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Just weeks after going public with a $10 million capital campaign to expand a rehab program for women, Charlotte Rescue Mission is reporting it’s short of money for day-to-day operations.
Mission officials say donations were $238,000 short of projections in December, historically one of its best months for fund raising. That’s nearly 5 percent of the agency’s annual budget, said Tony Marciano, the mission’s executive director. The shortfall has been whittled to $167,000, thanks to a series of cuts to such things as food costs and office contracts. Key programs that help homeless people struggling with addiction remain untouched, but Marciano says there’s no guarantee cuts won’t happen if the shortage can’t be further reduced. “The No. 1 reason for this is the economy,” Marciano said. “I had one donor who gave us $8,000 in good years, and he walked up to me in December and gave me $40 in cash. … Donors tell us their business is so far off that they have to rein in their giving.”
News of the shortfall comes at a time when many local charities are reducing their staffs and operations due to drops in donations and state subsidies.
Just last week, the Urban League of Central Carolinas announced that budget needs had prompted it to put its uptown headquarters on the market.
United Way, which supports the Urban League and 90 other local charities, also reports this week that it remains $340,000 short of its campaign goal, despite extending the effort by more than two months.
Charlotte Rescue Mission, which is not a United Way agency, depends on donations from individuals for 70 percent of its $4 million annual budget, with the rest coming from the faith community, foundations and businesses. It receives no government funding. Marciano believes the unveiling of the capital campaign in December for the Dove’s Nest rehab program might have confused those donors into thinking the agency was flush with money. Specifically, he refers to an announcement that the project got a $700,000 grant.
“I think people heard about that $700,000 and thought: ‘The Charlotte Rescue Mission is OK, I’ll give my money elsewhere,’ ” he says. “But that money can’t be used for day-to-day operations. Those dollars are for bricks and mortar.”
To date, $6 million has been raised for the Dove’s Nest project, which will expand the agency’s treatment program for homeless women with addictions. The existing Dove’s Nest site has room for only 12 women, forcing new clients to wait an average of three months to enroll.
The agency has yet to come up with a specific plan to fill the remaining $167,000 budget gap, but the possibilities include cuts to the Continuing Care Division, an eight-month program that helps graduates of the Dove’s Nest find jobs and homes. Without that extra support, Marciano worries that some might relapse into active addiction and a life of crime to feed their habit.
One of the 10 women currently living in that division is Linda, 39, a former federal employee who prefers not to give her full name. She’s done two stints in prison, both for crimes related to her drug addiction.
Linda says she’s now spending at least four hours a day applying for jobs in hotels, restaurants and the like. Her goal is to find a job so she never has to go back to jail.
“I can’t imagine leaving this program and being thrown back into the world I left behind,” she says. “I thought for the longest time that the world I came from needed to change. I realize now that I was the one who had to change, and I have.”
