Skid Row

Laker Jordan Farmar Sponsors URM Kids for Basketball Camp

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“Thump… Thump… Thump… Thump… Thump…”

The sound of bouncing basketballs fill the stadium. If you closed your eyes for just a few seconds, it sounded like rain pattering on the rooftops. A hundred kids were dribbling their basketballs in unison—performing an unorthodox orchestral piece. This was the final day of Jordan Farmar’s 6th annual Hoop Farm, and I was ready to soak it all in. 

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Hoop Farm 2013 was held from July 29 through August 1 at UCLA’s brand new Pauley Pavilion. Children within the range of 7-16 are able to attend the camp, and Union Rescue Mission was blessed to be able to send a group fully sponsored by Jordan Farmar’s Foundation. Each student sent received an official Hoop Farm t-shirt, reversible jersey, and yoga mat!

To start the day off, the participants rolled out their yoga mats and began their stretching. I took some personal notes as my own flexibility leaves something to be desired. Then the “real” basketball training began, where the basketball court transformed something akin to a rotating organic clock—each timed station would teach an important basketball fundamental. Pushups, dribbling, defense, plyometrics; all combined would give the individual the tools to become a well-rounded player. Most importantly, the whole camp emphasized teamwork and cooperation—and it showed in the scrimmages to come.

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One of the highlights of the day was the camp “Knockout” game. The interesting part about this game was the long line of participants (20+), and included Jordan Farmar and all of the coaches.

But the finale was what everyone was waiting in anticipation for. The camp held a final scrimmage—teams combined of coaches and children. Amazingly enough, the kids were able to hold their own versus the much more physically dominant counselors; many of them members of the UCLA basketball team. I was in awe at the level of play exhibited towards the end, and with each passing photograph wondered if I had just taken the picture of the next NBA star. Who knows?

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It’s Time for Fun in the Sun!

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Summer.

Water squirters, hoses, slip-n-slides, community pools. Freedom.

Growing up, summer was the time school books were thrown aside as my neighborhood went out in force to wreck liquid mayhem. Clothes were drenched, lawns unintentionally watered, friendships/alliances were solidified on the Janna St. battlefield. Though memories of the other aspects of my childhood have faded over time, the ones I’ve had of summer are vibrant.

That’s why I was so excited for Union Rescue Mission’s annual Splash Zone event. Other than the fact that it takes place on our roof.

 

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You could tangibly feel the anticipation build up in the kids. Their eyes quickly darted back and forth as our staff was laying down the ground rules for the event. I don’t think anyone was really listening; everyone’s focus was on the huge water slides and the nearing fun to be had. I know I wasn’t hearing a thing.

The kids got more and more excited; each declaring his or her near-future aquatic heroics as they were handed their water squirters. The sun was shining and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. Perfect LA weather.

And then the beautiful pandemonium began.

No one was safe. Dodging the streams of water was futile, and many of the adults jumped right in. For much of the day it felt like it was raining; a downpour of joy.

Children who know far too well the pains of homelessness were soaked completely through; with water, laughter, and a whole lot of love.

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We would like to thank Calvary Chapel of Pacific Palisades for sponsoring this event. Even more, they came out to volunteer and spend time interacting and playing with the kids. Without their help we wouldn’t be able to give these children the summer many of us were lucky enough to experience.

 

Christmas… in July!

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Last Wednesday, Union Rescue Mission had over 20 tons of snow blanket our San Julian parking lot for our annual Christmas in July event. Children from URM and our Hope Gardens Family Center got to experience a winter wonderland set up by our friends at Subway. Many of our staff channelled their inner child to jump on in. Even our CEO, Andy Bales, got to join in on the fun, walking boot and all!

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For many of the children, this would be the first time they would be able to see actual snow. The joy of being able to reach down and carefully palm the icy coldness into a ball and then watch it soar through the air is something you could never really explain in words or in pictures. It is meant to be experienced.

As is the feeling of getting one thrown right at you.

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Rounding out the festivities were carnival games—basketball hoops, dunk tank, ball throw, and cotton candy and kettle corn booths operated by our awesome volunteers. Finally, we raffled off some great prizes with “Summer Santa” making an appearance!

We’d like to thank Subway for sponsoring this event and suppling all of the guests with a catered Subway Sandwich lunch!

The Mission Newsletter – July 2013

Brian

All my life, I felt alone, isolated, like I never really fit anywhere. Even in my own family. Instead of connecting with friends, I retreated into a world of art and fantasy. From the age of 3 or 4, I would spend hours, or even days, drawing characters, making up stories, living in a world that existed only in my head and in my art.

My parents didn’t understand and tried many different ways to change me. So as a teenager, I rebelled — dabbling with LSD, mescaline, mushrooms, whatever I could get my hands on. Hallucinogens brought my art to life. And I loved it. Before long, I was eating 50 to 100 hits a day.

Then I found crystal meth. And that was it. Meth enabled me to focus on my art at a whole new level. Not only that, I could draw for three days straight, until my body would collapse from exhaustion. But I craved it.

Somehow, in all that insanity, I got married in my early 20s. My wife even gave birth to two sons. But both were born with serious health problems. My first son was born with DiGeorge Syndrome, kind of a cross between autism and Down Syndrome. My second son was born with an incurable heart condition and I had to make the heart-breaking decision to take him off life support. When he died, so did my marriage.

The Loneliness of Homelessness

After that, everything fell apart. My wife fell into prostitution and heroin addiction. My surviving son ended up with my wife’s aunt. And I ended up living on the streets for the next seven years, isolated and alone, disconnected from everyone but my drug dealers.

But as I grew lonelier and more exhausted, I wanted to change. That’s when I came to Union Rescue Mission. I wasn’t sure what I was getting myself into, but when I walked inside the building, the compassion and love I felt brought me to tears. I felt known, like everyone here could see me — the real me. I wasn’t alone anymore. And something about that made me want to be the best man I could be.

The Real Me

I gave my life to Jesus that first day and I have never craved drugs since. I took advantage of every service the Mission offered, from health and dental care, to counseling and spiritual care. They met every need I had. And I have never felt so alive physically, emotionally, and spiritually. I’ve rebuilt relationships with my family, and even my son. And, I returned to school, and I’m now working full-time as a graphic artist.

I never knew this kind of life was possible, and I never would have experienced it apart from Union Rescue Mission. Because the people here were willing to show me compassion and love me, I am a real person now. URM didn’t give me my life back. The truth is, I never had a life. What I can say is, thanks to URM, I now have a life.

 

13URM07NL URM July 13 NL_Pkg.inddMen and women trapped in homelessness often have significant barriers to overcome before they can return to a productive life. Agencies like Union Rescue Mission offer structured, long-term recovery programs that have helped thousands of individuals and families address and overcome their obstacles and return to the community as productive citizens.

To learn more about our 10-Step plan please click here

 

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Notes from Andy

Healing the Past — Building for the Future

Brian, who tells his story in this issue of The Mission, is one of those guys who’s so sharp and “with it,” it’s hard to imagine why he lived the life he did. But in many ways, he reminds me of my son Isaac.

Like Brian, Isaac struggled through adolescence. It wasn’t easy for him to be my son, and for many years he walked a different path than I would have. Honestly, I spent those years parenting from my knees — praying. But like Brian, Isaac found his way. And today, Brian and Isaac are both fine young men.

Transforming lives like Brian’s is what Union Rescue Mission is all about. We embrace people experiencing homelessness with the compassion of Christ, offering them hope and healing, and helping them find their way home. We help them heal the physical, emotional, and spiritual wounds that led them here in the first place, through counseling, legal aid, medical and dental care, and spiritual nurturing. But then we also offer them building blocks, like education and job training, to help them construct brand new lives.

Body. Mind. Soul. Spirit. It’s what our Mission is all about. But it’s not just our Mission. It’s yours, too. You are the Mission. And nothing happens here apart from you. Thank you.

Blessings,

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Rev. Andy Bales

Congratulations To Our Graduates!

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Yesterday, Union Rescue Mission had the honor of recognizing 14 brave men who graduated from our  Christian Life Discipleship Program (CLDP). CLDP is an intensive year long program that affects the entire life – physical, mental, spiritual, emotional, and social. Each of these men have had to face personal demons, mend broken relationships, and most of all—discover their true self as created in the image of God.

Graduates of the CLDP complete:

  • 156 Hours of Bible/recovery classes
  • 50 hours of Biblical 12 steps
  • 200 hours of Physical Fitness
  • 49 weeks of Sunday church attendance
  • 104 hours of devotions in URM Family devotions
  • 200 hours of participation in the Bank of America Learning Center
  • 1200 hours of work therapy in one of URM’s departments
  • 30 hours of individual counseling with a URM chaplain

Needless to say, we are very proud of each and every one of these men, and are excited to see how their future in Christ unfolds.

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We also want to thank Keynote speaker, Dr. Paul Flores, from Church of the Redeemer for his rousing words on how this world is not our home. And for our musical guest, Lavonne Seetal, wife of our very own Reverend Walter Seetal, for sharing her stirring musical talent.

As all you courageous graduates move forward in your recovery, be reminded of what your fellow-graduate, Tramon, said in his speech,

“When the devil reminds you of your past, remind the devil of his future”

 

Walmart Grant Provides 27,000 Meals!

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Our gracious friends at the Walmart Foundation have decided to donate $50,000 to URM’s Hunger Relief Program! This generous gift will be able to provide a total of 27,175 meals.

This will cover 3 meals a day served to our 800 guests for a total of 13 days!

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Their donation also helps secure our commitment to our guest’s health and wellness. The funds go into our education and life skills classes, the women and children’s programs, and the development of a rooftop/kitchen garden to provide fresh herbs, fruits and vegetables downtown.

URM is so blessed when organizations like the Walmart Foundation step up to the task to help sustain our mission to combat hunger and homelessness on Skid Row.

Bold Moves and Tenacious Tweaks

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Dear Friends,

As you probably know, I have a bold faith in God and count it a privilege to witness the miracles He performs in the lives of people at Union Rescue Mission each day.  This past year, I’ve also been humbled and amazed by God’s miraculous handy work in my own life.

About this time last year, I was a very sick fellow.  Struggling between a damaged heart, and nearly failed kidneys, I was stuck in a bit of a twilight zone.  Any procedure that could repair my heart would have completely wiped out my kidney function.  I was hanging on, doing my best, just barely staying off of kidney dialysis thanks to a very strict diet I’d maintained for two difficult years.

Then, on June 29th, 2012, after helping our team raise $5.8 Million in the last 40 days of the fiscal year, I had a heart attack, and actually, experienced heart failure.  My only option was a quadruple bypass.  One group of doctors felt I was too high a risk, but a courageous doctor, Dr. Randall Roberts, took a chance on me, and successfully performed the life-saving quadruple bypass.  I was able to bounce back quite a bit, attend a URM Board meeting after 16 days, and was back to work full-time approximately one month after surgery.  The life saving quadruple bypass, however, helped lead to the eventual demise of my kidneys, and after finishing last place in a long charity bike ride, I knew that it was time for dialysis.  I began dialysis on October 2nd, 2012.  I continued working each day and spent every Monday, Wednesday and Friday evening from 6 PM to 10 PM on dialysis.

I did this for 4 and ½ months, and I was prepared to carry on like this for quite awhile.  However, my dear wife, Bonnie, stepped forward, was tested, and found to be a near perfect match for me.  That was a near miracle in itself.  She tested as if she were my daughter or my sister. On February 13th, the day before Valentine’s Day, Bonnie provided to me the gift of life through her kidney, and another bold doctor, Doctor Jeffrey Veale, took a big chance on me and placed my dear wife’s kidney in me.   I was in the UCLA hospital for only 5 days, and the day I was released, Bonnie, a friend and I walked 3.2 miles around the Rose Bowl.  We did that for 8 days in a row.  I returned to the work that I love at Union Rescue Mission 3 weeks and 2 days after receiving the kidney.  This may be a new world record, and another miracle recovery, as the previous record was 6 weeks and the norm for returning to work after a kidney transplant is 3 months.

While I was in the hospital, unable to sleep, late one night, I signed Bonnie and me up for the Rose Bowl Reverse Triathlon, just 4 and ½ weeks after our surgery.  Bonnie thought that decision was silly and premature, but when race day came, we both completed the event and Bonnie was 10th in her age group and 2nd among all of the women entered in the swim portion.  After 11 weeks of recovery, I feel like a brand new man.  My numbers show that my kidney is functioning like a normal healthy person’s kidney.  The numbers also show my bad cholesterol is low and my good cholesterol is high! My hopes are that any heart damage or clogged arteries are reversing and getting healthy too!

I know this is all due to God’s grace & goodness, your prayers, bold doctors, caring nurses, and my own tweaks to an extremely disciplined life style. However, none of this would have been possible without Bonnie’s sacrificial gift of love to me.

That is why I am writing to you, today.  I want to share with you, some other, much more important numbers, for Union Rescue Mission. In order to stay healthy, whole, transform lives, & move ahead with our goals, Union Rescue Mission needs some sacrificial gifts of love.  To be all that we can be to our guests, and to reach our goals for this year, we need each of our contributors’ active participating in helping us make up a $1 Million gap in our budgeted revenue, and in the next 50 days ending June 30th,  we need to work together to raise $5.5 Million.  If we are able to do this together, these are some of the bold actions we can take in this year and next:

  • Continue to house & serve 810 precious men, women and children each night
  • Continue to feed 2000 precious souls each day
  • Continue to provide medical services, dental services, legal help and mental health counseling to hundreds each day
  •  Bring Hope Gardens, Gateway, Women’s CLDP, to 95%capacity & renovate all living quarters at URM’s Hope Gardens Family Center-adding 12 to 20 more units for precious moms and children currently on Skid Row
  • Develop Women’s Recovery Program for 40 women on par with Men’s  1 Year Christian Life Discipleship Program in every aspect
  • Launch a jobs program that connects 30% of URM grads with Employment, including the hiring of a jobs developer, jobs assessor, and we are proud to announce that we’ve hired a director of Social Enterprises and should launch a Thrift Store this year that will help provide, sustaining income for URM, job training for our graduates, and jobs for our graduates.
  • Develop a stronger training program for staff, managers and Senior Leadership Team

 

I want to encourage you, do not be daunted by the $5.5 Million figure above, nor the few days left in our fiscal year!  Together, last year, we raised $5.8 Million in the last 40 days of 2012.  Remember, we believe in miracles.  I believe in miracles. 

If you love our precious guests, and appreciate the life transforming work that URM does, it is not so important the amount that you give today, but that you join many others in giving.  Together we can reach our goal and move ahead boldly with this life changing work and these life saving goals. 

Bless you.

Your co-worker in Christ,

Rev. Andy Bales

 

The Reality on Skid Row Since Home For Good Launch

I’ve tried to keep folks up to date on what is happening on Skid Row.  On September 28th, I wrote of a growing desperation on Skid Row in Los Angeles, a doubling in the number of people and an increase in crime and I shared,

”I attribute this to 3 major factors: the worsening economy bringing high unemployment and a lack of services to people in need, the one size fits all move to Housing First which has caused the limited resources available to move away from emergency services and to permanent supportive housing only, and the recent federal court ruling in favor of LACAN which protects the property of people experiencing homelessness to the extreme point that any type of clean up of Skid Row by anyone is not allowed.”

Today, I received an update from a dear friend of URM, Estela Lopez. Estela heads up the local Central City East Association, and her security officers are often 1st responders to difficult situations and have 1st hand information on Skid Row.  Estela wrote, “The downturn in the economy, the release of state prisoners, and the court injunction limiting removal of property is having a cumulative affect on skid row.  Some streets have become tent villages once again as they were prior to the 2006 implementation of the Safer Cities Initiative.  I had my staff do a quick re-cap of key indicators, comparing January 2011 to January 2012:

Abandoned property                  Up    158%

Encampments                           Up      97%

Illegal dumping                         Up    500%

LAFD Assistance                      Up   1000% (persons sick, injured or deceased)

LAPD Assistance                      Up    500%

As you may have gathered already, I would add to Estela’s list of causes the “Home For Good” push as one of the causes.  “Home For Good” backers, The United Way of LA and the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, as well as Federal and local government, strongly marketed “Home For Good” as the one size fits all solution to homelessness and even contrasted this new “better” solution to the “archaic” “ineffective” shelters and services that have failed to solve the problem in the past.  I even heard that now, instead of “managing” the problem of homelessness, as in the past, “Home For Good” would solve the problem. I would counter that, now, we are not even coming close to managing the problem.  It is out of control! This unfortunate, inaccurate marketing has funneled resources to “Home For Good” and away from many very effective non-profits around LA County, and has caused the closure of much needed beds and services, producing a lack of services to people in need, and placed an incredible amount of people on the streets, doubling the number of people on the streets of Skid Row since “Home For Good” was launched!

Before “Home For Good” LA was launched, and I do not doubt the good intentions, the cost savings that were projected from this new approach were astronomical…something in the range of $750 Million.  I have to ask, where is the cost savings in this?

LAFD Assistance                      Up   1000% (persons sick, injured or deceased)

LAPD Assistance                      Up    500%

The truth is if “Home For Good” was the most effective strategy for all people experiencing homelessness, there would be a cost increase, not a decrease.  The capital costs alone to permanently house all people experiencing homelessness in LA alone would be $15 Billion and the operating costs to provide supportive services would be around $5 Billion per year.  I’ve based these estimates on the original costs of the Project 50 in LA.

Certainly “Home For Good” was established with an eye on Skid Row and a wish to positively impact Skid Row, next to the business center of Los Angeles?

Those in leadership and authority should not have taken their eye off the ball.  We had worked on a multi-pronged strategy to reduce homelessness on Skid Row from 2000 people to 600 over the course of several years and lots of hard work.

Marketing what should have been simply yet another added strategy to a continuum of strategies as the silver bullet solution to homelessness was a big mistake, and instead of assisting in providing a solution, along with other factors, it has taken us to the tipping point of chaos here on Skid Row.

I hope that before you believe any further marketing presentations from “Home For Good”, you’ll call me and come walk the streets of Skid Row with me to see this first-hand.  Thank you. Andy B.

Rev. Andy’s End of Month Update – January 2012

Because of the scope of what friends like you help us do at URM, everyday is a big event. From life transformation programs, to medical centers, to legal aid clinics, to kids programs….we do it all thanks to you.

Please take a moment to view Rev. Andy’s January End of the Month Update and consider a gift today. We can’t do this work without you.

Blessings