Andy's Updates - 8/2009
by monica on Monday, August 31st, 2009, Filed Under Rev Andy's Blog | View Comments
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.
by monica on Monday, August 24th, 2009, Filed Under Rev Andy's Blog | View Comments
Thursday night around 11:00 P.M., I received a call from Khadijah, who I had spent the early morning with out on the streets of Skid Row, along with a crew from the Oprah Winfrey show. Oprah is covering the miraculous story of Khadijah. Born to a 14 year old mom who was estranged from her family, homeless her entire life Khadijah has overcome it all with giftedness and perseverance that today has her starting her freshmen classes at Harvard. See story, http://tinyurl.com/n3l5zx
As we met that Thursday morning at 6AM in the underground parking at Union Rescue Mission, Khadijah was even more remarkable in person than her story. Eloquent, kindhearted, thoughtful, and brilliant, she actually presided as the reporter in her own story, taking all of us on a trek of what she experienced in her many years of homelessness, in an out of Missions, which included Union Rescue Mission more than 3 times, when she was 6, 12, and during high school. I was so proud when I heard her say, “Union Rescue Mission was different, nicer than the other places, not like the other shelters. It was clean and safe, and some times volunteers and staff even brought gifts to the children.” As I’ve said many times, I am honored to work alongside the employees of Union Rescue Mission.
When we were out on the streets, I alerted the folks on the streets as to why the camera crew was tagging along with this beautiful young lady. Most were incredibly encouraged by the fact that she had been here and was now Harvard Bound. There was a great sense of pride in a young lady making it big. Others were too impaired and devastated, possibly even under some evil influence as they got in her face and said, “You are a liar! You were never here!” This broke Khadijah’s tender heart. “Why would I lie?” I decided to step in, occupy one man’s attention, as the crew and staff headed quickly back to Union Rescue Mission.
While the filming was going on, Khadijah’s mentor and a friend kept asking about Khadijah’s mom. We learned that her mom and sister had been seen just the day before at a local mission. I sensed that they and Khadijah would feel a great sense of relief if her mom was found and assisted in finding more permanent help. I said, “Please tell your mom she is always welcome at URM. Have her come see me any time if she wants to call you while you are at Harvard!”
It didn’t take Khadijah long after the interview and tour to take me up on that promise. As mentioned above, she called me near 10 PM that night. She had found her mom and sister! “Can I bring them to URM tonight? “Yes. I will alert our staff and they will welcome her.” Her joy was running over. “Thank you, you don’t know what this means to me!” This is the first favorite part of my job–rescuing someone from homelessness. The bonus here was that not only were her mom and sister escaping the devastation of homelessness, but Khadijah could now leave for Harvard also hopeful about the future of her mom and sister.
The next morning I received this encouraging word from our staff member, who greeted Khadijah, her mom and sister with love, late the night before;
Good morning Andy,
Khadijah, her mom and her little sister arrived at URM approximately around 11:15 pm.; I was waiting for them for over an hour. Just as I was getting ready to send you an email to see if you had heard from them, I received a call from post 11 to inform me that they had arrived.
We all talked about old times I have known Khadijah since she was 8 years old. I knew that she would make it. She would cry if she thought that she was going to be late for school or wouldn’t be able to go to school. I always gave her an extra hour to be up in order for her to do her homework.
She always received a gift from me for her good grades and for being an obedient child. I am so proud of her. It made her night to be able to laugh, talk and hug her mom and little sister before she went off to college. I made sure that Khadijah saw that her mom and little sister were comfortable before she left. Khadijah left around 12:15 am. Her mom and sister are on the fourth floor in a room.
God Bless You Andy
Pat Grant
Here is the second favorite part of my job, realizing who that special staff member was who provided that extra touch of love, a little gift to encourage a young studious girl, helping to propel her away from suffering and towards greatness. I told Pat, “So you are the one Khadijah was talking about when she mentioned URM being special and people even giving gifts to the kids!”
I have tears in my eyes as I write. I am so honored to work here alongside the employees of Union Rescue Mission. Andy B.
by Rev. Andy on Tuesday, August 11th, 2009, Filed Under Rev Andy's Blog | View Comments
Our friend, Joel Roberts of PATH Partners in LA, writes an interesting blog regarding homelessness. http://www.lahomelessblog.org/
Recently he wrote:
And likewise, sadly, responses to such encounters are not new. I’ve received responses from people who were not part of the survey: “Those people on the streets choose to be homeless.” “If they only got a job, they wouldn’t be there.” “They are just a bunch of drug addicts.” “The poor will always be with us.”
I want to join Joel in this discussion because I have been working with people who are homeless for the past 23 years. I say people who are homeless because one of the first disservices we do to people is to describe them by their condition. We could do a lot to help people who are homeless by first always describing them as precious people who are currently challenged with homelessness, rather than saying “those people” or “the homeless”. People are made in the image of God, are of great value, and are always more than their current condition.
In my 23 years of work I have never really met anyone who has chosen homelessness. If they appear to have chosen homelessness, or even say that they choose it, it is a choice made out of no other choices. It is a choice of “why try to get another start at life when every time I try to get on my feet I fall flat on my face!” I have made a career out of and had some success in getting people to give life yet one more try.
I have often heard the excuse that Joel shares—that even Jesus and the Scriptures say, “The poor will always be with us.” Before using this as a reason not to get involved in solving this issue, people need to dig a little deeper into Scripture and take a look at the passage from the Old Testament that Jesus is quoting:
Deuteronomy 15:4-11 (ESV)
4 But there will be no poor among you; for the Lord will bless you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance to possess— 5 if only you will strictly obey the voice of the Lord your God, being careful to do all this commandment that I command you today.
7 “If among you, one of your brothers should become poor, in any of your towns within your land that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart or shut your hand against your poor brother, 8 but you shall open your hand to him and lend him sufficient for his need, whatever it may be. 9 Take care lest there be an unworthy thought in your heart and you say, ‘The seventh year, the year of release is near,’ and your eye look grudgingly on your poor brother, and you give him nothing, and he cry to the Lord against you, and you be guilty of sin. 10 You shall give to him freely, and your heart shall not be grudging when you give to him, because for this the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in all that you undertake. 11 For there will never cease to be poor in the land. Therefore I command you, ‘You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor, in your land.’
To paraphrase:
There should not be any poor among you, if you are obedient. If there is a poor man among you, you should do what it takes to assist him in climbing out of his poverty, whatever it may be. Don’t look down on him. Meet his need with a joyful heart, and God will bless you. There will always be poor in the land, so open wide your hand to your brother. Be generous to folks in need and people in poverty so they can find a way out of poverty.
This is a call to action, not an excuse to leave things in the status quo.
In this day when so many average Joe’s and everyday families are falling into homelessness. It is time for us to take action—to make sure that no one suffers the devastation of homelessness.
