Friday, November 21, 2008 9:53 PM CST
In tough times, more people seeking aid
By DAVE FOPAY, ROB STROUD, HERB MEEKER And NATHANIEL WEST, Staff Writers
The Coalition for People in Need has been providing emergency assistance to area residents for about 14 years.
Director Betty Smith said she has heard from a sizable number of Charleston residents over the last three years who never before needed to ask the association for help with rent or mortgage payments, food, utilities, prescriptions, and gasoline.
She said this trend has increased in 2008.
“The loss of many full-time jobs in the area from businesses closing or cutting hours of production has left many of our residents in need,” Smith said.
Officials from similar organizations echoed these sentiments. As the economy contracts, more area residents are qualifying for need-based assistance because their household incomes are shrinking. This in turn threatens to stretch assistance agencies thin — perhaps too thin, in some cases.
“We’re seeing requests from people that have never been in our offices before,” said Marsha Roll, executive director of the Embarras River Basin Agency.
Headquartered in Greenup, the agency provides utility, rent and other forms of assistance to low-income families in nine area counties. ERBA was buoyed by the federal government’s doubling of funds for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, but the number of people asking for assistance has also increased.
“We’re seeing as much as a 20 percent increase” in requests, said Roll.
ERBA also provides emergency rent and medical assistance; funds a scholarship and school supply program; and even offers counseling for residents with mortgage troubles. The agency is needing to help more people in all of these areas, said Roll.
Programs such as LIHEAP, which also pays for home winterization projects, are based on income levels. And there are some residents, whom Roll dubs the “working poor,” who are “barely above the income guidelines (so) we’re not able to help them.”
Smith said the Coalition for People in Need encountered many older residents who have been hit by the tough economic times. She said they are living on fixed incomes, sometimes $500 a month that are not keeping pace with their expenses, which often include rent.
“CPN is especially worried for adult persons living on small fixed incomes whose daily needs have been hit hard by the increases in water, heating, food, medicines, auto costs,” Smith said. “I am concerned about how they are staying warm and if they have enough to eat.“
The association is primarily funded by seven local churches and supported from time to time by others. Smith said the association was formed by churches as a way to pool their community outreach funds.
Mattoon PADS director John Heldman said the generosity of the community helps the community homeless shelter as much as government grants.
“Community support is vital to what we do,” said Heldman. “We have people come to our doors and say ’I’ve got some stuff for you.’“
It might be clothing, food, tooth brushes, soap, sheets and towels. The linen shelves show the donor effect with a multi-colored collection.
But the concern is whether that will be enough to get the shelter through harder times. The shelter will receive $30,000 less in funding from state agencies, Heldman said. But the need for the shelter will not go down, he predicted.
“Certainly, we will have more overnight stays and meals being served. But it is hard to predict because some go off the map for social services,” Heldman said.
Salvation Army Captain Matt Osborn in Mattoon said there is no way to predict how much will be lost from government or private sources for utility and shelter assistance as the economy goes into a downward spiral. One cut already occurred with the loss of a $10,000 federal grant this fall. But that was a new funding source for the Coles and Cumberland counties Salvation Army program during the 2007-08 fiscal year, which ends in October of each year.
Other Salvation Army funding sources include the Illinois Department of Human Services, United Way of Coles County and the Mattoon Area Ministerial Association.
But the big concern is how the Christmas fund drive will go this year, Osborn said. The goal is $135,000 from bell ringing stations and other donations.
“Government monies are always up in the air. They are competitive, too. I feel the smaller rural communities are not up on that list. And with the economy slipping people don’t have the resources they did to help out. With what happened with the stock market some of our major donors might not be able to help like they have before. So we’re quite concerned with our funding from all sources,” said Osborn.
That funding helps pay for electricity, natural gas and water bills when applicants need short-term assistance. The shelter assistance might come in the form of an overnight stay in a motel or assistance with rent or mortgage payments, limited to two per year per client. The shelter and utility assistance spending accounts for 80 percent of the local Salvation Army’s social services budget.
Osborn said many people seeking aid from Salvation Army are facing crisis from job cuts or evictions. And serving them is not a matter of choice for charities. It can be a matter of life or death this winter for some homeless people with nowhere else to go.
“We have people come in who have slept the night before in abandoned buildings or in their old car. PADS has been great but they can only help so many. We’re not set up as a shelter here but we might consider setting up cots in the gymnasium,” Osborn said.
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