Spyridoula Fotinis was our Woman of the Week in December 2019. She was an early Axia board member, and was just getting started on her career. Much has happened since then for her, and we asked her to give you an update:
“At the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese, I worked a lot on the Church and Society side of things. Because of the homelessness advocacy work I did there, I met people from Finland. Finland is known for successfully decreasing homelessness and being on track to end street homelessness by 2027. I had always wanted to study abroad and wanted to do my master's degree. My now-dear friends and mentors from Finland invited me to come to work with them if I did my studies there. As part of my studies, I did an internship with the Y-Foundation, the key developer of the Housing First approach in Finland.
“The term ‘Housing First’ was coined by a psychologist, Dr. Sam Tsemberis, here in the United States in the nineties and was a pilot project in New York City. At the same time, Finland was fostering this idea as well. Housing First means putting people, usually experiencing homelessness, into housing without any preconditions. Basic housing is given, then supportive services are offered based on needs. For example, an approach called harm reduction is used, where people slowly decrease their use of substances by choice and with as much or little support as they want. They're not forced to be sober, and their housing is not contingent on their substance use, their mental health, employment, etc.
“Obviously you need a robust social system and funding to do that. I figured it would be good to live in a social welfare state, and understand how it functions and how these systems can actually exist and work. That's why I was in Finland for two and a half years, doing my masters on this topic of Housing First, and doing a comparative analysis for my thesis between what this looks like in New York City and the US generally and in Helsinki and Finland, since these are two cities that use this approach in very different ways.
“In New York, it was started out of NYU I believe, where Dr.Tsemberis was located. He kept seeing a lot of the people who would come in for different mental illness-related things ending up on the streets, right outside the same facilities. And so they piloted this idea. It went really well, but of course, it takes a lot of funding and a lot of support, and you need to have the right kind of government players. Actually, Housing First was adopted into our national policy by the George W. Bush administration, which I didn't know about and was surprising to me. The Obama administration expanded it, and was really successful in decreasing veteran homelessness. Obviously, our country is quite large and a lot of different things are happening at the same time. There are successful Housing First projects across the country, but their scales are quite different compared to a country-wide program like in Finland.
“I think it’s a matter of local political will, the right people, and the right national government. In Finland, it wasn't just one advocate. It was many over a couple of years that really built out the programs. Collaboration is vital, and everyone at all levels of society working really well together. In Finland, there's a culture of very low hierarchy, and it’s easy for people to work together well.
“Now that I’ve returned from Finland, I'm working for the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of the USA. I was brought on to coordinate the Inter-Parish Associations ministry. The Committee started the idea for Canonical Regional Planning in 2018 of the Assembly of Bishops. It was tabled until the Director of Operations was hired in 2020. In 2021, Atlanta, Georgia, and Akron, Ohio, were asked to pilot the idea. The pilots were presented to the full Assembly in 2023, and in turn, the Bishops decided to launch it nationally. At the end of the same year, we received funding to support the growth of more Inter-Parish Associations nationwide.
“The ministry is centered around the question: How can local Orthodox parishes of all jurisdictions work better together and envision collaborative ministry? It’s about supporting and challenging parishes to think about what we can do more of to really witness our faith in our local context and support the ministries of our parishes as a whole. We look at both internal and external ministry. Internal is within our parishes; perhaps there's a need for more youth or intergenerational programming or shared catechism. The idea is to find ways to support one another and grow the ministry while not taking away from each parish’s life. The role of the staff of the Assembly of Bishops is to provide support at all levels. We’re also prioritizing vision, and asking, Where do we want to be in the future? Are we relevant as Orthodox Christians in our communities? What’s really exciting is that there are also microgrants for Inter-Parish Associations (IPAs) for social outreach programs. If there's something already happening, these grants can either enhance the ministry or ask: What is the need in this community? What can the parishes do to actually serve this need? It's a bit multi-faceted, but my day-to-day is talking to parishes across the country and building the intentional process all IPAs will go through.
“It takes all of us, right? All ministries of the church. The goal of the Assembly of Bishops is to identify all the amazing things happening across the Church in the US and make sure local areas have the right resources to thrive. A lot of my work is networking organizations and people to grow stronger communities, grounded in Christ and our faith, together.”
Thank you, Spyridoula!
You can learn more about Inter-Parish Associations here: https://www.assemblyofbishops.org/ministries/inter-parish-associations/
