St. Vincent de Paul Society of Marin

Here at the St. Vincent de Paul Society of Marin County, our goal is straightforward: to provide services to those in Marin County who are struggling to make ends meet and might not otherwise receive help. Our main programs focus on stability, housing, and hunger.

Our trained volunteers meet with individuals and/or families in order to develop a trusting relationship and to ascertain how they can best be served. The assistance we provide may take the form of direct aid, intervention, advocacy or moral support. This “neighbor helping neighbor” model holds “respect” as our dearest attribute: we respect those we serve for their many experiences, their struggles, their talents and their humanity.

Our Free Dining Room uses this same volunteer-driven model. In the Dining Room, neighbors provide neighbors with hot food, a place for respite and a listening heart. We serve breakfast, lunch and a take-away dinner to all who enter our doors 365 days a year.
In addition to food, the Dining Room serves as a gateway to other services, providing a natural place for outreach and engagement of those who might not come and ask for services.

Changing Marin’s System of Care
Determined to try a more effective approach to ending chronic homelessness, SVDP launched the Homeless Outreach (HOT) Team in 2016. We brought all the top decision-makers to the table to find supportive housing for the most fragile people, the hardest to help, who had suffered on our streets for far too long. This joint effort proved extremely successful and now provides the framework for Marin’s new Coordinated Entry system and Whole Person Care services. The success of HOT/CE has gotten national media attention by showing immediate results: In the 2019 Point in Time Count, Marin County showed a 28% reduction in chronic homelessness (and 7% reduction in homelessness overall) from the last count in 2017, while every surrounding community saw rising populations. Our HOT Collaborative has now permanently housed more than 200 of the most vulnerable, most difficult to serve chronically homeless people.

We are part of an international faith-based organization providing services and assistance to those in need. The Marin Council is independently incorporated, governed by its own volunteer board of directors and responsible for its own fundraising and programs. All donations to the St. Vincent de Paul Society of Marin stay in Marin County.