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Dorothy Day client dreams of a place of his own |
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By Pat Norby
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Wednesday, 16 December 2009 |
Catholic Charities faces growing need at Christmastime as donations dip
Aaron Bledsoe is in a 16-week training program at the Dorothy Day Center in St. Paul, where he sleeps at night among more than 200 other homeless men. - Photo by Dave Hrbacek / The Catholic Spirit
Aaron Bledsoe, 48, dreams of a place of his own, where he won’t be bedding down on a thin mat among 210 men, each sleeping just eight inches away from the other at the Dorothy Day Center in St. Paul.
Although lights go out at 10 p.m., there is a constant movement to and
from the two available bathrooms and showers as the men take turns
caring for their personal hygiene, said Gerry Lauer, the center’s
programming director. In addition, 40 women sleep upstairs at the
center.
If Lauer could have just one Christmas wish granted for the center, it
would be for more showers and bathrooms for the homeless men.
“Hygiene issues affect people’s ability to work,” Lauer said.
But despite the cramped conditions, Bledsoe is not complaining.
“I am grateful,” said the unemployed factory worker from Detroit. “These guys are really helping me out.”
When Bledsoe lost his job in Michigan, he moved to St. Louis and then,
four months ago, to the Twin Cities, where his girlfriend had moved
with their 3-year-old son, Areon.
“I have a lot of challenges,” Bledsoe acknowledged. “I have been in
prison before [in Utah], but I’ve been off parole since 1998. And I
have some [traffic] tickets in Michigan,” which he must pay before he
can obtain a driver’s license.
“To clean up my license would help me get a job,” he said. And,
transportation would make it easier for him to see his son, who is
living with his mother at Mary’s Place in Minneapolis.
For now, Bledsoe appreciates having a place to sleep and the 16-week
training program he is in at the Dorothy Day Center, which pays him a
stipend. He also plans to start attending school soon as part of a
dislocated worker program.
“It’s been stressful,” he said, “but I have a lot of hope.”
Although Bledsoe is hopeful, Catholic Charities, an archdiocesan
nonprofit agency that serves people facing a variety of challenges, is
experiencing a staggering need for its services at the same time that
donations are dropping, said Rebecca Lentz, Catholic Charities
communications director.
Need up, donations down
The organization had a 91 percent increase in food shelf visits from
September 2008, compared to September 2009, she said. In October, it
went up 64 percent. So, combined, it went up 77.5 percent for the two
months, Lentz added.
“Food is often the first thing they’ll cut back on. It’s the first
poverty issue,” she said. Parents will skip meals, but feed their
children.
“We’re seeing more people who we previously had helped and stabilized
and had not needed our service for a number of years,” Lentz said.
“We’re also seeing people who are coming for the first time ever to
food shelves; people who never before had to access a food support
systems, people who had jobs.”
Lentz said that during a recent visit to a Catholic Charities food
shelf, the staff told her that a registered nurse had come to get help.
Amid the growing need, contributions are down about 10 percent,
compared to the previous fiscal year, Lentz said. People say they want
to help, but some are facing their own crisis, such as one woman who
said, “We may have to cut back because my husband got laid off two
years ago.”
Although the agency is watching expenses carefully, costs have
continued to grow because demand is up, Lentz said. Despite the need
for workers, the agency recently laid off 25 staff members.
“We’re doing what every nonprofit and business is doing,” she said.
“We’re looking for ways to optimize our buying power. And looking at everything we can do.”
Besides increased visits to the food shelves, Catholic Charities has seen:
» An average increase of about 1,500 “bed nights” per person at the
Dorothy Day Center since 2005. (“Bed nights” are determined by taking
the number of people who sleep on a mat and adding up the totals from
each night of the month.)
» A 75 percent increase over the past five years in the number of people who don’t have insurance for counseling services.
» More demand for emergency help with housing.
“We have about $6,000 each month to help people with rent or a mortgage
payment,” Lentz said. “We ran out on the fourth and we get it on the
first.”
For more information or to make a donation to Catholic Charities, visit www.cctwincities.org.
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