Goods, Clothing, Toys Distributed to Shelters : Resource Bank Pays Dividends for Homeless

When 16 mattresses were dropped off at the Upper Central Friendship House near downtown Los Angeles late last week, it meant that the newly expanded shelter for families with children could open sooner, director Mary Thompson said, “before the bad rains.”

When 30 teddy bears were delivered to the Pasadena-Foothill Valley YWCA’s Hestia shelter for women and children, it meant that mothers with no money to buy toys would have something to give their children for Christmas, assistant director Pat Florek said.

And it meant a lot when sweat shirts, T-shirts and running suits were given to Los Angeles Men’s Place, a program for mentally ill men on Skid Row. “The clothes we get are often very used. We never get new stuff,” said director Mollie Lowery.

The donations to these shelters were gathered by the Shelter Resource Bank, a project started in July to supply goods to 150 homeless shelters around Los Angeles County.

So far the bank has collected about $400,000 worth of new furniture, clothing and other supplies from 31 contributors and has distributed them to 65 shelters, said Ruth Schwartz, director of the Shelter Partnership, which administers the bank.

The Resource Bank is sponsored by the city and county, she said, and operates under a $250,000 grant from the Gannett Foundation.

Financial Needs

Groups such as Shelter Partnership--a nonprofit organization that works to increase housing and services for the homeless--have long felt the need for a shelter resource bank, Schwartz said. “There was no central agency to be the contact between the needs of the shelters and private donors,” she said.

In addition, many shelters are in dire financial straits, said Kris Ockershauser, the group’s product donations manager. “We surveyed the shelters in the county and found up to half of them considered closing due to inadequate financing. Shelters are funded primarily by individual donations. We decided to see if we could supplement the funding base of the shelters by adding donated resources acquired from businesses.”

Project staffers try to make their organization known to businesses by contacting chambers of commerce and placing notices in trade journals, Schwartz said.

The shelters provide lists of what they need. About five months ago, for example, the Upper Central Friendship House asked for mattresses after deciding to add at least 15 new beds. For the last four years, Friendship House has been sheltering 15 men, women and children nightly, and feeding about 100 people daily.

The shelter, just west of downtown on the grounds of the 103-year-old Second Baptist Church, the oldest Baptist church in the city, is “strapped” for money, Thompson said.

With a budget of $40,000 a year, and much of that from the church, Thompson said, “There isn’t much money for equipment, like buying mattresses.” Without the help of the Resource Bank in obtaining the bedding, Thompson said, it would have taken another two months to open. The donor, Ortho Mattress Inc., estimated that the bedding was worth $2,300.

The Shelter Resource Bank has many more requests from shelters than it can fill, Ockershauser said: “We could use 700 to 1,000 beds over the next six months and we don’t have them. We estimate shelters end up buying $250,000 worth of diapers every year. And sheets, linens and towels are in terrific demand. They have an ongoing high need for those.”