St. Vincent de Paul | Louisville

By Glenn Rutherford
The Record, Nov. 15, 2011

The days are getting shorter and the wind has more of an edge to it now that Thanksgiving awaits and winter lies just over the horizon.

For most people, these days are a time for putting up the storm windows and covering the leaks in the house where cold air might come calling.

But for those who spend their days helping the less fortunate, the surrender of the leaves and the onslaught of winter weather mean increased need and more demand for services.

Need doesn’t wait for the seasons to change, of course. It’s been a growing part of life in Louisville for decades, but especially since the economy walked off a cliff toward the end of 2008.

Ed Wnorowski, executive director of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, uses that year, 2008, as a kind of benchmark. It was the last “normal” year of services to the poor, the last set of figures representing services provided before the nation raced into recession.

In that year, the society received 3,719 calls for assistance, he noted. That figure represents all kinds of services offered by the society — help with housing, the need for food, clothing, help in dealing with addictions — all the things for which the St. Vincent de Paul Society is known for providing assistance.

The very next year, 2009, the “calls for assistance” went up to 6,255. It fell by 55 requests the following year, and through Sept. 30 of this year, the society has received 6,860 pleas for assistance.

“Those numbers represent a 187-percent increase from 2008 to 2011,” Wnorowski said. “If you’re looking for trends, then the trends you’re seeing aren’t real good. We may have plateaued a little (in the number of requests), but we’re leveling off at a very high point.”

Wnorowski and Linda Romine, public relations coordinator for the society, noted that all of their requests for help — “all our numbers,” as Wnorowski put it — have doubled since 2008.

“And the corresponding thing is that the unemployment figures have doubled, too,” he noted. “There’s a direct correlation. Back in 2008, unemployment was at about 5 percent, and now it’s double that.”

As is the case with other agencies who help the poor, the St. Vincent de Paul Society is seeing an ever-increasing number of requests for help from families — usually single-parent families headed by a female.

“In 2008 the number of families who reached out to us for help was 1,924,” Wnorowski said. “In 2011 so far, that number is 3,983.”

It’s a number that fluctuates during any particular month, he said. Sometimes the number of requests from families increases toward the end of the month when funds or services from other agencies run out. “But the important thing to remember is that our numbers aren’t going down,” he said. “The rate of increase might have slowed, but it’s still there.”

The Courier-Journal reported last month that 62 percent of all children in Jefferson County Public Schools now receive reduced-price or free meals. “And 10 percent of Jefferson County public school students are homeless,” Romine added. “That’s a staggering statistic to me. Almost unbelievable.”

She also noted that St. Vincent de Paul will see a 10 percent increase in the number of meals it serves in the next 12 months at its Open Hand Kitchen. “We’re going from about 90,000 last year to 100,000 this year,” she said. “And we’re seeing a lot more high chairs show up in the dining room, too.”

That’s a sign of desperate times, Wnorowski said. “Let’s be realistic — most mothers would be uncomfortable bringing their family to a soup kitchen,” he said.

But families get to a breaking point, and children have to be fed.

The situation is much the same for other agencies who provide help to the poor, as subsequent stories in The Record will chronicle. For instance, Pam Cotton, executive director of St. Joseph Children’s Home, said in an October interview that the demands on local social service agencies — coupled with government budget cuts — are devastating.

The cuts are “absolutely affecting what is happening to social services in this state,” she said. “I can say as a social worker for 35 years that what is happening to social services in our community is devastating.”

“It is not a good time if you are poor and you don’t have the means to take care of your family.”

At St. Joseph, she noted, “we have 34 children we need to take care of, and everything that a parent needs to take care of their children are things that we need, that these children need.”

“All of the residential programs in Kentucky have been cut drastically,” she said, noting that some organizations have had to cut services.

At the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, executive director Wnorowski says “we are holding our own.”

So, given the avalanche of bad numbers, given the rising demands, how do Wnorowski and Romine stay positive about their work?

“We see the positive in the one-on-one victories, what some might call little victories,” he said. “We see the positive in the story of a man who was an alcoholic for more than 20 years and, after getting into one of our programs, turned his life around.

“We try to see and deal with these problems one victory at a time.”

By Glenn Rutherford, Record Editor