Pat Morgan

Pat Morgan’s expertise, hard work, relentless advocacy, and commitment to breaking the cycle of homelessness have been recognized for decades in the USA. In addition to five national book awards for The Concrete Killing Fields, her innovative work toward ending chronic homelessness has been recognized nationally by the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Most recently, her work was honored by Rhodes College’s 2017 Distinguished Service Award, the Women’s Foundation of Memphis’ 2017 Legend award, and the 2017 Community Alliance for the Homeless’ award for “invaluable service to homeless populations.” Other honors include awards from the City of Memphis, the Women of Achievement’s award for Courage, NAMI-Memphis’ Humanitarian Award, and awards from Alpha-Omega Veterans Services and the Memphis Union Mission, major providers of services, shelter, and housing in Memphis, Tennessee. Those awards recognize her decades-long work that began when she answered a call for volunteers from the Reverend Doug Bailey, the rector of historic Calvary Episcopal Church in the heart of downtown Memphis. He needed help with the rapidly growing number of “street people” who came to Calvary asking for “a place to stay,” food, clothing, help with transportation, prescriptions, and, most importantly, someone who’d listen to their stories of why they were homeless—and still try to help. Pat was a real estate broker, former banker, former elected official, and a recovering political junkie with zero training in social or clinical services. None of that mattered to her. Sitting in chairs lined up in the church’s lovely “great hall” that first day were a dozen of the sickest men she had ever seen. She was hooked, never dreaming that her volunteer work with the hundreds of homeless men and women who came for help at the “Street Ministry” in the basement of the church over the next five years would take her back to college and on a wildly impossible, wildly successful journey. That journey would take her back to school at Rhodes College in Memphis and on to New York City to accept TIME Magazine’s award as one of “Twenty Outstanding College Juniors in America” (when she was 50). It would then take her to American University in the nation’s capital and an internship in then-Senator Al Gore’s Office. A native Arkansan and long-time political supporter of Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton, it would then take her to a full-time job in the Washington operations office of the Clinton for President campaign and lead to an administrative position in the Office of Presidential Transitions. That work would result in a Presidential appointment to the staff of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH), the pinnacle of power in planning and implementing policies and programs to help homeless people, where she would serve for six years. Returning to Memphis in 1999, she served for eleven years as the executive director of Partners for the Homeless, the “lead organization” for implementing HUD’s “Continuum of Care” initiative that would revolutionize the way homelessness is addressed in America. She retired in 2010 to write her first book, The Concrete Killing Fields, which tells the stories of the homeless people who stole her heart and all-too-often broke it, and how profoundly they affected her life and work. It's been said that writers who write about themselves need to "open a vein." She says she thinks she hit an artery, given that bits of her personal litany of losses come out in spurts but it was those losses that made her especially sensitive to the losses of the homeless people she tried to help. At 79, she continues to do volunteer work and is a relentless advocate for the services and housing critical to breaking the cycle of homelessness, all while working on her second book, and spending lots of "quality" time with her family.