Saint Francis Challenge

11/11/2025

Saint Francis Challenge is working on a Good Neighbor welcome packet for people who are exiting street homelessness. The quotes come from recent surveys with people who are living in supported housing and transitional shelter in Santa Fe. ✨✨✨

11/08/2025

Saint Francis Challenge began in late 2015 as a challenge to end street homelessness through collaborative, actionable, and community-integrated solutions in the City of Saint Francis, aka San Francisco.

10 years later, we are headquartered in Santa Fe, working locally and nationally with a focus on co-creating sufficient numbers of BEST places (places of belonging, essential needs, shared agreements, and teamwork) to end crisis conditions on the streets, in shelters, and supported interim and permanent housing.

“Do what’s necessary. Do what’s possible. And soon you will be doing the impossible.” Saint Francis—namesake of San Francisco, Santa Fe, and Saint Francis Challenge 🙏🙏🙏

09/03/2024

OJAI TENT TOWN: UPDATES + UPCOMING COMMUNITY MEETING -

On August 27th the Ojai City Council voted 3-1 to construct a Cabin Village on a portion of the city's Public Works yard at South Montgomery Street. Ojai Tent Town (OTT) residents were both relieved and celebratory on Tuesday night to learn that a site has been approved in order to transition from...

08/05/2024

OJAI TENT TOWN: SURVEY RESULTS + COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT MEETING -

Our goal is to support the residents of Ojai Tent Town with a nutritious hot meal every night of the week with the community's help—and we are on our way! Sign up here to drop off and/or serve a hot nutritious meal as a one-time effort or as part of weekly/monthly volunteering—it's super easy t...

07/31/2024

OTT in the news! ✨✨✨

Results of the community survey about the Tent Town encampment village in the Kent Hall parking lot at Ojai City Hall will be presented on July 30 at the community

07/19/2024

The letter of one of our Ojai Tent Town resident stewards, Paul, made it into the Ojai Valley News today! ✨✨✨

06/15/2024

It’s official—The City Council of Ojai voted 5-0 to approve a contract with Saint Francis Challenge to bring our resident steward model to their current tent encampment—as well as 5-0 for the City to purchase land for a cabin village that will be developed by the wonderful DignityMoves!

Roughly half of the budget will go towards implementing the Resident Steward model, and the other half will go towards stewardship stipends, incentives, activities, and site improvements for the tent encampment residents as we work together to transform the space into a village atmosphere. ✨✨✨

06/12/2024

The yin and the yang of Saint Francis Challenge values—now featured on “Sam The Clam”:

You Belong, Your Needs Matter
Be a Team Player, Consider Your Impact
✨✨✨

06/11/2024

Getting ready to roll…✨✨✨

06/07/2024

Check out our work providing lodging and resident steward programming for organic farms/orchards in Colorado this Summer..and spread the word to help scale these efforts! 🌱🌱🌱

04/10/2024

Saint Francis Challenge is proud to be partnering with Duck Berry Farm in Paonia, Co to activate the hemp-insulated "Dragon Wagon" cabin we collaborated on to build in 2021 and offer a resident stewardship program on their farm for two months this Summer!

The residency provides lodging and amenities in a hemp-insulated off-grid cabin at a nearby farm site, a monthly stipend of $1,000, and hands-on training in exchange for a required 20 hours per week of resident stewardship on a working farm and non-profit farm site.

Apply here and share!
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/residentstewardpaonia

Saint Francis Challenge is providing stipends as well as administrative support for the selection, on-boarding, and co-living for this pilot project in partnership with Duck Berry Farm.

Please fill out the application below, and contact [email protected] with any questions. Application deadline is by 11:59 PM PST Wednesday April 24, 2024