01/19/2026
We’ve had some people and organizations ask how they can help our organization our neighbors who are experiencing unsheltered homeless in Grand Prairie. Thank you for asking!
There is no shelter in Grand Prairie.
We are a faith-based, mobile, streets-to-housing outreach program that uses a HUD-based housing program. It’s different from Section 8 and takes about three years.
When we encounter a new person experiencing unsheltered homelessness in our service area we complete an assessment and try to help them find shelter (if possible and if they will go). If that won’t work (for a variety of reasons) we try to help them connect with family in other cities or states by purchasing bus tickets.
We must verify that the person they want to stay with will provide a place for them to live before we can purchase bus tickets.
There are many reasons that doesn’t work. If, after trying those solutions, someone still ends up stuck outside in Grand Prairie, then we open a streets-to-housing case and begin documenting their unsheltered homelessness to HUD specifications. Again, that takes about three years.
While they are stuck outside we try to give them hope and provide some semblance of food security and keep them safe during extreme cold and extreme heat. We also help them get their IDs, Birth Certificates, Social Security Cards and apply for Social Security Disability, if eligible.
These efforts happen across the DFW Metroplex via street outreach teams that work certain geographies. We are the street outreach team for Grand Prairie. There are other street outreach teams and programs in Arlington, Fort Worth, Dallas and Irving. So our clients can go to other cities, but sometimes they can’t.
For example, they may have children staying with family until they can stabilize and they want to be near to be involved.
They may have a job in Grand Prairie.
Their doctors may be in Grand Prairie.
They may be afraid to leave Grand Prairie.
The shelters in Arlington, Fort Worth and Dallas are perpetually full.
So we do what we do to help end their homelessness.
Here’s how you can help…
NOTE: We’ve put topic headers in case you are already familiar with a certain aspect of our operations. That way you can skip to the next topic.
VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITIES
Our top volunteer need is for you to…
- COME OBSERVE AND LEARN as a MEAL DELIVERY VOLUNTEER
We request that each person come and ride with, or follow, one of our teams along one day as we deliver meals to our unsheltered homeless friends in Grand Prairie. That will serve three purposes:
1) You will learn more about unsheltered homelessness in Grand Prairie. We do a volunteer orientation as part of this effort.
2) That will help you understand some of their/our needs.
3) It will also help you to know how to pray and how to share opportunities to help us with others.
Here’s how our meal delivery works…
We have set up a calendar through which volunteers can adopt a day to prepare and package 100 individually packed meals.
We deliver meals on Wednesdays and Saturdays.
The meals are due to us by 12:15 pm on their due date.
On Wednesdays we deliver a hot meal AND shelf stable meals for Thursdays and Fridays. The Thursday and Fridays meals usually include a protein for each day and cookies, chips, fruit cups or some other variation.
Thus, if someone adopts a Thursday to prepare and pack 100 meals, they have to bring their shelf stable meals in a day early - by 12:15 pm Wednesday - so we can deliver both meals on Wednesday.
If someone adopts a Friday to prepare and pack 100 meals, they have to bring their meal in two days early - by 12:15 pm Wednesday - so we can deliver both meals on Wednesday. We do that to free us up for case management appointments on Thursdays and Fidays.
We follow the same pattern on Saturdays.
On Saturdays we deliver one hot meal AND shelf stable meals for Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. That way we can be free to go to church and have family time on Sundays and do case management and appointments on Mondays and Tuesdays.
Thus, our meal delivery schedule is..
Wednesdays - DELIVERY DAY - Hot meal
Thursdays - Shelf stable and due by 12:15 pm on Wednesday
Fridays- Shelf stable and due by 12:15 pm on Wednesday
Saturdays - DELIVERY DAY - Hot meal
Sundays - Shelf stable and due by 12:15 pm on Saturdays
Mondays - Shelf stable and due by 12:15 pm on Saturdays
Tuesdays - Shelf stable and due by 12:15 pm on Saturdays
The reason the meals for Thursdays, Fridays, Sundays, Mondays and Tuesdays have to be shelf stable is because they are delivered the day or a couple of days before and our friends don’t have refrigerators or stoves or microwaves or ovens. It has to be ready to eat.
We deliver the food “meals on wheels” style. We depart our meal delivery meeting place…
The Haven Church of the Nazarene
1513 S. Belt Line Rd.
Grand Prairie, TX 75051
…at 12:30 pm-ish and it takes each team several hours to complete their routes.
We need help with the actual meals, but we recommend you come out with us for delivery one time before signing up to provide meals (if that interests you).
If you can go out with us for meal delivery on a Saturday or Wednesday, you can expect to be out with us until around 3 pm - 3:30 pm. Children are welcome to come with you to help.
Please text us at 214-212-7958, if you
are willing to come help deliver meals from 12:30 pm - 3:30 pm on a Saturday or Wednesday to learn more, first-hand, about unsheltered homelessness in Grand Prairie and how we are working to ensure homelessness is rare, brief and nonrecurring.
- MEAL PREPARATION VOLUNTEERS
Another way to help is to adopt a day to prepare and package 100 individual meals. Some families, clubs and churches do this.
Below is a link to our Meal Train calendar where you can see what days are available. We’ve tried to anticipate any questions, so please read through it and let us know if you have any questions.
There are tips for “dos” and “don’ts” and examples of what to include in the meals and how to package them.
https://www.mealtrain.com/trains/y2w5le
- OVERNIGHT WARMING STATION and DAYTIME COOLING STATION VOLUNTEERS
When the weather qualifies, we operate Overnight Warming Stations (OWSs) and Daytime Cooling Stations (DCSs). We make posts on Facebook that explain the details and what we need. There is a lot to it. Our next post will be an example of such a post. Please check it out.
- STORAGE TEAM
We have 9 storage units full of supplies. We need help organizing and moving items and distributing items. We can show you what’s needed and you can go work at your convenience. Text us at 214-212-7958 if you are interested in helping with this effort.
- DONATIONS OF ITEMS
IMPORTANT NOTE: It is always best to ask (text us at 214-212-7958) what is needed before collecting things. We have very limited storage space.
Currently we need:
For our clients who are outside…
- Hand Warmers
- Bug spray (we are collecting bug spray for the spring)
- Travel size shaving cream
For our clients who were recently housed…
- 3 Dressers with all the k***s and in good condition
- 3 TV Tables
- 3 Dining Room Tables and Chairs, all in good condition
If you have any of the above mentioned items, please text us at 214-212-7958 to coordinate receipt of the items.
We don’t need hats, gloves, jackets, hoodies, socks, feminine products or anything else. We have a lot and will distribute according to our quarterly schedule.
Our clients always need clothing and shoes, but we don’t have a way to collect and distribute clothing. Instead, we take our clients to clothing pantries. If you have clothing and shoes to donate, it is helpful to us if you can donate them to the Grand Prairie Food and Clothing Coop. See screenshots in the comments for their information including hours.
- TRANSPORTATION ASSISTANCE VOLUNTEERS
We also need help transporting our friends to and from Overnight Warming Stations, to appointments and other places. The appointments include medical and mental health and appointments and Social Security appointments.
- ADOPT A NEIGHBOR PROGRAM
We are also asking churches, in particular, to pray about “adopting” a client (we try to call them neighbors). By “adopting” an unsheltered person in Grand Prairie we mean forming a committee who would work together with us to meet some of the adoptee’s needs.
We would come and meet with your committee to explain how it works in a separate meeting. Then, subsequently, the committee would host a dinner or lunch and we would bring your adoptee(s) to meet the committee. The meeting would include a sit-down informal meal (provided by the committee) an ice breaker which would be fun and help everyone to introduce themselves, including your adopted person(s). We would attend the “meet your adoptee(s)” lunch/dinner to help with the meeting.
Part of the meeting would be a work session where the person would have a chance to share some of their needs. The committee would not have to agree to meet those needs. They would just be learning about the needs and they would discuss it later to decide if they can help with some things sooner and some things later or some not at all.
The committee would form a text group or e-mail group to communicate with each other. That way, as new needs come up, the committee can text each other and see who can help with each need. Sometimes it’s a ride to Parkland or a ride to the laundry mat and provision of laundry soap, dyer sheets and quarters and ride back when they are done.
Some committees might buy a phone and pay for cards with data and minutes by the month. We can explain more later when we have that meeting with your group where we explain everything (before the “meet your person(s) event). Initially, the adopted person would contact us with any needs and we would pass them on to the committee. Then the committee would figure it out (probably by text group) who can help.
That is how we handle transportation and other needs now. If a person needs a ride and, they tell one of our point of contact (Tammy Chan), then she sends out a text out to our regular meal delivery team members to see if anyone can help. The meal delivery team members have all agreed to keep all information confidential and to not take photos that are posted on social media and to not take photos that identify the camp sites. This protects our clients’ anonymity and keeps their campsites as safe as possible.
If your church adopts one or more people we also ask that you do what you can to remember their birthdays and holidays. You can even invite them to church, but we all have to watch our expectations and give unconditionally. For example, if your committee gives them a bike and it gets stolen and they need another one y’all can either get them another one or we will as we can. We can share more about how to handle repeat requests.
We practice “Love and Logic” principles which basically means we never tell them what to do. We only suggest options and listen to their options. We give them the dignity of choice, but if we support an option and can see it’s not working, we don’t continue to support that option, but instead suggest other options and help them think through options.
- DONATIONS OF FUNDS
We can also use donations of money. We have a PayPal account (see link below) or checks can be mailed.
Although we have no paid staff (everyone is a volunteer, even our case managers) we still have a lot of important operational expenses, including…
-Storage
-Agency Insurance
-Auto Insurance for our outreach vehicle
-Contiunuum of Care Dues and Homeless Management Information System Fees
We also need donations to cover the cost of birth certificates, IDs, driver’s licenses, prescriptions, gas for meal delivery and many other expenses.
Here is a link to our PayPal account…
https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=UDHG4E2GV4ZBG&source=url
If you prefer to mail a check, you can send it to
GPHOO
4601 Matthew Rd.
Unit C
Grand Prairie, TX 75052
- HOUSING MOVE-IN AND SET-UP ASSISTANCE
When one of our clients gets housed we provide some NEW household supplies. We don’t have space to store items. It works better for us to just go purchase about $600 worth of household supplies.
If your congregation or organization adopts one or more friends, we hope y’all could help as much as you can with the move in and setup, including helping to provide or pick up donated furniture and housewares.
We need monetary donations to help with this and sometimes we need help shopping.
- FURNITURE PICKUPS AND DELIVERY HELP
We often need help picking up furniture and delivering it to the newly housed clients. We usually rent a Uhual. We make posts when we have this need so watch our page.
- POST LEASE ASSISTANCE
We practice a philosophy called “Community First.” It posits that housing alone does not solve homelessness. Once housed, they will still have needs, so we will continue to serve them as long as it takes to make sure they are stable. We hope you will join us in that effort.
We make posts about what we need. We also need help getting food to our clients who are housed. We periodically take food boxes. Our housed clients are lonely. We also take them to eat once in a while and check on them. So many are seniors and disabled. We need help with this aspect. If it interests you, please text us at 214-212-7958.
- SPACE FOR OUR ART AND AGRICULTURAL BASED GPHOO WORKS JOB TRAINING PROGRAM
We need classroom space where we can store supplies (we have) and teach.
We plan on continuing projects like this…
https://youtu.be/X-kJ8lG4nEU?si=uRhMvW7TjqG4QVco
- SPEAKING OPPORTUNITIES
Lastly, some churches and organizations have invited us to come speak during the service or during a staff meeting. Some have given us basically the whole service and some have given me a few minutes.
We would be glad to come and share about some of these options if it will help your members and teams understand. As stated earlier, if you want to set up a committee to adopt an unsheltered homeless neighbor we would come to speak to that committee and help guide the beginnings of that effort.
Thank you for considering how to help.
If you have any of the above listed items to donate, please text us at 214-212-7958 so we can coordinate receipt of the items.
Thank you for considering these ideas.
- PRAYERS
We also need prayers for our friends and for our food prep and food delivery volunteers.
- QUESTIONS
Please text us at 214-212-7958 if you have any questios
