Our Impact in August

The stats from August are finally up over at wefeedpeople.com (click on the 'what we do' link). There are some interesting trends we noticed (and by interesting, I mean troubling).

After a lull in need, we saw some numbers rise sharply in August, even as "experts" are telling us the economic recession is over. For the men, women and children we serve, it's never really over, is it? Indeed, their economic--and emotional--situation is a depression.

Take Brookside Family Life Center, for example. Our women's and children's shelter saw its highest levels of women guests since March. All told, 13 women called Brookside their home in August. That number doesn't include the five children who lived with us last month.

The increase was more drastic at Crossroads, our downtown shelter for homeless men. After a year-long low of 798 overnight stays back in May, we're seeing our highest levels since the bitter cold of January: 1,460 overnight stays were reported in August. That's almost double the number we saw earlier this year.

It's not just the homeless, either. While the 409 guests our Family Services department saw is actually pretty low, the number of first-time visits--a key barometer of conditions out there--was up to 68 (from 44 in July). Our Family Services guests are those who live below the poverty line but have a roof over their heads; they are provided toiletries, money, utility assistance, food, etc.