Catholic Charities aids the neediest
By Roberta Tuttle
Managing Editor

HARTFORD – Basic Human Needs.
That’s exactly what Sally had many of when she called Catholic Charities after moving here from Florida with her children to escape her abusive husband.

Fearing for their lives, she traveled to Hartford with three young children and no winter clothing, no home, no food, no income and no knowledge of where else to go for help.

Basic Human Needs couldn’t be much more descriptive a name for the Catholic Charities program that reclaims life. It encapsulates what Maria Martinez, its coordinator, faces 35 to 45 times a day when she answers her telephone or meets a new visitor.

The callers and walk-ins face shutoffs from the utility company. Their homes are at risk of going into foreclosure. They can’t pay for their prescriptions or else can do so only by sacrificing meals. They lack safe, affordable housing, jobs, warm clothes, options and, often, hope.

Ms. Martinez works out of two Catholc Charities facilities, the Family Service Center at 896 Asylum Ave. and the Institute for the Hispanic Family at 80 Jefferson St.

Ms. Martinez said requests for help have tripled over recent years, particularly for housing assistance. Requests are coming from more affluent communities and from people clearly unused to asking for help, she said. While most people used to need help with utility payment problems, they now face crises in housing and medical care.

With the economy plummeting and unemployment on the rise, Catholic Charities is bracing to help secure the basic necessities for even more people, said Ms. Martinez and Judith Gough, her supervisor, who oversees the Basic Human Needs program as well as Catholic Charities’ Migration and Refugee Services.

The two women are more than a little hopeful that people will give generously to the 2008 Archbishop’s Annual Appeal, one of their three crucial sources of funding.

If the program’s funding from the Archbishop’s Annual Appeal were to disappear, Ms. Gough said, “We would, unfortunately, need to turn away clients. And it’s sad because they come to us when they’re in most need, clearly, and clearly when their families are unstable because of that need.”

The Basic Human Needs program received a little more than $100,000 last year from the annual appeal, United Way and state Department of Social Services. Of that, $70,000 came from the annual appeal. Ms. Gough said all three sources are essential to its continued work, especially if the anticipated increase in need materializes.

Rose Alma Senatore, chief executive officer of Catholic Charities, explained the importance of the monetary help from the appeal.

“A great percentage of the resources that we receive also is targeted toward a specific population because it’s federal and state funding,” she said. “So in order for us to really be responsive to parishioners or the general public, people that end up being in crisis, we need to raise unrestricted funds to be used for that purpose.

“What the appeal allows us to do is to meet that sort of middle group population that would otherwise not be able to receive support and services,” she added.

Sally (not her real name) was in crisis when she first met Ms. Martinez.

“She was shaky and desperate. Her life and her family were in danger, so she had to leave everything behind, because their lives were more important,” Ms. Martinez recalled.

Ms. Martinez arranged for emergency housing for Sally, invited her to the food pantry to stock up on groceries, gave her a gift card with which to buy winter clothing and school supplies for the children, and told her how to obtain food stamps.

Eventually, Ms. Martinez said, Sally and her children settled in an apartment, which Catholic Charities helped to furnish. She now is looking for a job.

“The last time we spoke, I had the feeling that she was doing good, she was doing O.K. She seems to know the community well now and seems to be more comfortable,” Ms. Martinez said.

Then there was a family who relocated to Connecticut. The father, the main provider, had lost part of a hand in an accident and was depressed.

“They came here to me. I met them and their kids. It’s a beautiful family. And you could see in their faces that they were uncomfortable asking [for help] because they were used to providing for themselves.”

Ms. Martinez referred the father to counseling, helped them acquire furniture, provided food pantry items and gave them gift cards to buy what they needed.

“We did hug each other that day,” she recalled with a smile. “When they left the place, I could see they had a little bit more hope. They were a strong family. They just needed that first push. I’m pretty sure they’re already on their own.”

Ms. Gough and Ms. Martinez said that the broad range of Catholic Charities’ services allows them to provide many services for clients in need of crisis intervention. They coordinate closely with other faith-based and community-service agencies. When necessary, they steer clients toward legal aid or to such government assistance as the Food Stamp Program and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.

Because of their program’s limited budget, they said, what they can’t offer much of is financial help for those whose mortgage payments are in arrears or people whose need for housing includes such funding as a security deposit and a first-month’s rent.

Ms. Gough said that people facing eviction and foreclosure have come to Catholic Charities for help and that more are expected in the future.

“We’re seeing it already,” Mrs. Gough said. We’re seeing the imediate housing needs and foreclosures. And we just feel helpless because the need so outweighs the resources that we can deliver.”

Ms. Gough said the Basic Human Needs program lately has heard from elderly people from surrounding towns who can’t afford the insurance co-pay to visit their doctor or order a prescription.

“Our economy has just been getting worse and worse,” she said. “We clearly have quite a variety of individuals who contact us for services or resources.”