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CURRENT ISSUE

diocesan agencies reach out to poor every day

Story and photos by LIZ QUIRIN
Messenger editor

Every day Pat Lewis goes to Holy Angels Shelter to look for answers for the people who wait. She has been ministering to families — women and children and sometimes single, elderly men — at the shelter for more than 20 years, but this year things are different, harder.
“We’re staying full,” she said, “but the number of people we have to turn away has grown.”

The shelter opened its doors in 1984 at the former parish in East St. Louis, and graduates of the school have taken a real interest in helping those who take refuge there.

Lewis and Joe Hubbard, director of Catholic Urban Programs who oversees the shelter, are grateful for the donations the school graduates have made, and continue to make.

In addition to the donations of toiletries and paper products, the shelter needs money to operate. Currently, the shelter has a $225,000 budget with 50 percent of that money coming from donations and 50 percent from government funds, Gerry Hasenstab, of Catholic Urban Programs said.

Hasenstab anticipates government funding to be cut, and he said the shelter will have to rely more heavily on donations. In this economy, Hasenstab said he is concerned about what will happen in the immediate future.
The shelter also receives grants from religious institutions, among them one from the Daughters of Charity for a family strengthening and parent education program.

“This program is truly a blessing,” Lewis said, “as we struggle to provide stability to so many of our homeless clients.”
One client, Esther Waller, arrived at the shelter during the summer with her five children.

On the day of the interview, she had been out all day and applied for five positions, looking for full time employment.
Waller has a part-time position, but it doesn’t pay enough for rent and living expenses.

She was renting an apartment from someone who lost the building to the bank in foreclosure, and she had no place to go with her five children.

“I’m frustrated,” she said. “I want to work.”

Lewis picks up the telephone every day, looking for ways to find more permanent housing for the shelter’s clients. “We have access to funds through a rental assistance program,” she said, but finding adequate housing is difficult.
Without the shelter, Waller said she would probably be living in her car.

Ethel White has a part-time job as well, but she does not make enough to pay rent on a home of her own.
The women at the shelter said they are treated with respect and dignity, and the staff works hard to help them find assistance and housing.

Another resident, Mary Morris, said without help from the shelter, she would be truly homeless. Without a car, she would be living on the street.

Holy Angels was opened as the only shelter in East St. Louis that houses single women, but clients come from all over the diocese, Hasenstab said, adding, the shelter does not have enough beds. “We can’t change the occupancy rate, and the turn away rate is much larger than before.”

Hasenstab said the shelter works with Catholic Social Services to counsel clients, to help them deal with homelessness.

“We know these are all God’s people, and they need help through this crisis,” he said.