At the Family Place in downtown St. Paul, Margaret Lovejoy once offered homeless families housing counseling, children’s activities and a Montessori education program. Most of that ended in December.

“We had to keep cutting staff, cutting programs, cutting everything,” said Lovejoy, who founded the Family Place 18 years ago.

Located by First Baptist Church at 10th and Wacouta streets, the day center still serves 40 homeless families a day from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., seven days per week. But services are a shade of what they used to be.

On paper, the nonprofit’s annual budget, which was $800,000 three years ago, has fallen below $400,000, but foundation support has dropped even further.

Even key positions that help raise funds — a marketing manager and development director — have been eliminated. Staffing has been cut in half, from a dozen workers down to six.

“We’ve run out of money,” said Lovejoy, who worries the building could close as soon as Aug. 31 if it doesn’t receive an emergency cash infusion. “We’ve asked the county for the last two years to increase our contract payments, and they have not. We’re just at that point. Our feeling now is the county must do something. Community money is dwindling. Foundation money is dwindling. And expenses are rising.”

A Montessori educator resigned in December. Another program may start up in December. pic.twitter.com/MVNiz6L33f — FredMelo, Reporter (@FrederickMelo) August 7, 2019

Ramsey County funds about $125,000 of Family Place’s annual services through a vendor contract, and much of the rest comes from foundation support such as the St. Paul and Minnesota Foundations, the F.R. Bigelow Foundation and others.

Lovejoy said those organizations have been generous, but they also have other priorities, and she can’t rely on them year-in and year-out.

“We’ve basically overused the foundations,” she said. “They’ll say ‘wait a year and then get back to us,’ and I understand their need to do that. Sometimes I think it’s time for another organization to take this on.”

That may in fact be a possibility. John Siqveland, a spokesman for Ramsey County, said the county’s previous five-year contract with Family Place officially expired on July 31. The center continues to provide services on the county’s behalf under a 90-day extension.

“Ramsey County issued a Request for Proposals for a new contract to provide these services, which closed on June 27,” Siqveland said. “We did not receive any adequate responses to meet the terms of that RFP.”

“Ramsey County is currently having discussions with Family Place to provide short-term funding which will allow continuation of current services throughout and beyond the 90-day extension period,” he said. “We are also looking beyond this period, evaluating all options and continuing to seek partnership to support this need for families in the long-term.”

GIVING TIGHTENS

For 14 years, the Family Place has enjoyed a partnership with their landlord, First Baptist Church, which charges minimal rent to cover utilities such water and trash collection. Families who use the day center sleep in churches at night through Project Home, which is run by Interfaith Action.

Within the philanthropic community, organizations have targeted giving to what industry analysts call “hyper-specific” programs with measurable, data-driven impacts.

“That’s really difficult for us,” said Lovejoy, who said she’s serving families for longer periods of time while they look for housing, which on paper reduces the numbers of unique individuals who access their services. “We’ve got two families that have been here since February. We had one woman who left us in July, and she came to us in September. Families are staying with us longer. There’s no affordable housing. And that lowers our numbers.”

Lovejoy said the 2017 federal tax law changes also impacted philanthropy, and not for the better. Nationally, individual giving to charities dropped last year after adjusting for inflation, even as the economy grew.

They pay minimal rent to First Baptist Church which basically covers water and trash. They serve meals through a caterer. Families sleep at Project Home, a night shelter program based in churches. pic.twitter.com/dmbaelk0do — FredMelo, Reporter (@FrederickMelo) August 7, 2019

For Lovejoy, it’s hard to measure the impact of a shower and hot meal for a single mom and her child with few other places to go.

These days, however, the center doesn’t offer much more than that.

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A few months ago, a life skills counselor would have walked these mothers through a class on personal budgeting or how to apply for emergency housing.

Another educator would have spread out children’s activities in a classroom-like space on a lower level. Both programs are gone, though the new Water Lily Montessori, a pre-k through kindergarten charter school affiliated with the Minnesota Wildflower Montessori School, expects to start up Sept. 3 no matter what happens. Water Lily co-director Angharad Picton said the school has a separate lease with the church.

Taffy Jones, Family Place’s board chair, volunteers to answer phones and help out in the kitchen when she can.

“I can’t understand why this even needs to be a discussion,” Jones said. “We have people out here that have no place to go. These little kids are not choosing to be homeless.”