ATLANTA—Catholic churches around the archdiocese are joining diverse groups in their communities to give funds and volunteer support to shelter the homeless and give them a hand-up.

Financial and volunteer support from Catholics is “critical” to the future of Nicholas House, which has two transitional shelters for families, as funding has decreased drastically since Sept. 11, said executive director Doug Mendel. Government funding will also be reduced next year.

“Since the Sept. 11 attacks, our funding from individuals and other folks has dropped off by 60 percent,” he said. “We have to work very hard. The amount of funding is very important. Funding goes directly to client services programs.”

Support from Catholic parishes was “critical to our founding and (is) critical to our continued maintenance and we can’t exist without it,” said Mendel, an Episcopalian. “They provide 20 percent of our volunteer base. Of 12 board members, almost half of our board members are from Catholic churches.”

Nicholas House operates two shelters for homeless families, one on Boulevard and one on LaVista Road, located behind St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church. Together they help over 250 people yearly to achieve self-sufficiency. Nicholas House Boulevard offers families the chance to stay there for up to one year and Nicholas House LaVista offers stays of up to two years. Catholic churches supporting the nonprofit organization include Immaculate Heart of Mary Church and the Cathedral of Christ the King, Atlanta, St. Thomas More Church, Decatur, and St. Oliver Plunkett Church, Snellville.

This is only one of many ways in which parishes in the archdiocese join with other denominations to support organizations serving the homeless. The Cathedral and Holy Spirit Church, Atlanta, are two of 10 sponsoring churches of Buckhead Christian Ministry, a consortium of churches founded in 1987 which provides transitional housing for employed homeless families, a food pantry, help with rent or utilities, a thrift shop and an employment program. The homeless make up 12 percent of those served by the ministry.

In Marietta, St. Ann’s Church, St. Joseph’s Church and Transfiguration Church all support Ministries United for Service and Training, Inc., or MUST, an interfaith organization in Cobb and Cherokee counties. Its services include an emergency shelter, transitional housing, a food pantry, a clothes closet, a soup kitchen and health clinic, employment assistance, a source for household items and financial aid with rent and utilities.

Outside of Nicholas House LaVista are rose gardens. Inside the long, one-story house the living room is small but comfortable and welcoming with long couches, a colorful picture of a butterfly bearing the word “hope” and two cases of books. There’s also a sunroom filled with toys, shaded by surrounding trees. On Nov. 7 a DeKalb County librarian and her daughter read to a circle of resident children, one girl clutching her teddy bear. “Excuse me, can I read next?” one boy asked.

Currently there are 10 families at the shelter, all single mothers with children, each family staying in a room that has a double bed and bunk beds. One woman from New York, who works at Grady Hospital in Atlanta, swept the floor and spoke of her satisfaction at Nicholas House and her goal to save money for a house for herself and her two children.

Nicholas House, founded in 1982, began in the Sunday school classrooms of St. Bartholomew’s. When the church was ready to take the next step and move the shelter into its own building, they teamed up with Catholics. In 1990 Nicholas House became Georgia’s first agency to provide transitional housing. Two-thirds of the 60 families it serves each year move on to stable housing, managing their own finances and supporting their children.

Nicholas House also provides case management services, rent and savings matching programs, workshops on finances, parenting, self-esteem and life skills, mental health counseling, employment assistance, job training and other services. “The early involvement in our development by the Catholic Church is still paying dividends in terms of our ability to provide services,” Mendel said.

Meals are an important aspect to supporting Nicholas House. Volunteers from IHM plan, make and serve dinner there four to five weeks a year. They also provide meals for the soup kitchen at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Atlanta.

IHM meal coordinator and board member Paula Stevens said that at Nicholas House “we have to be ready to feed 40 to 50 residents (each night) plus any of the volunteers. Volunteers are encouraged to have dinner with the residents.”

She has enjoyed the ecumenism involved since she became involved in 1980.

“I’ve found it an ideal way and very fulfilling way to be involved not only in outreach to help with homelessness. It’s been a very ecumenical experience because I was volunteering alongside Episcopalians and other denominations, getting to meet a lot of people in that regard,” she said.

STM Nicholas House coordinator Michelle Marshall said that about 25 parish members provide meals there two weeks a year, while other families support Hagar’s House in Decatur, a women and children’s shelter. She would like to see her parish pick up several more weeks at Nicholas House, as many just sign up one time only. Like many other parents, she makes it a family night when going there.

“I’ve talked to a lot of families that bring their kids. I think that is a great part of it and my kids play with these kids there,” she said.

Last year St. Oliver’s received the Christmas wish lists of 63 children from the Nicholas House shelters and filled them. They also made care packages with flannel shirts, ponchos and warm gloves and donated around 240 towels, said outreach coordinator Bill Hedges, who has been involved in the ministry for 13 years. Last year they also provided food for about 20 days and served at the Central Night Shelter 10 days. They also participated in an Adopt-a-Family program.

“We’re trying to get more people involved. Our parish in the last five years has probably about doubled in families and when you have a sudden growth spurt you get a lot of people too comfortable, not being involved in ministries. You’ve got to seek people out,” Hedges said.

Hedges’ reward comes from the gratitude of Nicholas House residents. “They are so appreciative and happy that somebody cares. You can’t describe the joy of seeing a kid open gifts at Christmas that may not have had any.”

Patty Nichols, director of pastoral care and ministries outreach program at the Cathedral, said the parish has been active at Nicholas House for at least eight years and now provides and serves meals six weeks every year. It is planning to put a representative on its board of directors. Yet its largest area of community outreach is the Buckhead Christian Ministry, which the Cathedral this year is giving $13,200 plus an Ash Wednesday offering of $12,500. Two parish volunteers serve on its board and volunteers work in its office, support the food pantry, deliver direct services and help staff its thrift store, a joint venture with the St. Vincent de Paul Society. The Cathedral has begun referring people asking for money to BCM instead of giving handouts, Nichols said.

“They’re really empowering them to change their path so it’s not just a band-aid solution (but) to get them into on-the-job training, life skills classes.”

Holy Spirit Church, Atlanta, as a sponsoring church, which must give at least $10,000 per year and lead two food drives a year, also has two representatives on the board and volunteers.

Nancy Dinka Coveny, executive director of BCM and Cathedral member, said the ministry always needs volunteers and donations, particularly now. The average number of people they see per day has increased from 26 in October 2000 to 40 in October 2001, Coveny said, and they’re giving out 27 percent more food bags this year than last.

MUST, celebrating its 30th anniversary, also provides a broad spectrum of services to the homeless and other poor in its community. Jim Perry, a parishioner at St. Ann’s, recalled how he, his wife and others in a RENEW faith-sharing group around 1987 called MUST to find out how they could serve their community. They said they were set through Christmas but after Jan. 15, volunteers disappear. When serving a meal Perry realized none of the Catholic churches were supporting the faith-based organization and so they signed on. Perry, who is now chairman of the board at MUST along with being his parish council president, said the ministry has blossomed with 400 families involved, mainly on weekends. He particularly enjoys representing the Catholic faith among other denominations in the common mission, and strongly encourages Catholics to get involved in interfaith organizations, as Catholics can be accused of being parochial. Rusty Mawn, who founded the parish SVDP, is also a MUST board member.

“We grew from one meal to one meal a month to three or four meals a month. Now just St. Ann’s provides about 6,000 or 7,000 meals a year” through 21 teams from various parish groups, he said.

“My wife, Connie, and I started the program through the RENEW group and it just blossomed. It’s just the effect of what you can do if you really, as Catholics, step up and say, ‘We want to do some of the things Christ wants us to do.’ That’s what it’s all about. We’re just blessed to be able, for a short period of time, to do his work in this community. It’s a great opportunity to work alongside brothers and sisters in churches doing Christ’s work in the community regardless of what religion they might be.”

St. Ann’s also holds a jeans and coat drive one or two times a year for MUST, asking people to donate used clothes in good condition. Perry recalled last Christmas Day taking his two children to the MUST shelter. “It was incredible. They were constantly hugging us, coming up to us and thanking us,” he said. “It was just the true spirit of Christmas.”

Perry said MUST hasn’t experienced any drop-off in support after the effects of recent terrorism. Its funding is actually up 10 percent over this time last year. St. Ann’s makes a yearly contribution and Catholic churches are the next biggest financial supporters behind the Methodist Church. MUST receives little grant money and relies on donations. Perry is optimistic about the future with faithful donors.

Their new executive director, a Methodist minister, is planning unique development initiatives. The organization recently held a polo match fund-raiser with Brenda Wood as emcee. As it’s a volunteer-driven nonprofit, Perry would like to see more Catholics get involved through any of various service opportunities, and is ready to go to Catholic churches to talk about it.

“I think it’s an area of outreach we, as Catholics, haven’t taken advantage of. It’s not because we don’t want to . . . It’s probably because we weren’t aware,” he said.

“I believe in it. That’s what Christ wants us to do, to make a difference in people’s lives.”

MUST has three social service centers, one with a shelter, in Canton, Marietta and Smyrna. Perry explained that the shelter is open to people with no current problem with substance abuse who can stay only four to six weeks. They are required to work at least 35 hours a week while there, getting help to find jobs if they need it. They then move into apartments leased or owned by MUST where they pay a nominal fee to the organization plus their utilities. After a period of time clients move into regular apartments and they receive the fee money they paid to MUST.

In a typical year, MUST through financial aid and accommodations aids 2,381 with emergency and transitional housing.

“We are really working with them to go through the whole process,” he said. “It’s not a handout. It’s a hand-up.”

Volunteer coordinator Jim Glennon also likes the organization’s sense of tough love.

Their philosophy is “if you’re serious about turning your life around, go, and if you’re not, don’t bother. They help them find a job and open a bank account,” he said. Most have made bad decisions but “they’re trying to turn their lives around and it’s hard not to get some satisfaction out of helping people who are trying to help themselves.”

The Knights of Columbus council of St. Joseph’s Church, among its charitable work, has been providing a hot lunch once a month for MUST since its founding, said Dick Laney. Working through various charitable organizations, it leads food drives, and last year distributed 80 food baskets and over 2,000 pounds of food. Other groups at St. Joseph’s support MUST in various capacities as well.

Also helping the organization cut down on meal expenses, Transfiguration is responsible every month to make meals one night at a MUST shelter and to stay over another night, said Marilyn MacInnis, parish operations administrator, who has coordinated the ministry since 1986. The ChrisTeen program, like other parish groups, makes around 35 sandwiches every month and occasionally will sort clothes, and the parish Knights of Columbus council collects toys at Christmas. About 48 people participate per month, with six making a casserole, four a dessert and three to four sleeping over.

“People go out of their way in our parish to make nice meals—not just packaged stuff,” MacInnis said.

She and her family have found “it’s gotten to be a wonderful part of our lives and I wouldn’t give it up for anything.” She’s found more parishioners recently interested in reaching out into the community. “We like to think there isn’t homelessness, but there is,” she said. “MUST does a wonderful job in helping people get started and on track so we’ve been very happy working with them. There’s tons more we could be doing.”

Volunteers interested in Nicholas House LaVista may call (404) 633-8386; for Nicholas House Boulevard call (404) 622-0793. Those interested in helping Buckhead Christian Ministry may call (404) 239-0058. For MUST ministries call (770) 427-9862.