Recession shifts those in need

Shannon Santos has learned not to presume too much about people when they walk through the door of Someone Cares Soup Kitchen.

Santos, the executive director of the Westside nonprofit, sees many people needing food every day — and often, a few more well-off neighbors looking to volunteer. Lately, though, she’s found it harder to distinguish between the two.

“We’re seeing a whole new type of person that’s coming to the soup kitchen,” Santos said. “It’s amazing. Oftentimes, because we’re a volunteer organization, when people walk through the front door, I’ll be approaching them to tell them about the volunteer opportunities, when, actually, they’re coming here to eat.”

The population seeking assistance from Newport-Mesa’s nonprofits has changed — and grown — in the last year as the economy has sagged. With so many residents out of work, many charities have seen a surge in people stopping by to volunteer. When it comes to meeting clients’ needs, though, pickings are frequently more scarce.

A lot of Someone Cares’ longtime supporters, who used to donate $100 or more per month, have reduced their allotment to $50 or $25, Santos said. Meanwhile, she said, the number of people passing through the serving line is up 23% from last year.

At the Orange Coast Interfaith Shelter nearby, money got so tight that the shelter’s operators had to shut down their emergency program — which provided free food and shelter to families for 30 days or less — in July. The shelter retains only its transitional living program, which charges residents a small fee for up to two years.

Martha Tillman, the shelter’s emergency services program coordinator and case manager, said she has seen an influx of out-of-work people stopping by to volunteer. The added support helps, she said, but the shelter still needs monetary donations for child care and other services.

At the same time, Tillman has seen a more unexpected effect of the recession: fewer tenants opting to stay at the shelter, and more finding a place with family members.

“We have callers, and they end up not coming,” she said. “We follow up, and they say, ‘My aunt said we could stay with her.’ It seems like families are really pulling together during this time of downturn in the economy.”

The recession also came as a jolt to Aviva Goelman, executive director of the Costa Mesa Senior Center. Since she took the helm nine years ago, she said, the nonprofit center has always finished in the black, but this year, she expects it to finish $100,000 in the red.

The center’s Senior Lunch Box program, which provides free food to low-income seniors, operates on city Community Development Block Grant funds, which dropped to $8,000 from $12,000 last year. Goelman and her staff cover most other expenses through grants, donations and fundraisers, though all three have been in short supply the last few months. The center hosted three cooking demonstrations to raise money, Goelman said, and each one barely broke even.

“We used to do Monte Carlo night, art shows,” she said. “Everything we’re trying lately, people are just not spending the money.”