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January, 2008
Chaplain Dave Goodall
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Chats with the Chaplain
What a month! After we made the decision to raise the funds needed to replace those withdrawn by Maui Giving for Justa Center, we have raised about $200,000.00, which includes a grant from the Arizona Area Agency on Aging for $100,000.00. Our landlord cut our rent to less than half. Thank you Mr. Winslow. The pledges and contributions continue to come in. Our dilemma was featured in a Channel 3 story that has engendered a lot of response and support. You can see the news story here: http://www.azfamily.com/video/storytellers-index.html?nvid=202890. Does this mean our needs for Justa have been met? Of course it does not. Because Justa Center is a facility helping a hundred or more homeless each day, it is always going to be expensive to run, but there is a pattern developing of people and agencies recognizing the need we are filling and the success we are having with a growing, and otherwise neglected, population. I have every reason to believe we are developing a separate group of supporters whose interest is in helping homeless seniors and who have found us. These, in concert with those who have supported ECH in our efforts to provide identification, recognize that we fill two major gaps in the services provided to the homeless that NO ONE else addresses. They also recognize the success we are having in ending homelessness, one person at a time, for hundreds.
That said, we continue to be busy at both addresses. On top of that, we are going to have to come to grips with another group of problem documents related to legal immigration. Replacement immigration and naturalization documents are prohibitively expensive. $380.00 EACH. The Department of Homeland Security has refused to waive the fees for indigents. These are people here legally and naturalized citizens, as many of our forebears were. Like those who can't get their birth certificates, they are denied ID's and every kind of assistance. Of course, they can't work legally, either, without ID's. I get an average of one request each week for that assistance and have been turning them down. They have nowhere else to turn, and I would like to begin helping them, particularly where families with children are involved. That is going to require more money, probably $1000.00 per month, or more. We will need your help to make that happen.
December means Christmas, and the Lodestar Day Resource Center, where ECH's offices are located, celebrated in style with a party for 700 homeless. Among the gifts given were 200 hygiene kits collected and assembled by a young man in Cave Creek as part of his Eagle Scout project. They filled my truck to the top. Our staff and volunteers participated in the festivities. The Chaplain helped judge the talent contest, which is part of a story.
A young man came into our office about 10 days before Christmas looking for an ID. I was going to need help to get his birth certificate and finally, after some reluctance, got some information about his family. I located his parents' home and left a voicemail with my cell number, as it was a Friday and the office would be closed until Monday. That night, after 10:00pm, I got a call from his mother. They had been looking for him for over 5 years with no success. His reluctance to contact his family was only that he didn't want them to know he had troubles he was unable to deal with, in an unfortunate series of events that left him homeless and unemployed. He kept thinking he could pull himself out of the hole he'd fallen into. He was a church going, choir singing young man who didn't drink or do drugs. His mistake was to trust someone who was unworthy and he lost everything.
I told his mother that I expected him to check with me Monday to see if I had heard anything. As he was living on the street, I had no way to contact him. Monday came and went, as did most of the week, with the inevitable call from his distraught parents that broke their hearts again each night. The best hope I had was the Christmas party. Everyone knew there would be gifts and prizes, dancing and karaoke. I hoped he would come. Then, while I was judging the contest, he showed up on the other side of the room. I recruited a replacement judge, got him into my office, called his parents, and got him on a bus to home. He got home before Christmas and sang in the church choir Christmas Eve. I got a call from him and his family Christmas Day. It made my Christmas very special.
So many of the stories that happen at ECH and Justa Center are perhaps not as dramatic, but for the men, women and children involved, they are life changing and life saving. Those of us who do the work, Rev. Scott Ritchey and his dedicated staff at Justa Center, and I and the staff and volunteers in the ECH offices, get to witness these kinds of stories every day. They keep us renewed in our resolve to end homelessness one person at a time. Obviously, we need and hope for your continued support to do so. Please visit our web site, www.ashomeless.org to find out how you can help. We also hope that if you have received this newsletter you will forward it to friends and family who might be interested in the problem of homelessness. If this has been forwarded to you, won't you please pass it on and visit our web site, www.azhomeless.org to subscribe to future issues.
God bless you all,
Chaplain Dave Goodall
Ecumenical Chaplaincy for the Homeless
1125 W. Jackson St.
Phoenix AZ 85007
Phone: 602-417-9853 - Fax: 602-258-2675
Website: www.azhomeless.org
E-mail: chaplaindave@azhomeless.org