It's What Do Not What You Say

Today I am off to Atlanta for the quarterly meeting of the Georgia Interagency Council for the Homeless. Every unit of government is represented and there are two at-large members. Kathryn Preston, Executive Director of the Georgia Coalition to End Homelessness is one. I am the other. I missed the last meeting, made the one before that, but missed the one before that. I think that I got a perfect attendance star prior to that.

Georgia Department of Community Affairs Commissioner Mike Beatty, one of the Council’s co-chairs, proclaimed last time that I don’t attend anymore because Union Mission received a $5 and ½ Million dollar allocation to build Dutchtown, a 48 unit apartment complex for those with chronic conditions on Savannah’s south side. After a couple of years of construction due to design issues, it will finally open next month.

Mike is a supporter of our work, and we like one another a good deal. Dutchtown is also Georgia’s most ambitious housing development for this population and they are spending twice as much as the norm on it. “We will be studying it for years,” is how Doug Scott puts it. I think that he was making it known that he prefers me in these meetings.

While Mike was being funny, I am amazed that people often criticize me (if is hard for them to criticize Union Mission) because the Department of Community Affairs awarded Union Mission $5 ½ Million.

Or that DCA funds Union Mission about $500,000 each year for other programs.

Or that the U. S. Health & Human Services Administration gives it $1.2 Million annually for health care for the uninsured.

Or that the U. S. Department of Housing & Urban Development provide over $1 Million annually for Union Mission’s programs for people with AIDS.

Or that the Chatham County Commission awarded Union Mission $2.3 Million last year because of the development of a health care campus for the uninsured and homeless.

I could go on and tick off the $11 Million in funds that Union Mission brings to Chatham County annually but you get the point.

And I am often criticized by other people because over the course of 21 years, we have worked hard to cultivate the relationships, trust, and expertise to be responsible for such resources. "Oh you go and make your millions," one said to me one day when we were comparing notes. I'm uncertain what she meant as there is certainly plenty of need to go around.

None of these grants would have been possible however without the support of people in the Savannah region who support Union Mission with $10 contributions, or $50 donations, or $100, or $1000 or $10,000 or whatever people who care about what we do choose to give.

This is the foundation and Union Mission has been successful over the years of leveraging Millions of dollars that would have been spent somewhere other than here had it not been for these efforts.

Most people appreciate it and understand the significance of the impact on the community. An entire County has a higher quality of live because of the resources that Union Mission brings to it.

Still there are some who are critical. They feel that money should be theirs or that Union Mission has already received more than its fair share. They like the J. C. Lewis Health Center, the Starfish Café, or the Barnes Center but they are critical of Union Mission which made them all possible, along with our partners. They are forever saying that they are going to do something but never really do anything. They just talk about what they would do if...

It is comical as some will call the Health Center by its name or praise the Brassler Dental Clinic but they never choose to associate these programs with Union Mission. And they are critical of me most of all because of …well, I don’t really know.

And I don’t really dwell on it much but I am human and sometimes I just have to shake my head and wonder. Terry Cassidy, Vice-President of Parent & Child of Union Mission, says that we merely have a history of finding a need and meeting it for our community. Over the years, we’ve met a lot of need and have developed a massive multi-million infrastructure for the homeless and the working poor and anybody else who have needs that we have programs for.

So I try to keep it all in perspective. There are those who are critical regardless of what you do. It's important to listen to what they have to say, but in the end it is more important to do what you say you are going to do.