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OGDEN -- Plans to move St. Anne's Center to a location outside of downtown Ogden got a huge boost Wednesday with the announcement that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will donate $1.5 million to help build the new shelter complex.
"Our purpose is to care for the poor and needy, and there are needs in Ogden that we want to help," Ronald G. Humphries, the church's regional director for temporal affairs, said after announcing the donation.
"For some time, we have been providing housing through the Bishop's Storehouse. That's not our area of expertise. It really should be done through the community, and we're happy to support the community."
He said the donation is in keeping with admonitions from LDS Church President Thomas S. Monson that the church help the poor.
"We are the Lord's hands here on the earth to help in lifting up and doing everything possible to help them," he said.
The donation was announced Wednesday morning in a brief ceremony in front of St. Anne's Center at 137 W. Binford Ave.
The announcement kicked off a fundraising drive to move St. Anne's to a new location, with city-owned property at 33rd Street and Pacific Avenue the most likely destination.
A site plan shows family housing, transitional housing and a homeless shelter on 5.5 acres. It will have at least 16 family rooms and an overflow sleeping area.
Nobody is sure, yet, what the cost will be.
Mayor Matthew Godfrey's administration has been pushing St. Anne's to move out of central Ogden for several years. Earlier, the two announced discussions about moving St. Anne's to the Pacific Avenue site and adding more counseling services, transitional housing and family shelter space.
Shelter director Jennifer Canter said 36 families are on the waiting list for the shelter's four family rooms. Families are sleeping in the parking lot, and she is putting mats on the floor of the cafeteria for them to sleep on at night.
At the event Wednesday, city officials and St. Anne's also signed a memorandum of understanding about the move.
The memorandum lists what St. Anne's wants from the city as the two negotiate the move, but makes it clear that the terms are not yet agreed upon.
The memorandum says new property for the center must be within walking distance of the current shelter, donated to St. Anne's, properly zoned and pass environmental inspection.
The memorandum says the current property will continue to be owned by St. Anne's.
"We're going to keep this piece of property and lease it out," said Jeff Chapman, chairman of St. Anne's board of directors.
"We'll demolish the building, then lease the land. It will kind of give us a revenue stream, which is one of our issues."
The memorandum also says St. Anne's won't use the existing building for anything else after it is vacated, but won't be responsible for the cost of demolition.
The memorandum says a fundraising committee will include representatives from Ogden, Weber County, United Way of Northern Utah and St. Anne's.
Godfrey said he and Robert Hunter, executive director of United Way, approached the LDS Church.
"They were very passionate about being a part of this," Godfrey said.
Godfrey, in prepared remarks, said the move of St. Anne's recognizes that the face of homelessness has changed since the current building was put up in 1995.
"It wasn't that many years ago that it was a common belief among the homeless-provider community that the homeless were homeless because that's what they wanted to be," he said.
The team building a new shelter, Godfrey said, "completely disagrees with that" and feels the homeless can be helped back to mainstream lives in the new facilities.
Following the ceremony, all of the officials were invited in to have lunch with the several hundred homeless and local people who eat every day at St. Anne's.
Godfrey sat with Cheydene Hudspeth, a mother of eight children who has been living at the shelter since May 20.
Godfrey referred to Hudspeth during the ceremony as someone who is typical of the problems St. Anne's faces these days.
Allan Heiskanen, a member of St. Anne's board of directors, said Hudspeth has been in the shelter so long because federal housing requirements say she has to be put in a home with at least five bedrooms.
"Well, five-bedroom rental units don't exist," he said, "so what do you do?"
Hudspeth, who is going to school, said she is hoping she'll be able to get into a home in Ogden by the end of the month.
It's important to ask the
It's important to ask the questions:What constitutes poor?What constitutes needy?Are they the same?The needy are not always poor, nor are the poor always needy.Taking the mandate seriously will grow our spiritual capacity to receive inspiration about how to meaningfully serve others according to their needs. It will make us less judgmental, less critical and more prone to helpful action.Many of us have good intent to help accompanied by the wrong actions. As we serve the poor and needy we will improve our capacity to accompany good intent with the needed actions.I say that because I have been working with a lot of needy people lately. I have found that my preconceptions are totally off base and that their reality can only be learned by truly befriend and prayerfully seeking to serve their needs unselfishly. In Canada nobody is really poor (only relatively poor), so my efforts are to their needs.Anyways, learn what needy means and try to help people according to their needs. The benefit of being incredulous as you are is how much you will notice your attitude change. If you make it a conscious effort in your everyday life you will understand why it deserves to be listed as a principle mission of the church.I think serving the poor may be a different story. Sorry if you are only focused on the poor and already understand these things about the needy.
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My corp. no teletrack payday loans - apply only for best
Good for the LDS Church & Mayor Godfrey
Good story, well reported. Good to learn there is now a memorandum of understanding between the City and St. Annes, though the final terms of the deal have not yet been agreed on. Interesting as well to note what St. Anne's wants the city to agree to. From the story: The
memorandum lists what St. Anne's wants from the city as the two
negotiate the move, but makes it clear that the terms are not yet
agreed upon. The memorandum says new property for the center must
be within walking distance of the current shelter, donated to St.
Anne's, properly zoned and pass environmental inspection. The memorandum says the current property will continue to be owned by St. Anne's.The story credits the Mayor and Robert Hunter of the United Way with asking the Church for its contribution. Good on 'em, both of them, and kudoes to the Church as well. I particularly liked two things about the reporting. First, Mr. Trentelman's not reportings things that are conjectural as certain. For example, after describing the site plans for the new St. Anne's, he noted "Nobody is sure, yet, what the cost will be." And he did a good job of describing the scope of the problem that St. Annes, and therefor Ogden City, are trying to deal with, using the example of a woman with eight children who has been at the shelter now for five months. Good article. Good result. Not quite home and free yet, since there is only a memorandum of understanding, not an actual binding agreement, but it's a significant step in the right direction.