You ’ ve been in the job now for about six months . What were your immediate goals for the nonprofit , and what are some longer-term plans ?
My immediate goal was to make sure I understood the lay of the land : Who have been the supporters of Saint John ’ s in the community , who our partners are , who all of our board members are , who our donors are and why they support Saint John ’ s . … My other goal was to create a plan for fiscal sustainability . ( In terms of fiscal sustainability ), we are on pretty solid footing . I ’ ve understood and lined up what kind of contracts we have that are renewable , either foundational contracts or government contracts . I ’ ve also executed a staffing plan . We ’ re just starting to look at how our fundraising goals need to meet the gap between the funding that we already receive and the funding we need to produce our programs . … I ’ m looking at what other social-enterprise models might make sense for Saint John ’ s and those that would create both vocational training for women as well as revenuegenerating opportunities .
Saint John ’ s work is made possible by the involvement of volunteers . How has the pandemic affected their involvement ?
We have over 400 volunteers that help us support the organization , and we ’ ve had to cut that down to less than probably two dozen ( for safety reasons ). … We ’ ve had to do less because of it . For instance , some of our programming that we ’ ve offered on the weekends ( such as yoga ) we ’ re not offering right now because volunteers would run a lot of our enrichment programs . We ’ re hoping we can get to a place where it ’ s safe to bring volunteers back again so we can expand to provide and deliver the things we had .
I think CEOs and other business leaders would benefit by really learning about some of the root causes of homelessness and become part of our think tank and solutions .
How many women and children do you currently serve , and what is your capacity ?
We have 240 beds , and right now we ’ re probably at about 70 percent capacity . ( The reason ) we ’ re not completely full is because we have done a much slower intake than in the past because of the quarantine process . We may have like 10 women leaving the program in one week , but then we ’ re only bringing in two . We have to stage them , and we put them in a quarantine area , and we watch them , and so it ’ s a slower introduction to coming in .
Saint John ’ s is a comprehensive residential program that addresses the root causes and symptoms of homelessness ( and houses people for up to 18 months ). How does the organization ’ s model differ from other strategies to address homelessness ?
We take our residents to cross the finish line . There are a lot of wonderful programs in the region . ( Some ) are emergency shelters that are needed right now . Some of those programs focus maybe on ( serious emotional disturbance ) recovery programs . Some of the programs are a 90-day shelter to provide immediate relief . Our program really is about taking women who have been through some of the other programs and have gotten to a position where they ’ re ready to make changes in their life . That ’ s how we ’ re different , because when homeless people come into a shelter or they ’ re seeking housing , they don ’ t necessarily want to go in the same direction as the women at Saint John ’ s . The women in Saint John ’ s make a commitment to sobriety . They make a commitment to do a very robust training program — which includes vocational training , parenting , going through a lot of mental health ( counseling ) and therapies — one , to take on their addiction and get past that , but also to heal a lot of the wounds that have been created in their past . … The women that come in our program need to be willing to take on the challenge ( to ) reinvent themselves .
Saint John ’ s provides numerous services for women and children . What are the primary services that women and children need now , and how has that changed over time ?
What we ’ re seeing a lot more of is women coming in due to domestic violence , and children are coming in out of abusive situations . The other thing is substance abuse . The rise of COVID and the shelter-in-place ( order ) and everybody ’ s ability to really interact in a way they have been able to before — also the numerous job layoffs that have occurred — have really put everybody in a very different position , and I think
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