Miracle Messages

miraclemessages.org

Miracle Messages is a nonprofit reunion service for people experiencing homelessness to reconnect with their loved ones. Their approach is simple and effective: a person isolated by homelessness records a short video, audio, or written message to a family member or friend, often with the help of a local referral partner, trained outreach volunteer, or formerly homeless ambassador. Then, dozens of internet-savvy "digital detectives" attempt to locate the loved one, deliver the message, and facilitate a reunion. Miracle Messages offers a humane way to help end homelessness: reconnect families, shatter stigmas, and empower local residents to get involved. To date, Miracle Messages has reunited 266 families, with an average time disconnected of 15 years, using a mobile app, online and paper-based forms, and 1-800-MISS-YOU hotline. 80% of delivered messages have been positively received, and dozens of reunions have resulted in getting a client off-the-streets, all at a fraction of the cost of other interventions. Miracle Messages' community believes that everyone is someone's somebody. Their work has been featured in the New York Times, Brut, NowThis, on a billboard in Times Square, in a TED talk, and 600 other publications, receiving over 100 million views. Founder Kevin F. Adler started Miracle Messages in honor of his uncle, who lived on-and-off the streets for 30 years. Miracle Messages is on a mission to end relational poverty on the streets and, in the process, inspire people everywhere to embrace their homeless neighbors not as problems to be solved, but as people to be loved.