HOMELESS SHELTER DIRECTOR REFLECTS ON THE YEAR'S INCREASED NEED
By Joy Junction (12/31/05)
(Although I wrote this article a couple of years ago, it is still as true today as it was back then). ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. The first couple of days in the new year have taken on huge significance for me during the last 19- plus years.
To understand why, you would really have to be in my line of Christian charity work. I founded and continue to direct Joy Junction, New Mexico's largest emergency homeless shelter. As a faith-based ministry we are entirely funded by the free will giving of the church and business community. We do not receive any government funding of any type and we are not United Way members.
During the last six or so weeks of each year we receive as much as 45 percent of our entire year's budget. This time is a small window in the year when I do not have to hold my breath and wonder how we are going to meet payroll that week. People walk in the office and instead of needing a place to stay, they offer a donation. Others come down with generous gifts of toys and food and a multitude of others supplies essential to our ongoing work of caring for as many as 150 homeless people nightly.
However, on Jan. 2 (sometimes Jan.1), all of that attention dies. The funds that rolled in during the last few weeks diminish overnight to just a small trickle. The holiday season is passed, the holiday giving spirit is put back in the closet until next year. Our business office has to see how much of what came in during those last few essential weeks we will be able to save to get us through the routinely cash shy summer months of the upcoming year.
Until the tragic events of 9/11 Joy Junction (along with many ministries similar to us nationwide) had it all figured out – more or less. Our business office would make sure that all the bills were paid for the year just passed, and any funds left over would be put into a savings account for those upcoming lean months ahead.
Again until 9/11 and after, during those lean financial summer months we would also hear from a small group of committed donors who would typically give us some stock that we could sell. The proceeds from those sales we would add to the funds we had saved from the prior year's revenues. With that combination we were usually able to meet our very reasonable budget.
Admittedly, there were some bumps and rough times along the way. Sometimes the funds we had projected failed to materialize and we had to lay off some peripheral staff or cut back some services, but things always worked out somehow. The system almost seemed to function like a well- oiled machine.
However, since 9/11 that well- oiled machine is no more and the one left in its place has begun to squeak quite often. Those established giving patterns are no more. Now we rarely have funds to carry over into the new year – or if we do they are minimal – and the individuals who used to give us stock no longer have the ability to do so. As I tell people who are curious about our routinely tight finances – many of those individuals who had significant disposable income had it disposed of in the crash of the dot coms. Now it's a case of while the spirit is willing the bank account is weak!
Such a difficult financial scenario makes things very difficult for Joy Junction and the hundreds of ministries like us that do similar work. We end up surviving not month to month or even week to week, but many times day to day.
I have often wondered if the emotional toll that was being exacted from me as a result of running this ministry is worth it. Fortunately the Lord has assured me that it was. With that help I got through 2005, but as we face the start of a new year again and its routine money problems, those doubts are beginning to assuage me again.
All I have thought of during what should have been a happy season for me, is that we are (at the time of writing) down to just the last few hours of the giving season, and a whole lot more money needs to come in if we are to make it successfully through the next year.
It is perfectly understandable if your attention (and pocket book) this last few years was taken up by both national and international events as they impacted us here in America. But while these dramas have continued to unfold, local needs march on regardless. Homeless women and families still come to us in droves looking for a place to stay and our bills still need to be paid.
As the director of Joy Junction, I along with our board am ultimately responsible for raising the funds to keep the doors open. When we compute how many people we will have helped this year, it will run into the thousands. There are also tens of thousands of meals served from the Joy Junction kitchen. Along with that food and shelter, as a faith- based ministry we are providing answers for our guests that enable them to address many of the life- controlling issues with which they have been plagued their entire lives. As a result of that help many of our guests are able to reenter the mainstream as productive citizens. To me, that is priceless.
Because the service we provide is so important I am willing to make Joy Junction's need known on local and national media whenever the opportunity presents itself. However, I am really not asking for us. I am making the need known on behalf of all the women and families who are helped by the service that we offer (and who would possibly be on the ever increasingly dangerous streets of Albuquerque if we were not in existence).
A few years ago I was in a store in Old Town asking directions. The store owner approached a person I was with a few minutes later and asked her, "Is that the guy who is always on TV asking for money?" That individual admitted it was and explained to this businesswomen why we have to ask so much. We are an entirely privately funded non- profit that can do nothing without the continuing kindness of the Albuquerque community.
As we approach this new year, there are more people than ever who continue to need our services. The need for the sound faith-based approach we offer is greater than ever. But because of events beyond anyone's control, along with other charities nationwide our funding base is shakier than it has been for some time.
I am not over anxious, as you can imagine, to start waking up in Jan., Feb., March and the succeeding months of 2006 having chest pains (like those that occurred a few years back) arising from a concern about the month's bills and that week's payroll. I would also like to enjoy this holiday season for the important event it signifies, rather than seeing it as a countdown toward a financial doomsday.
The only way that will happen, both for us and all the other ministries in a similar position, is with both prayerful and financial support from the communities which we serve. The homeless (and my continued ability to tun Joy Junction) are depending on it!
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