Rev Andy’s Blog

Upon the recommendation of URM/EIMAGO CEO Andy Bales, the Board of Directors of Union Rescue Mission solemnly yet unanimously voted to cease operating Government funded programs of EIMAGO, and to extricate ourselves from any capital projects.  This includes all year-round shelters, winter shelters; Project Restart II, and the Broadway Project – two offsite shelters that each serves 9 families.  

We do this with heavy hearts, as we grieve the loss of some of our valuable team members.  However, the fact that funds have become more and more uncertain in these very difficult times combined with the risks and financial hardships associated with these programs have brought us to this point:

• The funds we obtain from County/City/Federal/LAHSA resources are never sufficient to fully operate the programs, causing a drain on URM resources.

 

• We do not have excess reserves due to URM’s stepping up to house triple the number of families, double the number of people and serve double the number of meals since the Great Recession hit so hard in October 2008.

 

• We are facing late or possible non-payment of $305,000 from Emergency Food and Shelter Program funds for the work completed by EIMAGO during winter shelters, which ended March 15^th, 2011.  This has put us in a precarious position, placing URM programs in jeopardy as we struggle to close a potential deficit of $1.3 million dollars as we prepare a budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1^st. 

In addition, most government resources are moving towards permanent-supportive housing, and away from the Life Transforming educational work that is URM’s focus. 

We will continue to serve over 2500 meals a day and shelter an average of 800 precious people each night at Union Rescue Mission and Hope Gardens Family Center.  And, we will continue to cooperate, collaborate and support our city, county state and federal efforts to end homelessness, but we will in no way jeopardize our Life Transforming work by depending on these uncertain funding sources or movements to unsure strategies.

Sincerely, 

Rev. Andy Bales

CEO URM/EIMAGO

abales@urm.org

626-260-4761

Dear Friends,

It’s been a year since I was forced to write a frantic “Save Hope Gardens” letter.  Much has happened since then and I want to personally thank you for your faithful, generous support of Union Rescue Mission and Hope Gardens Family Center!  You are truly a blessing. 

I’m writing today to give you an update on the life transforming work you make possible and ask you to remain steadfast in your commitment to help people experiencing homelessness. 

With less than 30 days left in this fiscal year, we need your help to end strong!  We must continue moving precious women and children from the dangers of Skid Row to the safety of Hope Gardens!

Just the other day I saw 17 year old Michelle, a beautiful young Italian girl staying at URM downtown.  She had lost track of her mom, and connected with her by phone.  I caught up with her just as she headed toward the door to walk two blocks through Skid Row to meet up with her mom and brother and sisters.  I said, “Hold up, Michelle.  Let me walk with you to make sure that you make it safely.”  Michelle thanked me, but we desperately need to work together to deliver Michelle and other precious young ones here at URM to the safety of Hope Gardens!

We need to gather enough reserves, nearly $2 Million, to ensure that we will make it through the difficult summer months of July and August and into the early Fall and September, so that we can continue to step up to meet the unprecedented needs of precious people.

Despite nearly tripling the number of families housed, doubling the number of people housed, and doubling the number of meals served to our friends experiencing homelessness, we have decreased our expenses by nearly $3 Million from last year!  The cost saving steps we have taken to date include:

• Consolidating our Hope Gardens and URM kitchens into one at URM
• Strengthening our Volunteer Office and Volunteer experience
• Renegotiating all contracts down by 10%
• Shrinking our IT department and adding to our Life Transformation Programs
• Implementing the Gateway program which has provided high expectations and allowed our guests to participate and invest in their own recovery.
• We are also planning to implement a much stronger job preparedness and job finding component to our program for men and women.

These expense saving measures and our focus on Life Transformation have all of URM excited about our future, but we need your continued support! 

Would you please today consider a special fiscal year end gift today to help us rescue more moms and kids from Skid Row and help secure the future of Union Rescue Mission and our Hope Gardens Family Center? 

Your co-worker in Christ, 

Andy Bales

 

I just returned from a fantastic, encouraging Association of Gospel Rescue Missions Conference, and heard from many faithful people how much they have been praying for me! 

I want to let you know that your prayers have been powerful!  Your prayers, God’s healing touch, a very strict diet, lots of exercise, and strong medicine from my brilliant doctors have helped me make a remarkable improvement!

Last Thanksgiving my kidneys failed, and for a few weeks I thought I was not going to make it. I certainly was believing I would have to retire and go on disability, as I signed up and went through the testing for possible kidney dialysis and a kidney transplant.    My world was turned a bit upside down.  

However, with some encouraging words by my Dr. that I needed to “work until I dropped”, strong support from my wife and the team at URM, tripling of my medication, and going on a strict low phosphorous and low potassium diet, mostly made up of vegetables, fruits and water, along with 8 weeks of shots of procrit to boost my red blood cells and rid me of dizziness I was experiencing, my kidney function has improved from 16% to 22%, moving me far away from dialysis for the time being. 

I’ve not only improved remarkably in kidney function, but I’ve lost 34 lbs and my red blood cell count has improved so much that I no longer need the expensive shots of procrit, and my cholesterol is so good that any blockage in my heart and arteries is being reduced! In fact, at Thanksgiving 15 out of my 15 blood tests were abnormal.  Now only 9 out of 15 tests are at abnormal levels. 

I haven’t had a diet coke, chocolate, cheese, dairy of any kind, chips, potatoes, and my favorite sweet potatoes or baked beans in over 26 weeks, but it is easy to follow a diet when it keeps you alive and doing the work that you love!  Thanks, again, for your faithful prayers!

As many of you know, about this time last year we had to have an amazing push at the end of our 2010 fiscal year.  We conducted an all-out campaign to save URM’s Hope Gardens Family Center using mail, email, text, twitter, Facebook, YouTube, news media, and personal calls to raise a remarkable $3.8 Million in 37 days.  We not only won the Association of Fundraising Professionals’ Achievement Award, but I was named the Fundraising Professional of the Year in the National Fundraiser of the Year Awards held by Fundraising Success Magazine.   Most importantly, we saved Hope Gardens and kept over 100 precious moms and children from leaving a place of safety and peace only to return to the mean streets of Skid Row.  It was amazing!

This year, when declining giving trends combined with the continued need for services indicated a $1.4 Million dollar deficit was looming, we knew we needed a different approach.  Otherwise, we would be putting all that we do, including Hope Gardens, in peril despite the fact that we have cut costs by a mind boggling $2.5 Million so far this year compared to last!  We knew that we could not wait for a push and a last minute scramble as we were forced into last year. 

We put together a prospectus that showed how we have stepped up to serve three times the number of families, double the people, and double the number of meals since the Great Recession hit so hard in October of 2008.  The prospectus also showed the expense reductions we have made, and our sustainability plans for the future, including the introduction of our now very successful Gateway Program, which has high expectations of our guests participating in their own recovery. 

I decided to call on 50 of our donors and friends, and we decided that our donor officers would call on another 250, to share the prospectus in an effort to make up the $1.4 Million deficit. 

We are making incredible progress, and we are still adding up the fantastic gifts that were the results of these personal meetings, but let me take a moment to share the greatest benefit these calls have been to me. 

I have met some of the most remarkable people on the face of the earth.  I spent incredible time with one of the greatest aviators in history, 78 years old, still piloting jets at least 3 times per week, with a collection of aircraft that would blow your mind!  He gave to URM this year instead of throwing his Christmas party for over 400 people at his company and the local airport.  I learned more about airplanes and jets in 2 hours than I had learned in 52 years!  His achievements were incredible but his heart for others inspired me! 

I also was able to connect and provide a tour to one of the stars of the hit television show GLEE!  She and her handsome actor husband took time out of their day to take a tour of URM.  Their commitment to Christ and concern for others was very encouraging.  Their young age, maturity, love for each other, and generosity to our guests gave me even more hope for our world and the future. 

I met another gentleman at his business.  He installs home video/audio systems in wealthy homes.  I am talking expensive homes!  He showed me one $40,000,000 home that he had just placed a Home Theater in!  He shared that he was replacing the $250,000 model in his office with a new $500,000 model.  I asked if he could donate the old one to the URM Chapel, and he said “Yes!”  A customer came in, and he began to tell the customer about URM, and I realized that this business owner is a better salesman for URM than I could ever be! Over lunch, the business owner stated that he wanted to do more with his life.  He also let me know that he is an avid surfer at the age of 55!  I asked him to come to URM and give tours. “I will do it!”  I said, “Beit T’Shuvah’s recovery program has a surfing component.  Why couldn’t URM’s recovery program have a surfing component that you could lead?”   “Now, that’s what I’m talking about!” he exclaimed!  He and his beautiful wife sent me back to the Mission with a generous check and an unbelievable amount of hope. 

So far, I have met with 17 of these special friends of Union Rescue Mission.  I cannot wait to meet with the rest!  I feel it has been the highlight of my time here as CEO!  While we are still in the process of solidifying all of our plans for the July 1st start of our new fiscal year, I can tell you one thing for certain. I’m planning on meeting with 100 donors starting in September. 

I believe personally meeting with folks and sharing what’s happening at URM is not only the most brilliant strategy we’ve ever employed to raise funds, it’s quite possibly the most rewarding thing I have ever done.  I’ve met some of the most remarkable, generous people in the world! 

Blessings,

I had the opportunity to help one of our Security Guards yesterday by taking his post in our dining room for a moment during lunch while he assisted a guest in storing his medicine in a refrigerator.  As I watched over the room, one of our guests, coming in late for lunch, asked, “What are you trying to do to us?”  He was inquiring about some changes we put into place last Friday, April 1^st.  I answered, “We are trying to keep this place open, so we do not go broke, and can continue to help everyone.  We are also trying to help everyone to help themselves!”  He said, “OK. Thank you!” 

As you may know, if you have been following us through these challenging times, we’ve tripled the number of families, doubled the number of people housed, and doubled the number of meals served since October 2008 when the recession hit all of us hard.  That kind of pressing need, coupled with our donors struggling, and lower giving, is a disastrous combination, and cannot be sustained. 

I thought about changes for years, especially in our guests’ program.  I came to Union Rescue Mission with a belief and a practice that people respond better when they pay part of their own way, carry their own weight, and if they have a chance to pay something for what they receive it affirms their dignity.  I also believed that if you expect a lot you will get a lot.  In fact, for years I shared that if you provide 1000 beds in which people can crash in any condition, you will have 1000 people crashing in any condition, but if you provide 1000 beds with accountability and an expectation for people to help themselves, you will have 1000 beds full of people trying to help themselves! 

 So, faced with an ever uncertain future, an ever growing pressing financial situation, and a dissatisfaction with our guest program, our Senior Leadership Team, encouraged by our Board of Directors, took 2 days away to develop a Sustainability Plan.  We were encouraged by our Board to focus on Life Transformation, and that was music to our ears.  We decided to allow these tough circumstances to make us think out of the box, and creatively turn these seemingly insurmountable challenges into opportunities for change. 

On April 1^st, motivated by the strong beliefs mentioned above, and a need to become financially sustainable, we implemented the following changes at URM:

Our 300 guest beds, provided at no charge and with little or no expectations, would be replaced by 300 Gateway Program beds, which would carry with them an expectation of sobriety, attendance at a limited number of classes including Celebrate Recovery, an ability to rest in the bed at any time, a locked foot locker, and a $7.00 per day charge – of which $2.00 per day is a personal savings plan for the participant.  Everyone who receives General Relief, and that is nearly 99% of our guests, can afford this program.  With the funds raised by the $5.00 per day program fee, URM provides extra case management and home finding assistance.  For new participants, the first 5 days are free — giving folks ample time to decide whether to enroll into the Gateway Program or into one of our no charge, long-term recovery programs.  (I’ll share more about those in a moment.)  In rare exceptions, when no income is available, either I have paid the fee for a guest in rare circumstances, or we work out a volunteer opportunity for someone to serve rather than pay. 

We began communicating the changes over one month in advance giving our guests ample time to prepare. A detailed memo reminding everyone of the changes was sent just days before the transition.  Our Program Team, led by Chaplain Steve Borja, dealt with the details and when the transition came last week, it was smoother and better than I could have ever imagined!  300 beds in the Guest area vacated, but nearly 150 people determined to help themselves filled the Gateway Beds up! 

As part of the transition, we stopped serving single men and single women guests who do not live at URM breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and moved to a lunch only format.  Families with children are still welcome to come in from the outside and eat at all three meals.  Our live-in guests still are served breakfast lunch and dinner.  We utilize the three hour window when we open to outside guests for lunch to allow them to shower, obtain clean clothes, and we recruit and encourage folks to try the Gateway Program or enroll into one of our long-term Life Transformation Programs. 

The transition and transformation was amazing!  A guest from the Gateway Program thanked me in the hallway.  “Andy, thank you for the changes you made! You caused the people who did not want to help themselves and caused all of the problems to leave, and you brought in people who want to help themselves!”  I heard people talking in the hallways of “how the tremendous pressure is off”, and “how safe and quiet it is!” 

     It may sound like tough love, but here are the facts:

When someone comes in they have 5 free days.  They can enroll in our Gateway Program, and pay just part of their way (the total cost to URM is $25.00 per day)

Or, they can enroll in our long term (1 year) recovery program.  Instead of paying their way, they will be attending 400 hours in the learning center, hundreds of hours of Physical Education, 40 hours of Counseling, hundreds of hours of classes such as Overcoming Addiction, Healthy Relationships, Finances, Dealing With Grief, and spending hundreds of hours volunteering or in work therapy.  In other words, they will be earning their keep with their efforts to improve their lives, all free of charge, in an extremely effective program. 

As I drove home last Friday, knowing the results of the changeover, I thanked the Lord for a Board that prodded us to think out of the box. I thanked Him for an amazing, detail-oriented, faithful staff that carried out our vision, and I realized that Union Rescue Mission had become a huge successful model of my 1^st experience in a Rescue Mission, the Door of Faith Mission in Des Moines, founded by a man who had experienced homelessness himself. George Holloway, who developed a model where the men pay part of their own way, had an expectation of sobriety, a Mission that fed men and women well so that they could go out and work hard and help themselves, and where people’s dignity was fully affirmed! 

As I irritatingly say to my wife when I win in a card game, I love it when a plan comes together!  God is good!

I was recently pushed off of a panel on LA Homelessness, put on by KPCC Radio here in Los Angeles.  My guess was that some did not want to hear my views on homelessness in Los Angeles, especially regarding the effectiveness of LAPD’s Safer Cities Initiative.  This is what I would have shared:

Much has been made of the good work of Common Ground and others in New York for reducing homelessness, specifically their work to clean up Times Square and get everyone experiencing homelessness off of the streets and into permanent supportive housing. It was, indeed, good work.  However, to draw the conclusion that the good work that has taken place in New York some how discredits the effectiveness of the work being done through LAPD’s Safer Cities Initiative and other work here is extremely naïve.  The circumstances leading up to the much touted success in New York need to be put into perspective.  When the initiative to clean up Times Square was launched, there were 55 people experiencing chronic homelessness on the streets.  In essence, Common Ground’s excellent work reduced the numbers from 55 to 0 or 1 or 2 occasional people on the street. 

During a similar time period, Los Angeles made an effort to bring order, clean up, and reduce homelessness on the streets of Skid Row.  A powerful series of articles by Steve Lopez of the LA Times titled “Life on The Streets” shed a much needed light on the desperate situation precious people were experiencing on Skid Row. 

Part of the response to the desperate situation Steve helped all to see was the LAPD’s Safer Cities Initiative. 50 officers were added to the force to exclusively focus on crime in Skid Row, which at that time was accurately described as “Mardis Gras on Crack”! If you’ve seen the chaotic scene from the movie “The Soloist”, let me assure you that this was no exaggeration of the conditions on Skid Row at that time.  Union Rescue Mission supported and still supports the Safer Cities Initiative.  We helped train the officers on responding to people experiencing homelessness and dealing with mental health issues.  We joined the officers and carried on outreach while they enforced the law.  Before officers carried out maximum enforcement, we were sent ahead to offer folks the services URM provides.  This was all an effort to change the culture of Skid Row from lawlessness to a culture of somewhat order.  And it worked! 

Before Safer Cities was put into action, I would often leave the building at URM and find myself needing to jump in to an altercation to save someone from being beaten to death with pipes or worse.  One episode had me standing above a man with my feet on each side of his head to protect him from vicious kicks and hits with pipes coming from the 2 men and 3 women attacking him. I shouted “I think you’ve made your point. I think he gets it” as I ducked the kicks and the swings.  This was not an uncommon occurrence. 

Before Safer Cities, during the two times a year when 300 young volunteers from URM would deliver care packages, we call them boxes of love, to the surrounding SRO’s and hotel rooms they would be laced with racial slurs, cussed at, threatened, and see things that made them sick to their stomachs and cause them to return to URM early and retreat to their homes.  After Safer Cities, the beatings described above became less common, and our young volunteers no longer get threatened, or called racial slurs, or see things that make them ill. 

While there is still much work to be done, the culture of Skid Row has changed.   Many other efforts along with Safer Cities have been carried out to bring about the change.  Union Rescue Mission opened a place for women and children and Senior ladies, Hope Gardens Family Center, far away from the mean streets of Skid Row, and worked with others, including LA County and Beyond Shelter, to make sure there were no women and children living on the streets of Skid Row.  URM doubled our capacity, moving from housing 500 to housing 1000 precious people.  While some agencies and missions responded to the recession by reducing the programs and services they offered and cut staff, since the fall of 2008, URM not only increased capacity, but tripled the number of meals served each day.  We opened a wing on a floor to assist two parent families and single dads with children and focused resources to help families experiencing homelessness for the 1^st time.  In fact, URM is the only mission in LA that serves men, women, single moms with children, single dads with children, two parent families with children, and accepts families with teenagers! 

We have not been alone.  Skid Row Housing Trust, SRO Housing, and Volunteers of America built permanent supportive housing – 100’s if not 1000’s of units – and housed some of the most vulnerable of people on Skid Row.  URM played a key role, with the city, to stop the dumping of hospital patients and patients from mental hospitals on the streets of Skid Row.  Stopping the faucet of people pouring into Skid Row has allowed us to focus on the folks who are already here. We also played a key role in bringing about an injunction against the top gang leaders and drug dealers on the streets of Skid Row.  Removing the predators preying on the precious people of Skid Row also helps us to focus on helping the people already here. 

In all, together we’ve reduced the number of precious people living on the streets of Skid Row from 2000 in 2005 to 750 today.  That is remarkable!  I need to ask, what is more remarkable, going from 55 to 1 or 2, in Times Square, or going from 2000 to 750 on Skid Row?  Don’t you think that LA should receive some credit for this transformation…at least as much as New York does?

Without question we have a long way to go.  There are still too many precious vulnerable people on the streets.  We should not rest while there is even one precious human being on the streets of our city.  We need to live up to our name, the City of Angels.  We need more services, in and out of Skid Row. We need to regionalize services so that each neighborhood, each city, each region provides opportunity for their own neighbors who are experiencing homelessness. We need more well run, permanent supportive housing, in and out of Skid Row. 

URM is transitioning from emergency beds that can be merely enabling to a Gateway Program that is much more empowering, holding guests accountable for sobriety, offering case management, allowing them to pay a portion of their way rather than frittering away all of their resources and allowing them to rest in their bunks at any time and offering a place to store their valuables in return. 

 We need stronger law enforcement, not less.  We need the officers of the LAPD to get out of their cars, off of their megaphones, and walking a beat on Skid Row and dealing with precious people face to face, community policing.  We still have too much drug trade and too much violence on Skid Row.  I want to share an example from this past Saturday.  I was sitting in the URM lobby and I overheard a man coaching another man on how to collect money from the girls working on the streets.  His advice was “to be tough and firm, brutal to those girls.” 

I recognized him as muscle for the gangs on the streets.  He was using the foulest of language and I could not believe he was even in our building, let alone coaching another man on how to be a strong arm debt collector.  I’ve seen he and other guys chase down folks who owed them money and beat them into submission and rescued a camera crew from a beating a couple of months ago by stepping in between them.  I said to him, “You can’t talk like that in this mission. You can’t talk about that in this mission.”  He answered, “I have a 1^st amendment right to speak to my friend.”  I said, angrily, “Maybe on the street, but not here. What are you doing in here? GET OUT!”  I chased him and his friend out the front door.  On his way out, he said with expletives, “Life is a @#^*&#, and then YOU die!”  Stuff like this still goes on every day on Skid Row.  People are preyed on.  Gangs take over the SRO’s, occupy corners, prey on people’s addictions, and violently collect debts.  It will take even more remarkable and herculean efforts and a stepped up Safer Cities with strong community policing and an intolerance of mistreatment of human beings by all of us to move to the day when we live up to truly being the City of Angels. 

Blessings,

 I have to admit I have had a bit of a blog writer’s block for the last few weeks as I have wrestled with some bad news.  Right at Thanksgiving, during the overnight event where we deep fry 200 turkeys for our Union Rescue Mission Thanksgiving Feast, my kidneys failed, and within 12 hours I gained 20 lbs of fluid, mostly in my feet, and as I later learned, in my lungs.  I made it through that big 24 hour event and helped serve 4500 precious people Thanksgiving Dinner. I struggled through the holidays, kept going, but sensed that I was losing my 40 year battle with Type 1 diabetes and the 12 year miraculous effort to keep my kidneys functioning adequately enough to get by.  I feared the worst, contemplating what life would be like on a disability income and even more scary, apart from URM.  

I went through some tests, and prayed a lot, quietly.  My fantastic Dr. Kumar tripled my meds and helped me shed 25 lbs. of fluid quickly.  After some struggles adjusting to the medications, the quick drops in my blood pressure that had me wondering whether I could even get up and speak at public events or have the strength to walk two blocks to the drug store and back, the news from the tests was a bit encouraging as learned I still have 16% kidney function.  15% and below is considered kidney failure. 

The most encouraging words to me came from Dr. Kumar, in front of my wife Bonnie.  He not only told me that I can keep working at URM for now, but told me that even when I go on dialysis, probably by July or August of this year, I can keep working! I can do dialysis at home 10 hours each night during my sleep. In fact, he said, “You need to keep working until you drop! Going on disability will not keep you alive! It will kill you.” 

I am working with the Union Rescue Mission Board of Directors and leadership team to select a right hand person to carry on just in case things go awry, but God is giving me the strength and the help to carry on in this wonderful job He has placed me in, serving my good friends who are experiencing homelessness on the streets of Los Angeles.  When I shared my tough news in Chapel at URM, I was touched by the number of guys who sincerely came up to me offering to donate a kidney to save my life.  The guys here check on me every day.

I have signed up to receive not only a new kidney but also a new pancreas! I am officially on a waiting list.  Doctors prefer to do both a kidney and pancreas as getting only a kidney will not be as life lengthening as receiving both.  I am a bit apprehensive, fearful, and have had to work up the nerve to move ahead, but since the alternative is not so good, I am moving ahead. Thanks for keeping me, my family, URM, and our precious guests in your prayers.