EMMAUS MISSION CENTER

We seek to raise the poor out of poverty by providing job-skill training, education and access to food, clothing and shelter. In addition, we work to increase community awareness of the needs of the poor so that they will gain self-esteem, become self-reliant and live a wholesome life.

Establishing links with local media and legislators to help to raise public awareness of the needs of the poor. It is important to educate people on the various issues that cause homelessness, and the potential solutions.

Seeking and securing human, financial and material resources. This ensures that our programs continue to operate and that the very mission of our organization can be carried out effectively.

Planning, establishing and implementing programs to address specific human needs. Doing so allows us to tackle homelessness and hunger in very specific ways and helps to create a safety net in an attempt to prevent people falling too deeply into poverty.

Networking with private and government agencies to secure resources and cooperation in programs. It is important to create links with agencies that make decisions that affect the clients that we serve. We have to be able to advocate for our clients who may feel disassociated from the governmental decision making process.

Goal setting, life-skills education and resource management training is provided to our homeless shelter clients in an effort to assist them in re-establishing themselves in a new home after their stay in shelter care. This program will be expanded to serve our food pantry clients with the establishment of a resource and education center within our newly acquired property.

The Rapid Re-Housing funds we currently receive allow us to move a higher percentage of people into permanent housing. The life skills education that we provide, in coordination with a housing plan, will potentially increase the percentage of our clients who acquire permanent housing. Working with local landlords who have housed previous shelter residents, and understand the situations they may face, can allow for some leniency in the tenant-landlord relationship as people begin to re-establish themselves in their local surroundings. We continue to foster relationships with local subsidized and non-subsidized housing complexes and with local landlords to assist clients with their transition into permanent housing.

Our thrift store provides free and low-cost clothing, furniture, bedding and appliances to anyone who is in need. Clients who leave our program to move to permanent housing are given a “startup" set of household items from our store at no cost.

Through partnerships created by Food Finders and Food Rescue, Inc. we have established a network of local stores from which we collect donations of food for our food pantry on a regular basis. We also receive donations of food from local farmers, Tyson Foods, local trucking companies and our benevolent general public.

Networking with other local agencies through the Cass County Resource Network, and within a five county region through the Regional Planning Council, allows us to consider a range of factors that affect poverty and gives us connections with organizations that may be able to help offer solutions.

We refer clients to the Area Five Agency on Aging & Community Services and to the Cass County Division of Family Resources, for assistance with TANF, Medicare, Medicaid, Food Stamps and WIC. Referrals are also made to Area Five for assistance with SSI and SSDI related issues as well as to their HeadStart program.

We persist in our attempts to support our local mental health facility in applying for funding opportunities, including Grants for the Benefit of Homeless Individuals, Projects for Assistance in Transition from Homelessness, and Services in Supportive Housing Grants.

Our recent progress has shown that, in 2019, 59% of our clients exited to a positive housing destination. Based upon the state of Indiana's expectations for emergency shelters, this value exceeds their previously recommended value of 55%.

A lack of affordable housing is a major barrier to overcome when attempting to rehouse and stabilize our shelter clients. Establishing links with local landlords has been a critical factor in our ability to find our clients permanent housing.

In 2019, 52% of our clients either gained, retained or increased their income.

A client's background, particularly if they include drug offenses, can create a huge barrier for employment. Advocating for the skills and abilities of our clients and creating linkages with local employers has helped to increase our rate at which clients increase or maintain their income. Transportation to and from work is often an issue and we provide travel on our local transit as well as taxi fare for clients when necessary.

Through Indiana state funding we have been allocated $100,000 to provide rental assistance to those who have lost income due to the coronavirus pandemic, to allow them to stay in their homes.

Although there are no state expectations for our food pantry, we are seeing an annual increase in the number of families and individuals asking for assistance with food. We opened our new food pantry in January of 2020, encouraging the local network of organizations and agencies that provide beneficial services in our area to distribute information to our clients on-site. Due to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic we were forced to switch our services to a drive-through model to allow us to continue our feeding program. Upon doing so we tripled the number of times per month that pantry clients are able to access food from our facility.

We have established strong links with Tyson Foods and Prairie Farms to allow for the distribution of large volumes of meat and dairy products. In the year since becoming a Tyson Foods Community Partner we have distributed close to 250,000 pounds of Tyson product, not only to our local community but also to 37 other food pantries in counties surrounding ours.

It is important for our organization to strengthen our links with government entities and legislators to be effective advocates for the clients that we serve. This is an area in which we need to continually improve and evolve to keep up with the ever-changing political environment and ensure that we are continually educated on upcoming decisions that will directly affect our clients and the low-income population in general.