Crying Out

“We would like to care for our own people. We hope that enlightened and progressive people throughout the area will see that they can help in places other than Skid Row,” says Bill Doulos, who directs a food and shelter program for six Pasadena area churches. They see their work as redemptive in the broad sense of the word.

Just up the street from Pasadena City Hall is the Union Station Hospitality Center, where 200 people regularly have meals and receive counseling and friendship during the day. At night 20 people are housed in the basement of the First Congregational Church at a shelter called the Depot. As Doulos describes the shelter program, it is “consciously rehabilitative,” seeking to provide job counseling and assistance with access to the welfare system for people who have lost their jobs, been kicked out of their families or can’t afford an apartment.

Six churches have joined as primary sponsors--All Saints Episcopal, First Baptist, First Congregational, First United Methodist, Pasadena Presbyterian and St. Andrew’s Catholic Church. Thirty other area churches contribute volunteers, food or money to the operation. The Depot is seeking a permanent home on S. Raymond Street, and has received a city permit that still faces a challenge in Superior Court. The sooner the problems can be resolved amicably, the sooner Pasadena can help minister to the needs of its poor, which, as Depot founders say, “continue to cry out for recognition.”