CLEVELAND — Every month, the parishioners at St. John the Evangelist Cathedral in Cleveland take up a collection to assist struggling residents of the city. Their struggles involve paying for food, rent, utilities and transportation. A separate collection helps support a nearby hot meal program.

“Fortunately, people are generous, and we’re able to collect about $2,500 each month for the emergency assistance fund,” said Steve Otlowski, St. John’s office manager. “But we get so many calls for help now, more than we can possibly meet. Today we’re seven days into the month, and all our funds for this month have already been spent. In October, we gave away $3,000 in assistance, which was more than we took in. There just isn’t enough to meet the need.”

This reality was echoed by Tom Mullen, president and CEO of Cleveland Catholic Charities: “In the past few months, we have seen an explosion in the number of people who cannot pay for basic needs — food, shelter, utilities, transportation. We do the best we can, but our resources have not increased along with the need, and our agency, too, is affected by the economic downturn.”

Mullen said that with the high number of Cleveland residents who are now facing foreclosure on their homes, Catholic Charities is receiving requests for aid from people who have not traditionally required as much assistance: “from suburban zip codes, from working and lower middle-class neighborhoods,” he said. “It’s a difficult time. In this economy, many more people are hurting.”

“We try to work together as a community, we work to raise public awareness and find more funding,” added Gayle Doucette, Cleveland Catholic Charities’ director of emergency assistance. “There is a lot of collaboration in the community, parishes partnering with other agencies to try to meet the increased need, but the demand is so high. Our office is able to help not even 10% of the people who call us. Every penny we have is spent.”

According to a recent survey of 44 dioceses conducted by Catholic Charities USA, 86% of Catholic Charities offices across the country report an escalation in the number of requests for food, utility or housing assistance. Even as the need increases, however, Catholic agencies face shrinking budgets and fewer private donations.

Fostering Partnerships

In a time of growing need, many Catholic agencies and parishes are attempting to strengthen existing programs and foster new church-community partnerships.

Sharon Hills, executive director of St. Vincent de Paul Society in Portland, Ore., cited the Helping Hands ministry run by Deacon Jim Pittman at Christ the King Church in nearby Milwaukie, Ore., and said that other parishes could consider starting similar programs.

“We started by taking a collection once a year, on Father’s Day, to help shelters in the Portland area. Then we decided we could do more,” said Deacon Pittman. “We built a warehouse in 2006 and have over 80 parishioners who volunteer, picking up clothing, furniture and other donated household items and distributing them to families in need. We also help with rent and utilities and partner with St. Vincent de Paul to distribute food.”

Pittman added that the parish used to receive “eight or nine calls for help per week.” Now it is eight or nine per day.

Hills reported that many of Portland’s St. Vincent de Paul Society food pantries are “fighting to keep food on the shelves.” They used to receive approximately 6,000 calls a month; now it is more than 9,000 on average. St. Vincent de Paul of Portland hopes to start a new program, a mobile kitchen, to expand the area they are able to serve.

“The main thing we try to do is provide people with food,” said Hills, “since struggling families often can’t afford to pay for enough nutritious food. We help them with groceries and hot meals so that they have more money to devote to rent and utilities.”

Her office receives limited government funding for rent and mortgage assistance, but has managed to help 30 or more families avoid homelessness.

In Raleigh, N.C., Terry Foley directs Catholic Parish Outreach, a food bank supported by local parishes. Foley also reported a sharp increase in the number of people served by the organization’s regional food pantry: “Demand is up 30% from this time last year. We just moved to a bigger facility so that we can store and distribute more food, and we’re also trying to start a new program to help families qualify for food stamps and government aid. Every day we have people come in who say they can’t believe they are asking for help; they can’t believe they are in this situation.”

Expanding services is a necessity, according to Ken Sawa, CEO and executive vice president of Catholic Charities in San Bernardino and Riverside counties in California. “We have good systems in place for distributing food to people, but these systems have to expand as the need increases,” he said. “We are attempting to improve the system of giving and receiving food, using our community parishes to raise awareness and donation opportunities. More must be done to make people aware of how the economic crisis has affected their neighbors, so we can bring in more donations and more resources to help those who are struggling.

“In the Catholic community, there is something religious about sharing food. We are used to the idea of the family meal, sharing communion — even if we don’t have that much to share,” Sawa said. “People are very giving and generous, but often, they don’t know where to begin in terms of addressing the overwhelming need. As the economy worsens and more of our families struggle, we need to present people with even more opportunities to help.”

Nicole Ficere Callahan is based

in Durham, North Carolina.