No Time to Step Back
Thank you, for your treasured partnership with Union Rescue Mission. Amazing things happen here at URM and you are an integral part of each and every one of them!
In a recent interview I was asked, “What has been your greatest accomplishment?” I knew the answer immediately, and spoke honestly and straight from my heart…“Well, it is not my accomplishment, it is all of URM’s accomplishment, and we have not done it yet. But, the greatest accomplishment will be that we stepped up to meet the need during this Great Recession without having to do widespread layoffs of URM staff.”
Nothing will make me more joyful, or satisfied, than to know that together we, you and me, our staff, Board of Directors, volunteers and guests met this tsunami of need head-on fully confident in our Lord to carry us through. Instead of laying-off staff, we cut our salaries, twice! We reduced costs, increased our services, welcomed and fed everyone who arrived at our door. Honestly, I’m so proud of our team. We have accomplished so much; helped so many and it would be a bitter pill to swallow if we had to cut back services or lay off any of our staff at this point.
We may have been the only non-profit in the US whose staff made the sacrifices necessary to care for everyone in need who came to our doors. In a recent article in the Des Moines Register, an expert in non-profits said so:
“It’s a time to be contracting, most likely laying off people and being worried about getting any government agency to honor its contractual obligations,” said Robert Ottenhoff, president of GuideStar, a nonprofit that tracks other nonprofits nationally. “I can give you many stories of nonprofits that are laying off. I haven’t heard of any that are increasing services in the middle of 2009.”
Well, Mr. Ottenhoff, I know of one, Union Rescue Mission! We stepped up to the need in the following ways:
Our recent fiscal year-end numbers show that at Union Rescue Mission downtown we served an average of 389 additional meals per day, a 15% increase from 2008! The number of guest men was up 5% over last year, and guest women up 9%.
On average we housed an additional 175 single individuals per night, a 26% increase. The number of children we housed increased by 160%, an average of 40 additional kids per night. And, of all the parents with kids at URM, including single moms, single dads, and married couples, we saw a 154% increase.
At our Hope Gardens Family Center facility in Sylmar, we had a 37% increase in the number of families (an average of 8 additional moms per night) and a 32 % increase in the number of precious children (an average 14 additional kids per night) from 2008.
The numbers and increases are incredible, but the picture of the many families living in tent like structures, called EDARS, in our chapel, community rooms, and conference rooms is an even more amazing sight to behold. The volume of people who get in line for one of our 9 meals per day is also staggering.
Most striking however, are the life transformations that happen here every day. In addition to having 95 men and women graduate from one of our formal life transformation programs, 14 of our 5th Floor Project Restart families (two-parent and single dad families), many who were homeless for the first time in their lives, have now moved back out into society. So have 16 of our moms who were living at Hope Gardens with their children. These individuals have overcome the trauma of homelessness, saved their money, many found employment, and are now in a place of their own again.
We were able to step up to meet the needs of these men, women and precious families because of your support. We don’t plan to step back now. We cannot! In fact, we are preparing to launch a movement to greatly reduce homelessness as we know it in Los Angeles. The plans will unfold in late October, but in order to move ahead, we need your support, your financial gift today more than ever.
As we come into what could remain a very challenging fall season, please consider sending yet one more significant, sacrificial gift. Together we can complete and declare the greatest accomplishment in URM’s history by stepping up to meet the needs of others.
Bless you, Andy B.