On some Saturdays, you'll hear a symphony of crinkling plastic as you approach the Phoenix Rescue Mission. Inside the courtyard, you'd find toys, clothing, shoes, food and toiletries free for the taking and hundreds of people doing just so, shoving collected items into the provided plastic bags.
Some of the people cramming collected items into bags look like they might be a co-worker or a classmate, clean and well-dressed. One woman pulls out a cell phone to check the time before pocketing it and holding up a sweater to a child to see if it will fit.
Phoenix Rescue Mission collects these donated items and then gives them away every three months. Director of Community Relations Nicole Pena says the organization currently only houses men, but during community events like this one, she sees more people who are considered the working poor.
“Some times we see multi-generation families in the dining room and we ask about their situation,” she says. “They’re taking up five tables and all living in a two-bedroom house.”
Pena says the Phoenix Rescue Mission serves more than 200 people a day in the dining hall, where many diners are the stereotypical homeless, unkempt and scraggly. But she also sees people who clearly have jobs.
“You will see the guy in line with a long beard and his clothes are dirty, but he’ll be standing next to a guy with his two kids and he’s wearing his mechanic’s uniform,” she says.
Pena attributes the diversity to there being less work available. She says for some people, hours have been cut and there aren’t other jobs to move on or up to, so they have to find ways to make up for the loss of money.
ASU social work sophomore Derek Cooper works in the social services office of the Salvation Army in Tempe, where he's seen a definite increase in whole families needing assistance. Some just need a little extra help and come by for a food box to hold them over, he says.
“Some of these families aren’t necessarily homeless, they’ve just been displaced,” Cooper says. “They’re doubling up with other families and trying to get by that way.”
Other families, he’s found, are sleeping in cars or weekly motels, anywhere to try to save money until they can get back on their feet.
Other resources in Maricopa County echo the rise people who need their services but hold jobs. St. Vincent de Paul Family Assistance Program Coordinator Janie Perdue says the charity has been forced to turn families away because they don’t have money to offer. The family assistance program is able to provide money for rent or utilities on a one-time basis per family.
“This program is sort of a preventative measure for families who just need a little help,” she said. “We’re able to help these families with grant money, but we can’t help everyone who comes to us. Some times they don’t qualify, because if we give them the money, it’s still too late to do them any good. Other families, we just run out of money.”
Perdue says in November 2010, the program was able to assist 34 families, but did have to turn some families away.
“We can give them toiletries, meals, help them get transportation to job interviews, get them clothes or help them get set up with supplies to tide them over once they have a job,” she said. “We have housing for adult men and women, but we don’t house children.”
Perdue says there aren’t many places that are able to take whole families.
“It’s a lot easier to give an adult a mat and to tell them to sleep on the floor than it is to separate men, women and children, all while making sure everyone is safe,” she says. “Separate facilities have to be built and frankly, it’s just too expensive.”
Perdue recommends Crisis Nursery to parents if they can’t find space for families at a family shelter. But Crisis Nursery has an ever-growing wait list, and only houses children under 10. Most parents reject her suggestion, more willing to sleep on the streets than divide their families.
Crisis Nursery Communications Director Damita Curry says there is a continuous need for more resources in Phoenix for homeless people, but admits it’s especially rough for families.
“Our main goal for the people we service is to educate them so they aren’t just circling in a revolving door,” she says. “But if the resources aren’t available, any goal we have isn’t going to be completed.”
Reach the reporter at sheydt@asu.edu
