Leadership Breakfast with Cathryn Marchman
Earlier this week, we sat down for our February Leadership Breakfast with Cathryn Marchman. Cathryn Marchman currently serves as the Executive Director of HOME (Housing Opportunities Made for Everyone), a nonprofit which provides leadership in the planning and implementation of community strategies and resources to prevent and end homelessness in Atlanta. For over 20 years, Cathryn Marchman has dedicated her career to working with individuals experiencing homelessness and marginalized communities.
An Atlanta native, Cathryn shared with us her love for her hometown, affiliation for punk rock music, and her continued commitment and passion to make homelessness rare and brief in Atlanta. We captured our 3 favorite moments below - check them out and listen to the full conversation below:
“In this field, our outflow exceeds our inflow - we’re constantly striving to outpace the flood gate of homelessness. Because we have finite resources, we have to prioritize the individuals that are stuck in the system. Unfortunately, we can’t help everyone; the reality is, we have to go upstream if we’re going to truly solve this problem. The problem comes from institutional racism embedded in our edu systems, poverty, income inequality - there’s no way just one entity can solve that. I think we could actually get to a place where we get to enough subsidy if we actually take affordable housing seriously, we could get to a good place if we would invest enough.”
- Cathryn Marchman
Facing Stigma
“The decriminalization of homelessness - we’re still going to be met with the stigma. We’re going to look ourselves in the face and ask why we’re discomforted by it. It’s really people who don't want to see it and be faced by it - we need to be honest with ourselves about why people are experiencing homelessness in our community and why it is making us uncomfortable? Then, we need to ask ourselves: what are we willing to do about this and how do we want to see our neighbors?”
- Cathryn Marchman
“We’re working with human beings - theres not a one size fits all solution. What we can do is focus on policy. We have to ensure that there is policy written into law that allots more funding towards affordability. If we don’t codify it, it will not happen.”
LISTEN
UPCOMING SPEAKERS