economic downturn

Heroes for Hope

Just last week I realized the full extent of the way that our URM/Hope Gardens Family Center team has stepped up to meet the growing needs of homeless families and individuals coming desperately to our doors.

We are now averaging 965 individuals per night at Union Rescue Mission and Hope Gardens Family Center, and this is after the Winter Shelters (December 1st to March 15th) closed their doors. This is 400 more people per night since just 4 short years ago! As the funding from the City/County LAHSA for Winter Shelter ran out, we decided to keep 80 men’s cots and 40 women’s cots in operation on the 1st Floor at our own expense. We just could not ask anyone seeking shelter to leave from under our URM roof.

Our meals have grown from 2100 per day just 18 months ago, to nearly 3500 per day! At this rate we will serve 1.25 Million meals this year! It is a bit like the fishes and loaves story from the New Testament because our budget for purchasing food is only $360,000!

As you know, when the economic crunch came last October, two parent families and single dads with children began arriving at our door. Overnight we transformed our 5th floor from offices and rooms for occasional volunteers, to housing for two parent and single dad families. We now have 16 families on our 5th floor with 40 precious children. Of these families 47 percent have never faced homelessness before! The other night we were completely filled with families, and an expectant couple showed up. We placed them in an EDAR (pup-tent like structure) until a room could be found. Their precious baby girl was welcomed into the world just last week.

Some agencies around us have responded to this crisis by reducing costs through staff and service cuts—some by as much as 23%! We had to ask, “If we don’t step up now, who will?”  And so, we made a decision to step up and meet the growing need! We have been able to increase services and meet the need not only due to our donors’ sacrificial giving, but also because our URM/Hope Gardens staff has taken heroic measures to care for those with nowhere else to go. Cutting services, letting staff go, and adding to the ranks of the unemployed and potentially homeless was simply not an option. Instead, our team decided to sacrifice across-the-board for the sake of those we are called to serve.

Our staff has taken two 5% pay cuts. The employer match to our employees’ 401K has stopped. We’ve frozen hiring and wages. Though our wages have been reduced, 65% of our staff still signed up as Heroes for Hope, pledging a part of their paycheck each month to support the work and ministry of URM/Hope Gardens Family Center. This is amazing!

We’ve reduced other costs as well. We cut our warehouse costs by $10,000 per month through collaboration with the Salvation Army on a shared warehouse. One of our partners agreed to continue services to our guests without a $9,000 per month reimbursement from URM! We also made some strategic decisions to move to some new vendors who could add to our cost savings by $8,000 per month.

We all did this sacrifice and cost-cutting without hurting the quality of care or love for our guests. A gentleman the other day shared on the radio about URM:

The slogan here is “The Way Home”, and coming into the doors, coming into the building definitely gave me the feeling of, “I’m on my way back.” God is in this building from the basement to the roof, and you can feel it when you walk in. I knew then that I was going to be ok. Getting God back in my life was going to be the only way that I was going to get back the things I had lost. The hope factor in my life has changed dramatically. I now see a goal for myself. I now see a purpose for myself. Since I’ve been here in the program at URM I have gotten a relationship with my family back—with my mother, my grandparents. I’m actually in school at USC. Everything has completely turned around within a matter of months. I can’t do enough for the rest of my life to pay back what this Mission has done for me.

Another program graduate showed his growth here with this letter to us when his folks became ill:

Since February I’ve know that my mother has had cancer. It was my hope that she would improve with the care and prayers of doctors and friends. But that is not the case it appears, as her health has taken a turn for the worse. My mother is now 88 years young and my father is 92 years young. While it is truly a blessing to still have my parents here with me, my father is now suffering from Alzheimer’s as well. Because of my contact with the Mission, my life has changed. The way I think it has changed? My relationship with God has improved and my willingness to help others has grown. God has truly blessed me! I’ve met a lot of good people, a lot of caring people. The program itself allowed me to gain skills I didn’t have before coming to the Mission. As I have learned to respect myself more and think about the choices I have, it all comes back to just plain old giving back to God what God has given me. I’m very grateful to everyone here at the Union Rescue Mission. I will tell anyone and be proud to say so. There is love, understanding and true giving here at the Mission. Downtown in the middle of all the madness, God’s presence is here. I will be leaving for Seattle, Washington Wednesday, May 20th. Please pray for me. Pray for my mother and father. And I will pray for everyone here. This has truly been, The Way Home. THANK YOU!

It is hard for me to describe in words the honor I feel in serving alongside our URM/Hope Gardens Family Team. They are true Heroes for Hope!


Alternatives to Tent Cities in this Emergency Situation

The news has been scary lately with so many people in trouble due to our economy. At ground zero here on Skid Row in Los Angeles the reality is even more incredible. Real unemployment in Los Angeles is at nearly 21% according to Jack Kaiser of the Los Angeles Economic Corporation. It is no wonder then that families coming to Union Rescue Mission are up over 340% since last year, and our meals are up 32% from 18 months ago.

47% of the families needing shelter throughout the city are homeless for the first time ever in their lives.

And it’s not just Los Angeles, it’s everywhere. I was contacted by a friend of Mayor Kevin Johnson of Sacramento, a former NBA great, asking me what could be done about the tent cities springing up in Sacramento and around our country. Sacramento’s tent city has grown to 1200 people and there is talk of demolishing it. But that will not solve the problem.

I have come up with a plan, and though I can’t say that it originated with me, I believe that it is a tremendous alternative to letting folks sleep on the streets or in tents. First of all, the Governor should declare a state of emergency and ask that all armories be opened to house people as we do in the Winter Shelter months. Non-profits like Union Rescue Mission and our EIMAGO public benefits charity should be commissioned to operate them. We could provide emergency housing for 200 people each night, along with meals, a cot, a shower, and bathroom facilities for $1.2 million per armory a year.

Secondly, I received this note from a friend concerning a dream of hers. She told me, “One morning I awoke about 5:30 am to the words, ‘Hotels will be given to house the homeless, restaurants will be given to feed the hungry.’” I considered her dream—the empty hotels/motels in our area that are struggling to do business, and the nearly abandoned restaurants on the brink of closing. Then I thought of the tsunami of families coming our way seeking assistance and experiencing homelessness for the first time in their lives. What if we exchanged hotel/motel vouchers and restaurant vouchers for a small fee? Whatever a family could afford to pay, we put roofs over the heads of children and good food in their bellies while at the same time assisting the hotel and restaurant businesses in keeping their doors open and their employees working. We could provide case management to assist the families in pursuing permanent housing and employment. For those without a partnering family to turn to as they struggle through this ordeal, we could connect them with a church family to encourage them along the way. Some churches could possibly even step up and provide a gym for housing or an empty apartment that they could sponsor. Could we as a city, state, and country find it in our hearts to join in a bit of a bail out program for desperate families—along with some accountability and dignity to boot?

I want to encourage all in authority that this is an increasing emergency situation and needs an emergency response. We should not allow anyone, especially children to experience the devastating effects of homelessness.

Blessings, Andy B

Take a moment to watch this report from NBC Nightly News about Sacramento’s tent cities.

How URM Responds to Depression/Recession

Launched 117 years ago, Union Rescue Mission faced a challenge similar to what it appears we are facing right now.  About 79 years ago, as the Great Depression hit the US and Los Angeles. During those tough years, URM actually expanded its services to meet the need – one point in time URM was feeding 50% of the hungry people in the City of Los Angeles. When we weren’t feeding people, our job training program was actively working to find employment for hundreds of desperate people hoping for work and a little money each day. This is what happens when the rest of the economic world seems to crumble around us. We can’t cut back on programs or services because the rest of the world and our fellow human beings need us more than ever.

I lied awake the entire night last Wednesday contemplating URM’s response to what appears to be coming our way. Calls to the Los Angeles County hotline from families losing their homes have doubled in recent months. The sheriff in Chicago, Illinois has put a moratorium on any further evictions after foreclosures or failure to pay rent because as he says, “there are just too many families on the streets already!”

After this sleepless night, I came in with the resolve that we will prepare for more families and not less. We have reorganized and opened up our 5th floor for families, in addition to the 4th floor of our building so that we can house double of the number of two parent families, single moms with children, and single dads with children who are coming our way in droves. We have prepared ourselves for the long haul by cutting costs where we can but increasing services and we realize that these desperate families will be staying with us for longer periods than they have in the past. We are at our normal capacity in our men’s and women’s guest areas, but we are creatively strategizing on ways that we can increase our capacity so that we don’t turn anyone in need away.

We want to live up to URM’s reputation and history of stepping up to the need during the most desperate of times. We can do this because our Hope is in the LORD and we know we can rely on our generous and faithful donors who give to others no matter how difficult things become in their own life.

Thanks to all who are helping us through this challenging time. Bless you! Andy B.

Non-Profits Fret About Their Benefactors – LA Business Journal

Howard Fine of the Los Angeles Business Journal writes about how the economic slowdown is effecting charities like Union Rescue Mission.

Union Rescue Mission on L.A.’s Skid Row provides food, clothing and shelter to more than 1,000 people a day. But thanks to this month’s Wall Street meltdown, some of those people may have to make do with less help.

“We were already off 17 percent in our donations before the latest Wall Street crisis hit two weeks ago and since then, the drop has been even more pronounced,” said Chief Executive Andy Bales. “Everyone is a bit panicked and concerned and holding on to their money. We’re looking at where we can cut, where we can make savings.”

Click here to read the full article.