street level care and advocacy for the unhoused in Los Angeles

• Continuing to connect organizations to each other and opportunities around housing, food insecurity, criminal legal reform and advocacy, immigration advocacy and migrant care

And advocating for 

• Allocation of funds for affordable housing and more resources to care for and support the unhoused through Measure A that would raise an estimated $1.1 billion per year for housing and homelessness efforts by levying a 1/2 cent tax on every $1 of goods sold in L.A. County.

• The amendment of California Constitution through Proposition 6 that would prohibit the state from punishing inmates with involuntary work assignments and from disciplining those who refuse to work. Instead, state prisons could set up a volunteer work assignment program to take time off sentences in the form of credits. It would let county or city ordinances set up a pay scale for inmates in local jails.

• We are asking and inviting your continued support as we build up and build on our work in New York and into Los Angeles.  

Your contributions can potentially go further with our non-profit matching tool where you can find out if your company does non-profit matching. There might be others you want to invite into supporting our work. Feel free to send along this update to anyone you think might be interested

You can also always stay update, see pictures and engage more in the work Trellis is doing through our social media @jointrellis on Facebook and Instagram 

All of this happens through the encouragement, prayers, and financial contributions of so many who believe in the work Trellis is doing of building neighborhood collaborations that pursue justice together

Trellis Briefing BK edition - Sept v.1

Community and Policing

In this edition find out more about how you, your community and your organization can…

• Hold officers accountable

• Advocate for alternatives to police responses to public mental health episodes

These briefs are about helping leaders and organizations become better advocates and allies for justice in their communities and work to build collaborations to address complex issues together.

Sign up below to get access to move information, opportunities and resources

A growing number of 911 calls involving people in the midst of a mental health crisis is being routed to B-HEARD, a program that sends out teams of social workers and emergency medical technicians rather than police.

The program responded to nearly 15,000 calls last fiscal year, up from about 7,000 the previous year, even as its planned geographic expansion stalled, 

From thecity.nyc

Collaborating for Good in Brooklyn

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Trellis Briefing - June 2023 v.1 - Addressing Injustice Together

These updates provide opportunities for organizations and individuals to be more invested, involved in their community and advocating for the justice of our neighbors

Education

In a panic, if she floors it, Marilyn Blanco can drive from her job at the Rikers Island jail complex to her son Ian’s school in Harlem in less than 18 minutes.

Nine times since December, Blanco has made the drive because Ian’s school — Success Academy Harlem 2 — called 911 on her 8-year-old.

Ian has been diagnosed with ADHD. When he gets frustrated, he sometimes has explosive tantrums, throwing things, running out of class and hitting and kicking anyone who comes near him

Charter schools have been increasing rapidly in New York, particularly in often under-resourced communities, with the goal of providing “better” alternatives to the public schools in the neighborhood. And, while they are providing another option, they are sometimes an option without accountability, particularly as it relates to the new and necessary changes to discipline and mental health in schools seeking to disrupt the school to prison pipeline. Read more HERE

Read more HERE

With more than 100,000 houseless folks now in NYC, and the housing inequities highlighted above, we need to make sure that federal, state and local officials continue to work to address the housing crisis in our city and our country. You can find out who represents you HERE