Guests, volunteers, and staff working to keep city and state services

The city and state budget crises continue as budgets are being set for 2009. The impacts on people living in poverty, children, elders, and disabled people are projected to leave many without needed supports and services. In many cases, these services were inadequate to meet needs prior to cuts.
We have been working with guests, donors, and volunteers to find ways to advocate for community priorities to improve the lives of more vulnerable community members.

This week in the news:
SF Chronicle article with guests working for changes in the community
-We found out yesterday that this advocacy was effective, that the Central City Hospitality House Tenderloin Self-Help Center was restored funding. This center works with many Welcome Ministry community members to also help with getting IDs in ways different than the Welcome Ministry is able to help, so we refer people to each other when needed. TSHC is also helpful to guests in drop in space, art studio and lessons, support groups, a shelter, shelter sign-up for the city, and many other needed community-led supportive spaces.

We are continuing to work with neighboring services that are still scheduled to be cut, however, including:
-Caduceus Outreach Services
-Mission Neighborhood Resource Center- many Welcome Ministry guests use this is a primary place to shower and wash laundry. There are few other resources for these needs.
-Ozanam Detox
-MAP van- this provides safe rides to shelters from community services, medical services, and shelter sign-up. They also provide transportation for people who are intoxicated and need safe transportation to community resources. We call MAP vans an average of twice a week for guests.
-SRO collaboratives- in San Francisco, this is a main way that homeless people move indoors and work together to improve the quality of hotel housing.
-Daytime access for shelters- without this, people must wait outside or at other public places during the daytime, even when ill, tired, or unsafe.
-Support Housing Employment Collaborative
-Supportive Housing Programs- for people who are needing help to maintain healthy living after moving inside, supportive housing provides mental health and physical help to remain housed. Many who receive these services will not be able to maintain housing without it.
-Mental health and substance abuse programs- currently people must wait 1-2 months to enter substance abuse programs after initializing contact, by which time many people have de-stabilized and are no longer able to enter. People are also waiting months to get ongoing mental health services as is. With cuts in funding, these services will not be accessible to many community members.
-Many more!


What can we do?
-Attend Board of Supervisors Budget Hearing on Monday June 22-
-4pm rally at Tenderloin Self-Help Center, 290 Turk Street
-5pm City Hall, Board of Supervisors chambers

-Call the Mayor's Office 415-554-6141
-Thank mayor for changes to budget including reinstating Tenderloin Self-Help Center
-Ask that other critical services for people living in poverty to be reinstated

-Keep informed about ongoing budget changes, and respond accordingly

-On the state level, California Disability Community Action Network offers great updates and actions to take

Have other resources on politics or ideas for changes?
Feel free to comment.

Video from trip to Philadelphia

Celebrate our identity crisis!

In 2008 the Welcome Ministry started a new program called the Homeless Identification Project. We discovered that lack of identification was a barrier that prevented our chronically homeless and hungry guests from accessing the crucial support they needed from government, health and social service organizations.

With a substantial support from Wheat Ridge Ministries, the Welcome Ministry set out to help 150 people obtain their identification. In 2008 we got 340 and already we helped with 149 in 2009. We have not only exceeded our goal, but we also helped a substantial majority of our homeless friends to move indoors.

So today I am proud to announce that the Welcome Ministry has an identity crisis. It no longer makes sense to call ourselves a homeless ministry. Our board will be meeting soon to talk about what our new identity will be.

We continue to offer support to our community, to listen for the small things we can do to a miraculous difference in the lives of those living in poverty and to teach people the skills they need to live independently as a full member of the community. And as we begin our new community gardening and cooking program, we are starting to reach beyond our community in to spark an Urban Sharing movement that we hope inspires communities across the country to share their resources in this vital time.

Today I invite you will join me in celebrating the Welcome Ministry’s identity crises. The Welcome Ministry no longer primarily serve the homeless. Thanks be to God!

Rev. Megan Rohrer

Director

P.S. The Welcome Ministry is unlike other organizations that celebrate low administrative costs. We believe that all the resources we need are out there and find that people will share them when we they know what we need. We strive to get all our supplies and food donated. Your financial support enables us to spend less time fundraising and more time helping people help themselves. Donate Online

How to respond to panhandling?

When someone asks you for a dollar on the sidewalk, do you ever wonder what would be the most effective way to help?

Born out of a series of meetings between faith groups, businesses and local residents of the Polk Gulch District, the Welcome Ministry listens deeply to the needs of those living in poverty, the community and city government. Our programs not only fill in the gaps between what the city and other organizations provide, but focus on the crucial barriers that prevent people from improving their quality of life.

For example, when the Welcome Ministry learned that lack of identification was preventing hundreds of homeless individuals from gaining access to city and organizational resources, we developed the Homeless Identification Project. As a result organizations with ten times the budget of the Welcome Ministry began referring their clients to us. While helping 224 people obtain their birth certificate and 121 obtain state issued identification may not seem like much, the program enabled more than 155 individuals obtain housing in 2008.

This year, the Welcome Ministry is creating two crucial new programs. As we began to help our formerly homeless guests move indoors, we learned that their new homes do not have proper cooking facilities. Instead of giving out food like a typical food pantry, with an assumption that individuals have a way to cook groceries, the Urban Food Share Program will provide pre-cooked take home meals, opportunities for communal cooking and gardening and health and
nutrition classes.

But the needs of those living in poverty go beyond food and shelter, many of our guests have trauma from military service, domestic or childhood abuse, violence or as a result of years living on the streets. Stress and anxiety from trauma can be debilitating. Classes and direct one-on-one care will enable many of the most vulnerable in our community to cope with or heal from the trauma that prevents them from improving their quality of life.

If you are like the Welcome Ministry, and you want to invest in small changes that can make a big difference in addressing the root causes of homelessness, please join our unique community of San Franciscans responding to homelessness, one person, one sidewalk, one city at a time.

Support the Welcome Ministry

Begging Letter

April 13, 2009

Friend of the Welcome Ministry

I woke up to yelling and a women gesturing with a knife. It was my first night in the women's shelter, and the cook wanted to let us know how grateful we should be that she was making our breakfast. The next morning she woke us up at five to let us know she would not be waking us up for another hour. When I told her I was allergic to dairy, she told me she had to put cheese in the eggs, or they would turn green.

After spending this last week on the streets and in the shelter, I experienced the abuse that is inflicted on others through lack of voice and choice. My nights in the women's shelter reminded me of life living with an abusive parent who praises or punishes in volatile way that kept me wondering at all times what the rules were. It turns out that the rules were whatever those with power said they were. I found myself growing passive and unable to advocate for my own needs (those who know me will tell you how unlike me this is). I also found myself jumping in front of a swinging cane to prevent a man from hitting a woman. After he left she remarked: "He thinks I'm his girlfriend, but really I'm his punching bag." Then I remembered that human nature sometimes makes it easier for us to care for others.

The Welcome Ministry is designed to be an antidote to the experience that many hungry and homeless individuals live with day to day. After living on the streets for a week, I am convinced that the Welcome Ministry offers our friends is unmatched by other service agencies in the city. We listen more than we speak, we center our programs around community and work with our guests to increase the number of choices they have. When their voices are not being heard, we advocate for them whilealso teaching them to advocate for themselves. And at the same time we are able to help our guests acheive their goals. Last year 155 of our guests were able to move indoors.

You can read about my reflections on the streets at: http://mystreetretreat.blogspot.com

Now that I am back in the comforts and privilege of my work at the Welcome Ministry, I am excited to work on creating ways that we can help our friends take care of their bodies and in encouraging them to exercise choice and strength in their voice.

Our work includes helping our friends heal from post traumatic stress disorder and learn more about life skills and health. Later this year we will begin to provide worship that is designed for their particular mental health and addiction needs and a media story telling project that will connect guests to their family.

Please support this work with your time, talents and treasures. The more financial support you offer the Welcome Ministry, the more time I will have to share my learnings from the street with faith groups, organizations and politicians. And more importantly, the more time I will have to give one on one support to help our guests improve their quality of life.

I beg you to send a gift of $77, $770 or $7000 to the Welcome Ministry in honor of my 7th street retreat.

Humbly yours,

Rev. Megan Rohrer
Director

P.S. Your gift to the Welcome Ministry allows the homeless to improve their quality of life without losing their dignity!

New Contact Information!

The Welcome Ministry phone numbers are changing, effective immediately:

To reach Pastor Megan Rohrer or Pastor Jay Wilson, call us at 1-866-999-3596
Pastor Megan is at extension 501, Pastor Jay at extension 502 (the outgoing message will tell you this as well)
Fax and E-mail remain the same.

Why are we changing our phone numbers?
-To save lots of money so that we can spend more on meeting guest needs
-So that our guests (and everyone else) can call us toll free
-To improve our phone service, which had difficulties when using cell phones in our offices
-To make sure we don't miss any messages, because they'll come to our E-mails as well
-To give people more ways to reach us- you can also find us on Skype at 925-348-9344 under the screenname "mmrohrer" (don't be fooled- we're both at that name)
-To help us set better boundaries about when we're available to take calls and when we're not

Let us know if you have any difficulties reaching us, so that we can fix any potential problems. Our E-mails remain the best way to reach us:
Pastor Megan: megan@welcomeministry.org
Pastor Jay: jay@welcomeministry.org

Work Featured by HRC

Profile in Ministry: Expanding the Definition of an LGBT Advocate

Photograph by Gabriela Hasbun.

Rev. Megan Rohrer was recently featured in the exhibit, Polk Street: Lives in Transition, that explores San Francisco’s Polk Gulch neighborhood from the 1960s to the present. Examining the historic changes that have occurred in this famous community, the exhibit asks tough questions about the ways gentrification challenges lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender hospitality. It asks us to think about what it means to welcome LGBT people? Does economic disparity narrow our sense of welcome? When we advocate for the LGBT community can our vision incorporate a spectrum that includes sex workers, homeless seniors and runaway youth? What are the intersections with our work for LGBT justice and the work of building and sustaining healthy communities where all can prosper?

One of the participants in this project, Rev. Megan Rohrer, challenges us to think about our communities in just such ways. Megan first came out as a lesbian (later she would identify as gender queer) at 18 in South Dakota and discovered at the same time that she wanted to be a pastor. While leaving the overt homophobia of South Dakota for seminary at the Pacific School of Religion and the progressive community of Berkeley, Calif., she still felt a sense of alienation—this time because of class--among the affluent neighborhoods in the Berkeley hills. She eventually found her way to what would become her true calling, ministering to the homeless through the Welcome Ministry program at Old First Presbyterian Church in San Francisco.

The people Megan ministers to range in age from teenagers to senior citizens and are largely sex workers, transgender people, gays and lesbians –many of them from small towns across the country--who came to San Francisco to escape persecution and judgment. Although they may not identify on paper as LGBT, Megan recognizes many commonalities. Like her, many came from across the country to San Francisco--the Mecca for LGBT folks--only to discover that hundreds of thousands of other people had made that same choice. As Megan describes:

They didn’t have any family connections to help them out, and everybody knows rent is so expensive in this town that, the only thing that was left for them was sex work. As the gay community--as the richer gay community--moved towards the Castro, the less wealthy gay community stayed here, and a lot of the sex workers who worked along Polk Street continued to stay here because they always would have people who would bring them food, here. . . . and they knew, as long as they stayed in this neighborhood, even if they weren’t pretty enough anymore to be sex workers, people would take care of them.

In the spirit of Jesus who also spent much of his time among sex workers, Megan’s ministry has sought to build community among the most marginalized and in the process to expand our vision of what community and LGBT advocacy can mean. As we work to build support in Congress for hate crimes legislation and the Employment Non-Discrimination Act during an economic crisis when job discrimination and violence is escalating, we are reminded that it is the most marginalized in our communities that suffer first and are hit the worst. Megan’s ministry models for us what it means to build truly inclusive community that can sustain all of us.

To follow Megan’s ministry, read her blog: http://mystreetretreat.blogspot.com/. Also, check out her contribution as a writer for HRC’s Out In Season, a seasonal preaching and devotional resources written from a transgender perspective.

To learn about the other stories from Polk Street, check out the exhibit Polk Street: Lives in Transition. If you live in the Bay area or are traveling to San Francisco any time before May 31, 2009 you can view the exhibit at the GLBT Historical Society, 657 Mission Street, #300. Visit their website to learn about more community events and future developments of this important project.

See: http://www.hrc.org/issues/religion/12189.htm