When Union Rescue Mission saw this economic downturn happening before our eyes, we made an unusual choice. We decided to not only stay on course welcoming those struggling in poverty with the love of Christ, but in order to live up to our history during the Great Depression, we stepped it up a notch to meet the growing need. We converted our 5th floor, previously saved for VIP’s and volunteer groups (and me if I ever needed to spend the night), into housing for two-parent families and single Dads with children, two groups we had not often seen coming to the Mission previously. Since making that choice, we’ve seen some incredible things. Our meals have gone up nearly 40%, as we served 3,450 in one day alone last week. Last night 929 souls found shelter under our roof. Dozens of families have arrived on our 5th Floor, Project Restart as we call it, and a number of families have been placed in transitional and permanent housing thanks to our efforts and partners working with us. As of last night, 15 families with 39 children, a total of 61 people, occupy this 5th floor space that was largely under utilized in the past.
This includes one very special family awaiting their first baby. A co-worker came to my office on Monday and told me that we had a couple who had lost their housing and were seeking shelter, but all of our rooms were full. Not only were all of our rooms full, but even our tent-like structures, EDARs, were in use. My co-worker also let me know that the husband is working and the expectant mom is 9 months pregnant, due any day. We did what we always do. We searched for a place to put this precious family. We found an unused, cleaned up EDAR unit, and placed it in our 5th Floor Conference room. The expectant couple was thrilled to lay their heads down in a safe place and get some much needed rest.
I am sure that this young couple felt deserted, abandoned, and alone in the world when they came to our doors. Even as they entered I am sure they felt some fear and trepidation, but as they entered, because of the commitment and courage of our Board of Directors and staff, they were embraced with the love of Christ. Today, the young husband is figuring out ways to have his employer bless the other families with food donations and anxiously asking about a parenting class he can attend so that he can be a good father to his first born. Pray for this little one. She is very special. She is the reason we stepped up in a time of need.
As I worked with the Los Angeles Police Department this morning to solve a major crime (more details to come in weeks ahead), I began to reflect on all that URM and our staff have accomplished to bring change to the streets of Skid Row. Many others rightly get credit for the major turnaround on these difficult streets. Our friend, Steve Lopez, author of The Soloist—the book on which the soon to be released movie, The Soloist, is based—opened the eyes of all of LA to the realities of Skid Row in his series, Life On The Streets in 2005. Commander Andy Smith, labeled Super Cop during his time serving at Central Division, and his courageous officers brought order to what he described as Mardi Gras on crack. Less apparent to our great city, has been the work of URM and our staff.
In 2005 we took decisive, bold action and purchased a safe place called Hope Gardens Family Center, so that we could move our women and children from the streets of Skid Row and make sure that no women or children were left living on the streets of Skid Row. We fought a lengthy battle to win the right to move our women and children to Skid Row, at a time when there was a great deal of talk about opening regional centers to serve people who were homeless. In the words of Steve Lopez, “Union Rescue Mission was the only one who succeeded in opening up one of those regional centers, and it is called Hope Gardens!” We welcomed LA County Family workers on site and provided offices for them so that we could work together to make sure that no woman or child was left on these mean streets.
We recently received a nice Thank you, from LA County CEO William T. Fujioka for doing our part.
When Chief Bratton moved ahead with the Safer Cities Initiative, we were one of the few and the first agencies to support them in bringing extra officers to the streets of Skid Row. We helped prepare the new officers with how to deal with our sensitive friends who are homeless and struggling on the streets; we joined them in outreach as they went out to enforce the law; we are still called on by the LAPD to go out and alert our friends who are homeless before the LAPD carries out a maximum enforcement of the no sleeping ordinance in effect from 6:00 A.M. to 9 P.M.
In March of 2006 we caught a hospital drop-off on video, a video that played throughout the world and provided strong evidence that “hospital dumpings” were not an Urban myth. This led to proper care for this particular patient, helped lead to the development of a proper protocol for the release of future patients and even led to a city law that prohibits such patient dumping. Just last week, a press conference was held on our URM rooftop, as a hospital and the city came to a settlement over the dropping off of 150 mental patients onto the streets of Skid Row. URM and our staff found the first fellow wandering the streets. We gathered evidence and turned it over to the City Attorney’s Office, which led to the finding that at least 150 mental patients, our most vulnerable citizens, had been dropped off by this Orange County Hospital—40 miles away—onto the mean streets of Skid Row. This has now led to the development of a new, Patient Safety Zone, and a proper protocol for the referral of Mental Health Patients.
When the economic downturn hit hard last Fall, we recognized early that 2 parent families were losing their homes, and while other agencies cut staff and services, our Board of Directors provided the leadership that allowed us to transform our 5th floor from volunteer housing to temporary living quarters for 2 parent families and single Dads with children. We utilized our Chapel as a kind of Red Cross like Emergency Shelter for families living in tent like structures called EDAR units. We stepped up to meet the growing need as we assisted nearly 4 times the number of families than we had the previous year. URM has not done this alone. Our faithful staff and bold Board of Directors have played a key role in making a powerful impact on Skid Row, and we move ever closer to the day when we truly can describe our city as the City of Angels, and Skid Row will be better known as Hope Central. I am honored to serve here at Union Rescue Mission. It is the greatest honor in my life.
A young lady came into my office, disappointed with a gentleman that she really looked up to. She asked me, “Are there any good men left?” Her righteous anger was good for me to see, it reminded me of how easy it is to fall into temptation, and how hurtful it is when a leader is the one who falls. Her question caused me to prepare a message for Union Rescue Mission’s Chapel last Tuesday (March 24th). I answered the question from the Bible, especially from Romans 3:22 (ASV) 22 Even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ unto all them that believe; for there is no distinction; and
Romans 6:23 (ASV) 23 For the wages of sin is death; but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. ,
And then to provide a practical, living example to answer the question, I shared the story about my Dad, who is struggling in his last days with kidney and heart failure.
I shared what my Dad said to me as I sat at his bedside the other day;
“Can you imagine a family riding in freight cars during the Great Depression, Andy, with 3 little ones, and me the littlest at 3, hanging on my Dad’s neck until my Dad said “you are choking me!” I said, “I have to hang on to something!” I asked where they went to the bathroom. “We went wherever, right on the railroad car. We would have died if my Dad hadn’t dug through the wall of the car with his pocket knife and yelled for help. His hands were all bloody.”
They traveled on freight cars, lived in a tent in Azusa Canyon, a garage in Compton, another garage in Baldwin Park, and in a tin shed in Des Moines, Iowa
“I came home from Boy Scout Camp one time expecting to be greeted and welcomed home, and found that everyone had left, gone. I was featured in the Des Moines Register, the local newspaper, praying beside the bed in my Grandma’s house, praying that my Mom would come home. My Grandpa would say, where would you be if you didn’t have us? It was a nightmare to live that way, drunkenness, fighting, I’d come home and they would be drunk and shooting a rifle in the back yard, right in the neighborhood. My Mom was never home, out running around. My Dad did his best, helped me when I was sick, or hurt, but Mom was never there. I can’t figure out why it took me until I was 17 to move out into my own place, and then I took my Mom in with me when she ended up in need.”
My Dad said it was on one of those weeks when he stayed with another family, that he saw how a normal family worked and operated. He determined in his mind to live in a way that was different than the way he had grown up.
The Bible talks about the curse that parents can put on their children for generations, but it also says that this can change;
My Dad enlisted in the Army and became a paratrooper. He married a beautiful, nice Catholic girl, my Mom. He struggled a bit until he was invited to a local church by my Aunt and Uncle. I was in my Mom’s womb when they heard the Gospel presented in a powerful way. That night my Mom and Dad walked up the aisle of the church, and accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior. That same day my Dad dedicated their unborn baby to the Lord. I was blessed from even before my first day on earth. What a difference that made in my life.
Deuteronomy 5:9 (TLB) 9 You shall not bow down to any images nor worship them in any way, for I am the Lord your God. I am a jealous God, and I will bring the curse of a father’s sins upon even the third and fourth generation of the children of those who hate me; but I will show kindness to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.
My Dad’s choice to follow the Lord and dedicate my life to the Lord made an eternal difference in my life and the lives of my children and their children.
At 5, I heard a message regarding the Rich Man and Lazarus, and that night I knelt by my bed and asked Jesus Christ to forgive my sins, and come into my life.
At 7, my Dad and I were on the way to AWANA’s, a group like Boy Scouts with a Christ emphasis, and I was having some doubts about my faith. “Andy, he said, “that is just the devil trying to work on you. Did you ask Jesus in your heart? Yes! Then you are saved and Jesus will never leave you nor forsake you!”
My dad’s one fault that I recognized early, and I adopted, was that he worked too much and too hard. I found out why later. For many years he struggled as a butcher, doing that for 15 years. He was the guy in the slaughter house who knocked out the cow so others could cut up the meat. He then moved to another business as a warehouse worker at $2.38 an hour. He worked himself all the way up to Vice President. It was a feed company. He then designed one of the first spray washers and launched his own car wash business. He was working so hard to provide for all of us, so that our lives would not be like his when he was young. He spoiled me. One Christmas he gave me a motorcycle helmet and I said, what do I need this for, I don’t have a motorcycle! “Check the garage!” The gas crisis hit and the car wash business tumbled. He struggled. We lost everything. Overnight we went from living in a house with 5 acres and an indoor pool and driving a new Cadillac to moving into a duplex and driving an old Volkswagen. I went from completely spoiled to not even affording football shoes so I could play football until someone helped us. Those were tough times, my brother was in prison, my folks had lost everything, I had become a diabetic and spent time in the hospital, but an interesting thing happened; My Dad spent a few weeks, depressed, laying on the couch, contemplating ending his life until I went into the room and gave him a strong pep talk. I was only 14, but I told him he was going to have to get off the couch and get going. I said it through tears and fearfully, but he did just that. He took a job he didn’t care for much, but then got a fantastic job. He also lived a more balanced life, and I saw him put in as much effort in church involvement and living for Christ as I saw him put into work. He went on Missions Trips with me and the youth group. He visited the local Mission and preached at their services, and I went along with him to sing. My faith was greatly impacted by watching him bounce back and live his life for the Lord.
Proverbs 24:16 (ASV) 16 For a righteous man falleth seven times, and riseth up again; but the wicked are overthrown by calamity.
My Dad prays every day for Union Rescue Mission, Hope Gardens Family Center, our donors, and all who enter our doors. We talk every day on the phone.
As I left his bedside and hugged and kissed my Dad and said a possible last good-bye, he called me in, weeping a bit, and said, if I give you this diamond ring, would you wear it, and not give it away? He knows me well! J I told him that I would wear it proudly, and that I would never give away a ring that was given to me by him. I told the young lady on Tuesday, that, yes, there are good men left in this world, and my Dad is one of them!
Reverend Andy Bales
CEO, Union Rescue Mission
