How We Started

Open Table received 501(c)3 non-profit status in March 2007, but the concept first began in late 2005 with a chance encounter with a homeless man. Members of a church youth group serving meals at Central Arizona Shelter Services (CASS) in Phoenix met a homeless man named Ernie. He simply asked if he could come worship at their church.

Though unanticipated, the adult youth workers were moved to agree to come the very next day to bring Ernie to their church service. Over the next few months, these church members brought Ernie to the church and back to the shelter each Sunday.

As these church members came to more fully appreciate the complex set of obstacles that maintained Ernie in poverty and homelessness, they decided to convene a group of church members (now known as a “Table”) who had the professional gifts and life experiences related to the specific challenges that Ernie faced.

The Table met every week for eight months to develop and implement a stability plan to help Ernie access opportunities and overcome obstacles in areas including employment, housing, healthcare and transportation to empower his re-entry into the community. The coordinated efforts of the Table paved the way for Ernie to become an economically stable and a productive member of the community.

Open Table’s Founder and CEO, Jon Katov, led that first group of volunteers to write and implement a plan for Ernie’s life. Today, four years later, Ernie continues to live independently. From this very unplanned beginning, Open Table has now grown into a well documented, rapidly expanding poverty transformation movement in Arizona, with a much smaller presence in Kansas and Texas.