Give US Your Poor is a national public education campaign addressing homelessness. It is housed at the McCormack Graduate School of Policy & Global Studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston. In 1999, Give US Your Poor began as a documentary film project looking at homelessness, and has grown into a wider education campaign utilizing networks, media, public support, and the latest research on homelessness. From the beginning, Give US Your Poor has existed not to compete with other homeless organizations, but rather to complement and work with them. Our name is inspired by the Emma Lazarus poem, "The New Colossus," inscribed on the base of the Statue of Liberty: "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
Beyond public education (PSAs, conferences, events, documentary, CD, articles, etc.) Give US Your Poor is committed to classroom education. We have developed two full curricula for middle and high schools, an undergraduate college course on the history of homelessness, as well as individual lesson plans and exercises for high school and middle school classrooms.
The Give US Your Poor mission is to create a revolution in public awareness, dispel myths and inspire action towards ending epidemic homelessness in the United States.
