Homelessness surges as funding falters

[Omaha Steve]

http://themancommon.blogspot.com/2009/02/homelessness-surges-as-funding-falters.html

Sunday, February 1, 2009
Homelessness surges as funding falters

Providers to the poor try to stretch meager resources to meet growing need

By Kari Huus

As snowstorms blew into this Northwest city and the economy iced over in December, the occupants of a shelter nestled among industrial buildings on the north side prayed for divine intervention.

“We were hoping for the Christmas miracle,” says Glen Dennis, 41, who was working his way through a residential drug-treatment program at the CityTeam Ministries shelter. Dennis and the other 11 guys in the long-term program —dubbed the “disciples” — also worked each day to prepare for some 50 to 60 overnight shelter guests, and dish up free hot meals to about 100 people. “We kept doing what we were doing, and hoped someone would come by and drop off a big check.”

But the check did not come — even after a coalition of other shelters, nonprofits and local churches tried to pull together a rescue package to keep the shelter open. On Dec. 27, CityTeam Ministries, based in San Jose, Calif., closed the Seattle facility — leaving scores of people to seek food, shelter and sobriety elsewhere. For Dennis, who had been free of crack cocaine for nearly 11 months, the upheaval led to another painful relapse out on the streets.

“It’s a real loss,” says Herb Pfifner, executive director of the Union Gospel Mission shelter in downtown Seattle. “We’re all scrambling to try to handle the growth of homelessness because of the economic situation … and then the closing of another mission adds more pressure.”

The CityTeam closure is a piece in the expanding problem of homelessness across the nation: Shelters and related services for the homeless are facing funding shortfalls as the downturn takes its toll on state budgets and corporate donations. And while individual donors in many cases are keeping up gifts — or even digging a little deeper for charities that help with urgent needs like food and shelter — the service providers say they are faced with a rapidly growing demand from people losing jobs and homes in the economic crisis.

Less funding, more demand
“A downturn in (overall) funding in this case is accompanied by a surge in demand, so a homeless shelter, food pantry, or job-training program is going to feel it first,” says Chuck Bean, executive director of Nonprofit Roundtable of Greater Washington, in the District of Columbia. “Even if they have 100 percent of their budget compared to last year, they now see a 50 percent surge in demand. Then (they) get into the tough decisions: Do you thin the soup, or shorten the line?”

FULL story at link.