In spite of a $75,000 funding shortfall, Volunteers of America, Sacramento Steps Forward and Sacramento’s interfaith community are going forward with plans to offer nightly shelter and meals to Sacramento-area homeless men and women. The second season of the collaborative “Winter Sanctuary” program began Dec. 1, and is once again offering people in need safe and comfortable shelter in the dining halls, community rooms and gyms of faith-based centers throughout Greater Sacramento. While funding has only been secured to guarantee operation through January 2012, Volunteers of America Greater Sacramento & Northern Nevada and Sacramento Steps Forward have decided to open the doors now to prov

Religious congregations are assisting homeless families through a new housing program backed by Sacramento City Councilman Robert Fong. In the program, known as the Faith & Homeless Families Initiative, local religious groups find housing for homeless families with children. The program is emerging as local homeless shelters say they’re turning away families because of limited shelter space, according to Tim Brown, director of the Ending Chronic Homelessness Initiative, a local public/private partnership. “There’s a lot of newer homeless families,” he said. The program began in February and has linked six families to congregations. The congregations then found housing for the families,