NEW ORLEANS -- It was a grim Thursday at the New Orleans Mission when Executive Director Ron Gonzales realized the center that serves 180 homeless people a night would have to close for at least a month.
"When I called you yesterday, I thought we were shutting our doors. I mean we had letters of disconnect on all of our utilities," he said.
Gonzales said high demand for services and too few donations drained away the cash at the Mission that even a $5 nightly charge to stay here couldn't make up. Unpaid water and power bills reached $15,000, and disconnect notices meant shutting the doors even to those in life-building programs like Michael Brown.
"It would have a lot of people out on the street, and the city would have a lot of havoc on their hands," Brown said.
"I haven't slept in two weeks, so I'm very worried, and very discouraged," said a weary Gonzales.
When Gonzales called me with the bad news yesterday afternon, we made an announcement about the impending closure of the New Orleans Mission on yesterday's 6 p.m. news. At the same time I contacted the Mayor's Office about the situation.
Well, suddenly things changed; the utilities changed their minds about disconnecting the water and power here.
"I said, praise God, is what I thought, but I do know what you had done on the air had got their attention," said a smiling Gonzales.
But the crisis isn't over, just deferred. They still have to raise funds for the utility payments, and for other things like stocking the pantry that Mission Chef Loretta Smith says is running low on food.
"I'm worried about the next time I feed a meal, it might be sandwiches," she said. "And the next meal after that might be I'm lucky if I have beans and rice, I mean the next meal after that might be MREs."
"I mean we got $700 in the bank, and our food supply is dwindling, so we're desperate," Gonzales said.
I also asked the Mayor's Office to see what happened to a Nagin administration promise to provide $280,000 for the Mission, and they are checking into that. Gonzales expects donations to come in at Thanksgiving, but is seeking help now to avoid new disconnect notices.
"If we can hang on for another month, or month and a half, we'll make it, and you've allowed that to happen."
