** NEWS RELEASE **

June 17, 2010

 Homeless Are a Hurting Population Who Need Compassion and Mentoring 

Heritage Foundation DVD Seek Social Justice Encourages Relationship-Building to Mend Families and Communities

WASHINGTON, D.C. As many as 3.5 million Americans are homeless each year. Of these, more than 1 million are children and on any given night, more than 300,000 children are living on the streets.

While 60 percent of the U.S. homeless population is single men, approximately one-third or more are homeless families, and this number is growing.

Homelessness is just one of the societal tragedies addressed in The Heritage Foundations new DVD, Seek Social Justice: Transforming Lives in Need. The free six-lesson DVD and 64-page study guide helps individuals understand the nature and context of these problems and develop effective solutions to them.

While society often turns a blind eye on homelessness, the events that thrust those on the streets into their present state were unexpected, unplanned, and life altering. Homelessness can result from major traumatic events or physical and mental disabilities, but tragic life occurrences such as the death of a loved one, job loss, domestic violence, divorce, and broken families push people every day into dire situations.

As Heritage Foundation research finds, homelessness is not solely about a lack of material possessions or money, says Jennifer Marshall, contributor to the Seek Social Justice project. The lack of resources often stems from something deeper, and thats relational breakdown.

In the DVD and study guide, Heritage shows social justice is a relational approach cultivated from the ground up.  This approach helps people answer the question of What can I do? about societal and cultural problems in their own communities. The program examines the roles and responsibilities of the church, family, business, government, and individuals in helping the poor in their communities through friendship, mentoring and relationship-building, rather than simply pouring money and government programs onto societal problems.

As Heritage explains, preventing and overcoming social breakdown depends on people and institutions exercising proper responsibility.  It does not necessarily entail imposing massive new programs from the top down.  Rather, it is indeed helping the poor, mending relationships, mentoring and reaching out of ones comfort zone to help the least of these.

The Heritage Foundation, one of the countrys leading think tanks, believes that social justice demonstrates the elements of moral, social and relational ingredients that stem from a way of life that respects human dignity, equality, mutual responsibility, neighborly service and hard work, from a strong, but limited constitutional government that protects a vibrant civil society of individuals, families, businesses and churches.

As Director of Domestic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation, Jennifer Marshall oversees research in areas that determine the character of our culture: education, marriage, family, religion and civil society. She directs the think tanks Richard and Helen DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society and manages familyfacts.org, an online catalog of social science research relating to family and religious practice.

Further information on the Seek Social Justice DVD study guide is available online at www.seeksocialjustice.com, along with downloadable lessons. Visitors to the site may order free copies of the DVD and guide. Only a nominal shipping charge is required. The Web site also offers bonus interviews, ministry links, bios of featured experts and other helpful material.  Heritages partners in the social justice project are Compass Cinema and WORLD Magazine.

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