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News & Features
From the Idyllwild Town Crier weekly newspaper, 12.04.08 edition.
Increase in HELP Center cases
By Marshall Smith, Correspondent
Idyllwild HELP Center Executive Director Karen
Patterson reported huge increases in the number of applicants and aid
requests over the same period last year — statistics reflecting the
severity of the economic downturn in Idyllwild.
“It’s staggering,” said Patterson. “From July to November, the first
five months of our fiscal year, we’ve had 450 unduplicated client
requests for aid, both individuals and families.” An unduplicated
client is one person for one service.
Those figures represent an extraordinary increase in Idyllwild
residents’ requests for assistance. In 2007, for an entire year, the
center received 250 unduplicated client aid requests; during 2006 for
an entire year, the figure was 146. If present trends continue, this
year’s aid requests could triple over last year, topping 900.
“We are the canaries in the mines and it’s scary,” said Patterson,
referring to the old practice of carrying canaries deep into mines to
detect the first signs of danger from toxic gas.
The danger now in Idyllwild is an approaching winter and a greater
number of residents with decreased means of coping. “We started a
utility fund on Nov. 4, with over $6,000 — a $5,000 grant, and $1,050
from donors. It’s already gone,” said Patterson. “Each person who
requested aid and who could document eligibility received $100, but now
those funds are exhausted.”
“We’re seeing 20 to 30 people in a day,” said Client Services
Administrator Colleen Manchee, “In past years we might have seen five
per day, 10 at the maximum. This year we gave out 118 turkeys for
Thanksgiving dinner. Last year we gave out 58. There’s no getting
caught up with the paperwork required for documenting and processing
each client.”
Patterson and Manchee expressed gratitude to the community for stepping
up donations to the center as need has increased and hoped that given
how quickly funding for aid is being exhausted, that donors would
continue to help. Manchee fretted that need is outstripping ability to
assist. “We’re so limited in what we can do, given the huge increases
in numbers of clients,” she said.
“I’m constantly looking for grants,” said Patterson. “That’s money that
our clients need.”
As to the profile of those seeking aid, Patterson said, “So few of our
clients are alcoholics or people with drug problems. Although we want
those clients to know that this [the center] is a safe haven, they are
not the face of our clients anymore. It’s the people you see at the
grocery store.”
Manchee verified the changing nature of the center’s client base. “Some
who are coming in are first-timers who say they are embarrassed to be
seeking assistance, since they had previously been donors.” Client
identity is strictly confidential said Patterson.
Since 2007, HELP Center recipients had to document need by providing a
picture I.D. for every person 18 years and older in the household, and
an I.D. for every person under 18 (birth certificate, medical card,
Social Security card), current proof of residency (current utility bill
or rent receipt) and current proof of income for everyone in the
household, including “salaries, Social Security income, food stamps,
Cal-Works, etc.”
Even with these requirements in place, Patterson noted that the center
is for the first time seeing applicants in the low to moderate income
level, where previously they had only seen those in the very low to
extremely low income brackets.
The center uses Community Development Block Grant standards for
Riverside, San Bernardino and Ontario to define income categories as
“extremely low” at $12,450 for a single person, $20,700 as “very low,”
and $33,150 as “low.”
Manchee confirmed that the center’s client base has grown to include
laid off workers who might once have been viewed as middle class —
local teachers, Realtors, tree contractors and others who have lost
incomes, cars, homes and hope. “There is no safety net [for these
individuals and families],” said Patterson.
Patterson stressed that proceeds from the HELP Center store are used to
fund client aid. She expressed appreciation to the Idyllwild
Association of Realtors who wrote a check to the center after learning
of increased community aid requests; 3rd District Supervisor Jeff Stone
who provided 100 turkeys for the Thanksgiving giveaway; Riverside
County Sheriff’s Investigator Kevin Duffy, who provided another 18;
Mountain Harvest Market, “who gave us so much food;” Emily and Martha
Pearson, who provided Thanksgiving stuffing; and to the many individual
donors in town.
Donations of food, clothing, and money can be made directly to the HELP
Center, P.O. Box 660, Idyllwild, CA 92549 The center will provide a
donation letter that can be used for tax deduction purposes.
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Town Crier © 1995-2007 by Idyllwild Publications
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