Andy’s Updates

Dear URM partner,

I reached out to you with an absolute desperate plea in September; if we did not reach our budgeted revenue for July, August & September, we would have to cut back & no longer have Emergency cots on our 1st floor for up to 250 precious souls. We would also have to limit the number of families we could serve. I shared that our hearts wouldn’t let us do that, & your overwhelming unbelievably generous response allowed us to continue welcoming every single woman and family who has come to our door!!

Thank you!!

Instead of a desperate plea, I want to tell you all the good that we will accomplish together this month & next if we make our budgeted revenue for December, $1 Million by December 31st!!

We will be able to;

• Put up and keep up a heated tent like structure to room for 200 women guests in our back parking lot, complete with 8 restrooms and 8 showers.

• Add a wing for families on our 5th floor so we will be able to continue to welcome all families who come to our door.

• Add 15 units of permanent supportive housing at URM’s Hope Gardens for families

• Continue moving ahead with plans to break ground next spring & build a satellite emergency shelter for 81 families in Compton.

All of this while still continuing to shelter & serve over 850 women and children and 550 men 24/7/365.

This is a big mountain to climb and a lot to ask of you, our partners, but we cannot step back from this FEMA like/Red Cross like disaster.

Let’s continue together to be The Mission that steps up when others step back & steps up to the need even when it seems impossible.

Your co-worker,

Andy B

 

I am currently faced with an untenable situation.

 

If Union Rescue Mission does not raise the remaining $350,000 needed by September 30th, just over one week from today, I will have to balance our budget by closing our emergency shelter on the first floor and send 350 single women and men back onto the mean streets of Skid Row. We will also have to cap the number of families with children on our 4th floor and be forced to no longer be the one place in Los Angeles that never turns away a woman or a family with children. Last, but certainly not least, 10 of our URM team members will have to be let go. 

 

Like the rest of our team – I’ve prayed, worked hard to raise funds, and pulled out all the stops to close this gap – but getting there seems impossible. 

 

I’ve tried to wrap my head around sending more than 350 precious souls back onto the streets of Skid  Row and telling 10 team members they will lose their jobs AND I JUST WON’T DO IT!! My heart won’t let me – it is not how God has made me.

 

So, I really need your help. If 2000 of you give or pledge $175.00 or 20,000 give $17.50 before September 30th – we will be able to cover the budget shortfall and we will not have to close our first floor emergency operation. 

 

If we are not able to raise the required funds, whatever amount we are short at 11:00 pm on September 30th, I will pledge to pay this fiscal year, and my Home will go up for sale the next day so that I can pay the pledge – that is how committed I am to the people we serve here at Union Rescue Mission.

 

I cannot remain who I am and make any other decision, come what may.

 

 

Please consider what you would do to help – and make a gift at URM.org before September 30th. Thank you for your faithful support of both me and the mission.

For nearly 18 months, Union Rescue Mission in LA, with your help, has stepped up like no other Mission or agency in Los Angeles, CA, or maybe anywhere. Like no other time in our 126 year history. If you add all of the people served at all of the other missions and shelters in downtown Los Angeles, the number of people served would not compare to the numbers served at Union Rescue Mission.

We are the only mission/shelter in downtown Los Angeles providing immediate emergency shelter for single men, single women, moms with kids, dads with kids, and two parent families with children.

We’ve always had a policy of always making room for parents with children, but as the number of women on the streets surged more than 55% over the last few years, we decided we could never turn away a single woman either.

This has severely taxed our resources, but with 800 registered sex offenders surrounding us on the streets of Skid Row, our hearts will not let us send a woman onto the dangerous, even deadly, streets of Skid Row.

Some in our city and county, even other service providers might be able to live with the fact that so many single women and moms with children are left on the streets, to suffer the agony and devastation of homelessness; and all the terror that comes with it, but I am, we are, haunted by the thought of it. Our hearts will not let us say no. How could we?

Our fiscal year just ended. It was an exceptionally difficult year. Our guests increased 55% and our giving plummeted 23%. We suffered a $3 Million loss over the last fiscal year. You’d think we would ease up on continuing to step up to the need. We won’t. We’ve planned our budget and we’ve decided to continue welcoming all who come to our door.

Yet, I have some heart wrenching news to share.

If we continue struggling financially, and fall 15% short of our 1st quarter budgeted revenue ending September 30th, we will have to cut $1 Million from our budget, and cease our emergency year round shelter for single women and men, and put a cap on the number of families with children.

This would effectively end our policy of never turning away a family with children or a single woman & would leave more than 400 men, women and children out on the mean streets. There is absolutely nowhere else to turn. I am not sure my heart could take it.

At a time of skyrocketing rents & exponential growth in homelessness, this is no time to step back.

I hope you will agree, act now, & give what you can today. Make it possible to welcome all who come to us in need.