Delaware nonprofits struggle to help others scrape by

A growing number of Delawareans in need grateful for a meal, shelter, encouraging word

By MIKE CHALMERS
The News Journal

A late-afternoon chill has settled over Newark, so it's time for Mary Jane Anthony to dig out her winter coat.

She opens the back door of her tan 1998 Oldsmobile Intrigue, parked behind Newark United Methodist Church, and rummages around.

Anthony moves pillows and blankets off the pile of possessions crammed into the back seat. Clothes, toothpaste, a lampshade. A sewing machine, even though she has no electricity. A boxed cake mix, no oven.

Finally, Anthony finds her brown coat and shows off something else pretty exciting: pink snowpants she rescued from someone's trash.

It gets cold sleeping in a car.

"I haven't slept in a bed in two years," said Anthony, 50. "Floors, couches, cars, whatever I can find."

The former certified nursing assistant needs help finding a job, finding a home and filling her prescriptions for medicine to manage her panic attacks and bipolar disorder. She has little money and little hope.

That's why she found her way Tuesday to an upstairs room in the church, where the Newark Empowerment Center has been helping people cope with the effects of Delaware's bad economy.

The center, an outreach program of the nonprofit Friendship House, is like many nonprofit social service groups in Delaware and nationwide lately: They're struggling to help a flood of people like Anthony, even as donations from individuals, corporations and philanthropic foundations have shriveled.

Charitable giving dropped almost 6 percent in inflation-adjusted dollars nationwide last year, the biggest drop in at least a half century, according to Giving USA Foundation, which tracks philanthropy nationwide. The total could drop another couple of percent this year, experts said.

About 15 to 30 people come to the Newark Empowerment Center a day, compared with just a half-dozen when it opened in March 2007, said Executive Director Bill Perkins. In all, Friendship House will serve about 6,000 people at its programs in Wilmington and Newark this year, a 40 percent increase over the past two years, Perkins said.

A report last week about philanthropy in Delaware found that nonprofits' struggles aren't always related to the recession. It found more than a third of the state's 1,000 active nonprofits operated at a loss each year from 2002 through 2007.

Sonia Sloan, a longtime fundraiser and nonprofit activist, said all agencies are struggling to serve more people with fewer resources. She sits on five nonprofit boards of directors.

"None of the boards I'm on is operating in the red, but we're all working harder," Sloan said.

One way nonprofit board members are coping with the bad economy is by writing personal letters to potential donors to explain why they should support a critical program, Sloan said.

"We all get umpteen solicitations," Sloan said. "There's nothing like a personal note that says, this is important to me and I hope you'll find it important, too."

Perkins said Friendship House isn't struggling financially because of its strong base of donors and volunteers. But its staff is struggling to cope with the crush of people seeking help.

"Our staff is stretched beyond where we ever thought we could stretch them," said Marc Marcus, who runs the Newark center. "By the grace of God, we're able to keep going."

Flexibility tested

Friendship House operates 16 church-based centers, programs, shelters and halfway houses. Most of its volunteers and its $1 million annual budget come from a network of about 100 churches and other faith groups, Perkins said.

The group takes no government grants, which Perkins says frees workers from the paperwork and rules that come with the money. It allows them to be more flexible in crafting solutions to people's problems.

Yet the whole thing came close to collapsing a year ago.

At the beginning of December 2008, Friendship House faced a deficit of $150,000. The choice was to cut services to survive or hope that donors would dig deeper into their pockets.

Perkins and the group's board of directors decided to forgo the cuts.

"Friendship House's purpose in life isn't self-perpetuation," Perkins said. "Its purpose is to do the job. If it means spending everything you have and going under, then you go under."

Donors did step up, to the tune of $250,000.

"If you do the right thing, the resources will be there," Perkins said. "It really is a walk in faith."

'Always worked two or three jobs'

At the Newark center, Anthony sits at a table and picks at a bowl of ham, turkey and stuffing left over from the previous day's lunch at Hope Dining Room in the church.

"The hardest part is people thinking you're crazy or a drug addict or an alcoholic," Anthony said. "I'm none of that. I'm a lady who got injured on the job."

Five years ago, Anthony suffered three herniated disks in her neck when she tried to catch a falling patient at a nursing home. Unable to work, she couldn't pay rent on her mobile home and moved into her car.

Anthony gets $759 a month in disability benefits from Social Security.

She's trying to take classes at Delaware Technical & Community College. Food and gas for her car eat up the rest of her money.

"It doesn't pay for a roof over my head, even if I use candlelight and don't turn on the heat," Anthony said.

Her car heater is broken. At night, she parks at a shopping center and lights candles to keep away the darkness.

The passenger door leaks, so she gets a puddle of water inside the car during heavy rain. That has led to mold and mildew.

"The sleeping-in-the-car stuff isn't me," said Anthony, whose red fingernail polish is nearly worn away. "I always worked two or three jobs."

She has applied for jobs at grocery stores, restaurants and other businesses. So far, nothing.

"I don't want to be a barmaid again," Anthony said. "I've put up with enough drunks in my life."

Behind her, another woman walks into the center. She is wearing hospital scrubs and carrying a nice purse and a set of keys. She tells Marcus she needs help paying her water bill. Others pick up a small bag of food or toiletries.

Perkins, who wears denim overalls everywhere he goes, stops by Anthony's table on his way out the door.

Perkins gives Anthony a hug and urges her to follow up with another agency to get her prescriptions.

"If the doctor gives you prescriptions, we'll pay for them," Perkins says.

At Friendship House, help and hope

One of Friendship House's most used ministries is a women's day center in the basement of the Episcopal Church of Sts. Andrew and Matthew in Wilmington.

There, women like Aneesha Jones get help with job searches, food stamps, housing, clothing or school bags for their kids.

The other day, Jones, 30, also got a renewed sense of hope.

Locked out of her apartment because of a dispute with her roommate , Jones spent Monday night wandering around Rodney Square. She was determined to resist the temptation of old bad habits, so she vowed to survive until 7:30 a.m., when the women's center would open its doors.

"I knew I'd get some peace of mind when I came in here," Jones said. "It was freezing."

About a month ago, Jones landed a seasonal job stocking shelves at a toy store in Stanton. She hoped it would last through the holidays, but she was fired when a supervisor noticed she was wearing flip-flops.

Jones didn't want to tell anyone, including the folks at Friendship House, that they're the only shoes she owns.

Lu Johnston, the center's outreach coordinator, said the recession has brought some different people to Friendship House.

"I'm seeing a lot more people who are working, more people needing help with their mortgage, more people with an education," Johnston said. "There are more people who've sat in that chair and said, 'I've never had to ask for help before.' "

Carlen McManus said she's surprised to be sitting in Johnston's chair, especially given her previous job.

McManus, 47, worked as a case manager for a nonprofit homelessness prevention program until it ran short of money and laid her off Dec. 1. Now she's struggling to pay the mortgage on the home she bought 15 years ago.

"I've got to drop my pride and do what I've got to do," McManus said.

For some, the severance pay that came with their layoff is gone, and they've been unable to find another job.

"There are people with college degrees who are washing dishes," said Genell Walls, program coordinator.

Jones and several other women come to the Wilmington center regularly to work on computer skills, polish their résumés and apply for jobs online.

"It's like a family atmosphere here," Jones said. "I don't feel like I'm begging for something."

Betty McCray first came to Friendship House about 20 years ago, "homeless and broke and nowhere to turn," she said. Now she lives in an apartment, works at a nursing home and is sober.

Yet she still stops by for a cup of coffee and to offer some encouragement to the other women.

"You never forget where you came from," said McCray, 45.

Friendship House gave Dorothy Comeger her first voucher for a food pantry 11 years ago and, when she got off the street and into an apartment, her first housewarming basket.

Comeger, 44, still needs help occasionally, like earlier this year when she lost her apartment and her job at a fast-food restaurant. She found another home and is looking for another job.

"I'm in here every day," Comeger said. "I always got encouraging words, whether I wanted to hear them or not."

Sometimes, though, the despair creeps back in, Comeger said. She begins to cry, until she gets a hug and some encouragement.

"Everybody here is a guardian angel," Comeger said, brushing away tears. "This is a good place for everyone who doesn't know where they're going."

Four years on the street

Back at the Newark center, Sandra Watson sips a cup of coffee.

Her green camouflage jacket is draped over the back of her chair. She's wearing a tan knit cap and a gray hooded sweat shirt over a red sweat shirt over a green shirt. Her fingers are stubby and her hands are deeply creased. She laughs easily.

She comes to the center to get out of the cold. Where does she live?

"On the street," she says simply.

How long?

"Four years," she said. "This is 2009, right? Yep, four years."

Where does she sleep? She won't divulge her favorite spots.

How did she become homeless?

"I got sick," she explains. "That's the best way to put it. There's a family story in there, but I'd rather leave that out."

On Thanksgiving, Watson was in her favorite spot, reading one of the mysteries or biographies she picks up at the center. A stranger and his family brought her coffee, a roast chicken and a croissant, which she had never had before.

"It was the nicest Thanksgiving I've had in the longest time," she said.

She learned later the man was a volunteer at the Newark Empowerment Center, she said.

"I want to send that man a Christmas card somehow," Watson said.