This is from last Wednesday, but I can’t get it out of my mind. Too many needs, so don’t tell anyone we can help them? Sounds harsh. But what else are agencies supposed to do, if you spend all your time turning people away, you have less time to help those that you can. I don’t have any good answers, except we just keep talking to people to see if there is anything else we can do to help them beyond what they are asking for. Still, its takes a lot of time . . . and patience . . . and then the other needs pile up.
This was sent to the Homeless Services Consortium
Dear Consortium Friends:
Middleton Outreach Ministry has been serving the Middleton/ Cross Plains area, including limited addresses in west Madison for many years. Our primary aim is to prevent families that are living in poverty from going hungry and /or losing stable housing.
Unfortunately, we are not able to provide emergency lodging funds to the vast numbers of persons that call daily to request hotel/ motel vouchers. Over the past several months, the request for these vouchers has increased significantly with most callers indicating they were referred by partner agencies.
We regret that we are unable to help all these deserving people, but sadly must ask our partner agencies to remove MOM from any list you may distribute, that suggests that we will provide emergency lodging. Our housing assistance covers eviction prevention and security deposit assistance only, for registered MOM clients who live within or have been confirmed as moving into our service area.
Thank you.
So, they do provide this assistance to some, it seems wrong not to tell people about it. But we also don’t want to waste people’s time looking for resources that aren’t there. What to do?
p.s. You could probably remove “Middleton Outreach Ministry” and insert any of many non-profits experiencing this same problem.
