Oh, you may not notice it until this fall, but there will be more out there. And you can thank our finely-run, caring and compassionate state government..
As expected, the governor's office announced it wasn't renewing the state's $52,000 grant for the TIMES Center. As a result; jobs will be cut, services will be cut, hours will be cut, and ultimately, some homeless men will NOT be able to pull themselves up and back into productive society.
Because that's what the TIMES Center is really all about. Sure, it appears that all the center does is provide free food and a warm place to sleep for the homeless. It does do that. But there's much more.
What people almost never see is the work the people at the center do with the men there; the job training, the life-skills training, the money-management training, the educational training. The personal and mental health counseling. A lot of very dedicated people do a lot of work trying to help men who have fallen through the cracks of our society climb back through those cracks and rejoin society.
Don't dismiss the homeless with a cynical cry of 'get a job.' Many HAVE jobs. More WANT jobs. Most do not want to be homeless. But you try to get an apartment (security deposit, rent, first and last month's rent,.minimal furnishings, power deposit...) on minimum wage or on day-laborer's wages. You try starting with nothing and establish credit, get a bank account, transportation to and from work, and then put food on the table and a roof over your head.
It's not easy. And if you have no knowledge of how to even start the process, then you've got a problem. That's where the TIMES Center comes in. It's not just a shelter for the homeless; in fact, it really ISN'T a center for homeless. It's a center to break the homeless cycle.
It really needed that $52,000. Yes it gets funding from local governments. Yes it gets funding from local churches. Yes it gets funding from civic groups. And yes, it needs that state grant.
From a News-Gazette article last month:
The TIMES Center was developed in cooperation with the community, and a new facility was opened in February 2000 with a combination of federal, state, local and private dollars, she said.
On average, the TIMES CENTER houses 50 men a night, and it served 50,000 meals last year, Lewis said.
´Obviously the Mental Health Center has underwritten this program already because it serves a critical need for the community,´ [Rep. Tim Johnson spokesman Phil] Bloomer said. ´They are maxed out now in what they can provide. This is just going to put more people on the street.´
And from Friday's News-Gazette:
For all of those reasons, the TIMES Center has reduced its hours of operation as of July 1, Ferguson [Sheila Ferguson, chief operating officer for the Mental Health Center] said.
"We close at 8 a.m., we reopen for lunch and we close for the afternoon and reopen at around 5:30 p.m.," she said. "When we close, we are still providing our group services, our case management referral and linkage, so individuals at the TIMES Center who are participating in those services will continue to participate in them."
Toward the middle of this month, the center's eight and a half employees will be reduced to just six, with the goal in mind of maintaining the 50 beds it currently offers to the homeless, Ferguson said.
"We're continuing to work with DCEO, and as of today we are continuing to see if there are ways we can continue to provide our services," she said.
There are tough times ahead for the TIMES Center. It already provides a meal and a warm place to sleep for 50 men a night. During the winter, the shelter sends its overflow to an auxiliary shelter run by the first Presbyterian Church of Champaign. An average of 5-10 men per night.
No one's really sure what the impact on the community will be because of the loss of this funding. But it can't be good.
Ferguson said those seeking information on how to help the TIMES Center can call 398-8080.
And so it goes.
3 comments:
I'm sure glad Rep. Jakobsson secured that $200,000 grant for a meth rehab facility. Clearly, that was the most pressing need in Champaign-Urbana.
You know, it does kinda piss me off to have to agree with you, IlliniPundit, but I think although the meth clinic's needed, the TIMES Center is more valuable to C-U.
Still, I don't think we can blame the entire budget screwup on Naomi. She's just one vote, and her choice pretty much was vote for the Democraptic Budget and get something (any bone that's offered) or vote against and get nothing, Including no Madigan campaign dollars. Like it or not, that's the way the system works in Illinois. On both sides of the aisle. Her vote, unfortunately, didn't tip the scales.
p.s. You're back on my blog roll, which means that 2 more people a month will see it. (HE is back, too...).
I think the TIMES Center does provide a needed service, however while I served as a Human Relations Commissioner for the City of Champaign I was investigating charges of discrimination and corruption alleged at that place. I was then promptly not renewed when my term expired for those aforementioned reasons. Perhaps the TIMES Center administration is responsible for this loss of a grant, as from what I knew previously wouldn't surprise me if that was the case.
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