Latest news with #CatholicCharities'
Yahoo
03-06-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Catholic Charities closing certain refugee resettlement programs
ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WROC) — Catholic Charities announced they are closing some refugee programs, with 'unprecedented US immigration policy' as a reason. The organization announced Tuesday morning that they are closing the refugee resettlement program, the migrant foster care program, and specialized programs for Afghans and refugee families with special health needs. Catholic Charities has been providing services for refugees for 100 years. 30 staff members will also lose their positions, but the organization is working to move them into new positions. According to a statement from Catholic Charities, they tried to raise funds and underwrite costs for services after the federal administration stopped refugee resettlement and froze funding for refugee programs. The statement also said Catholic Charities' contractor agency terminated its relationship with the Office of Refugee Resettlement, leading to the closures of those programs. Anyone who is a client of these programs will be referred to other department programs or providers. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
02-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Grace Shelter capacity cut as camping ban approaches
May 1—MORGANTOWN — Jessica Thompson, shelter director for Catholic Charities' Grace Shelter in Hazel's House of Hope, has confirmed that the shelter's capacity has recently been reduced from 28 beds to 19 beds. The issue comes down to fire code. "During our evaluation and the measurement of the facility, fire marshals determined that the shelter was operating over capacity, " Morgantown Communications Director Brade Riffee said. "It's important to note that our fire marshals are working closely with the shelter administration to evaluate alternative solutions and options that might be available." It's believed that one of the alternatives under consideration is full-time use of the first floor space that originally served as the Hope Hill Sobering Center, but more recently served as the temporary winter warming shelter—also operated by Catholic Charities. The city didn't address how the shelter was permitted to operate at a 28-bed capacity since Bartlett House first opened it in 2021. In addition to the loss of nine beds at Grace Shelter, Project Rainbow Coordinator Erin Shelton said The Rainbow House has also had to reduce capacity in order to meet best practices surrounding space per client. That shelter, which prioritizes individuals in the LGBTQ + community, now has 22 beds. Both shelters are full—just as they were prior to the reductions. "We are full on a nightly basis and we currently have over 20 people on our waiting list, " Shelton said. "As soon as we move someone into housing, we typically have someone from the waitlist move in on the same day or the following day. We haven't had any significant length of time where we weren't at full capacity since our first month of operations, which was July 2024." While there's never a good time to lose community resources, this seems to be a particularly brutal twist of timing. The citywide camping ban—passed in September but barred from taking effect due to a successful repeal petition—will be implemented after receiving the support of a small majority of the city's voters participating in Tuesday's municipal election. According to the city, the ordinance will take effect 30 days after the election results are certified. Election canvassing is Monday, meaning the law could be enforced starting June 4. The ban defines camp /camping to mean "pitch, erect or occupy camp facilities (tents, temporary structures, etc.) or to use camp paraphernalia (blankets, sleeping bags, tarps, etc.) or both for the purposes of habitation, as evidenced by the use of camp paraphernalia, " and bans it on all public property. Penalties include a warning on first offense ; a fine of up to $200 for a second offense, and a fine of up to $500 and /or up to 30 days in jail for a third offense within one year. Someone subject to a fine or jail under the law can receive alternative sentencing by agreeing to case management to return to stable housing, and /or treatment for substance abuse and /or mental health. The question going forward is how, and how often, the law will actually be enforced, given the perpetually overwhelmed status of the local shelters. According to the law, no citation will be issued or penalty imposed unless the person in violation has been offered "alternative shelter " and refused the offer. An offer of shelter means an alternate location, which may include "emergency shelter or any alternate indoor or outdoor location where the person may sleep overnight." While pinning down the exact number of unhoused individuals in and around Morgantown at any one time is difficult, it's believed to be north of 100. Milan Puskar Health Right Executive Director Laura Jones estimated 130 in August. Health Right was among the organizations that believed the lack of available beds should have made the camping ban a nonstarter. Project Rainbow was another. "Project Rainbow is deeply disappointed by the passage of Morgantown's camping ban, especially considering the dire situation I'm describing here with limited availability of shelter beds, " Shelton said. "This ordinance criminalizes the mere act of survival for people who have nowhere else to go."
Dominion Post
02-05-2025
- Politics
- Dominion Post
Grace Shelter capacity cut as camping ban approaches
MORGANTOWN — Jessica Thompson, shelter director for Catholic Charities' Grace Shelter in Hazel's House of Hope, has confirmed that the shelter's capacity has recently been reduced from 28 beds to 19 beds. The issue comes down to fire code. 'During our evaluation and the measurement of the facility, fire marshals determined that the shelter was operating over capacity,' Morgantown Communications Director Brade Riffee said. 'It's important to note that our fire marshals are working closely with the shelter administration to evaluate alternative solutions and options that might be available.' It's believed that one of the alternatives under consideration is full-time use of the first floor space that originally served as the Hope Hill Sobering Center, but more recently served as the temporary winter warming shelter — also operated by Catholic Charities. The city didn't address how the shelter was permitted to operate at a 28-bed capacity since Bartlett House first opened it in 2021. In addition to the loss of nine beds at Grace Shelter, Project Rainbow Coordinator Erin Shelton said The Rainbow House has also had to reduce capacity in order to meet best practices surrounding space per client. That shelter, which prioritizes individuals in the LGBTQ+ community, now has 22 beds. Both shelters are full — just as they were prior to the reductions. 'We are full on a nightly basis and we currently have over 20 people on our waiting list,' Shelton said. 'As soon as we move someone into housing, we typically have someone from the waitlist move in on the same day or the following day. We haven't had any significant length of time where we weren't at full capacity since our first month of operations, which was July 2024.' While there's never a good time to lose community resources, this seems to be a particularly brutal twist of timing. The citywide camping ban — passed in September but barred from taking effect due to a successful repeal petition — will be implemented after receiving the support of a small majority of the city's voters participating in Tuesday's municipal election. According to the city, the ordinance will take effect 30 days after the election results are certified. Election canvassing is Monday, meaning the law could be enforced starting June 4. The ban defines camp/camping to mean 'pitch, erect or occupy camp facilities (tents, temporary structures, etc.) or to use camp paraphernalia (blankets, sleeping bags, tarps, etc.) or both for the purposes of habitation, as evidenced by the use of camp paraphernalia,' and bans it on all public property. Penalties include a warning on first offense; a fine of up to $200 for a second offense, and a fine of up to $500 and/or up to 30 days in jail for a third offense within one year. Someone subject to a fine or jail under the law can receive alternative sentencing by agreeing to case management to return to stable housing, and/or treatment for substance abuse and/or mental health. The question going forward is how, and how often, the law will actually be enforced, given the perpetually overwhelmed status of the local shelters. According to the law, no citation will be issued or penalty imposed unless the person in violation has been offered 'alternative shelter' and refused the offer. An offer of shelter means an alternate location, which may include 'emergency shelter or any alternate indoor or outdoor location where the person may sleep overnight.' While pinning down the exact number of unhoused individuals in and around Morgantown at any one time is difficult, it's believed to be north of 100. Milan Puskar Health Right Executive Director Laura Jones estimated 130 in August. Health Right was among the organizations that believed the lack of available beds should have made the camping ban a nonstarter. Project Rainbow was another. 'Project Rainbow is deeply disappointed by the passage of Morgantown's camping ban, especially considering the dire situation I'm describing here with limited availability of shelter beds,' Shelton said. 'This ordinance criminalizes the mere act of survival for people who have nowhere else to go.'
CNN
31-03-2025
- Politics
- CNN
Supreme Court likely to side with Catholic Charities seeking exemption from state taxes
The Supreme Court signaled Monday it is poised to side with Catholic Charities in a dispute over whether religiously affiliated groups are entitled to an exemption from certain state taxes, a decision that could expand the types of groups that would receive a break under the First Amendment. After nearly two hours of oral arguments, it was clear that even some of the court's liberal justices had concerns with a decision from Wisconsin's highest court that drew a line between groups that teach religious doctrine and those, like Catholic Charities, that do not proselyte to beneficiaries. 'There are lots of hard questions in this area,' said Justice Elena Kagan, a member of the court's liberal wing. 'But I thought it was pretty fundamental that we don't treat some religions better than other religions and we certainly don't do it based on the contents of the religious doctrine that those religions preach.' Critics say Catholic Charities' position could jeopardize unemployment benefits for hundreds of thousands people who work at religiously affiliated organizations. In the first religion-centered appeal the 6-3 conservative Supreme Court has heard in nearly two years, the Catholic Charities Bureau and four affiliate organizations say Wisconsin violated the First Amendment's religious protections by denying exemptions from the state's unemployment taxes. Churches already receive that exemption and so the question for the justices was in essence whether religiously affiliated entities that don't teach religion should also qualify. But that sort of analysis, Catholic Charities warned, requires the state to address philosophical questions about the meaning of religion – the kind of inquiry federal courts usually avoid. That argument appeared to resonate with many on the court. 'Isn't it a fundamental premise of our First Amendment that the state shouldn't be picking and choosing between religions?' Justice Neil Gorsuch, a member of the court's conservative wing said. 'Doesn't it entangle the state tremendously when it has to go into a soup kitchen – send an inspector in – to see how much prayer is going on?' The conservative justices in recent years have blurred the line that once clearly separated church from state. They have done so on the theory that some government efforts intended to comply with the First Amendment's establishment clause have been overbroad and discriminated against religion. The court has expanded the circumstances under which taxpayer money may fund religious schools, for instance, it allowed a public high school football coach to pray on the 50-yard line and ruled that Boston could not block a Christian group from raising a flag at City Hall. A decision, expected by the end of June, could have broad implications if it sweeps widely enough to cover other religiously affiliated organizations, such as hospitals. It may also limit the government's ability to look behind the pulpit to assess whether groups are, in fact, religious or only claiming to be in order to avoid taxes. 'Taking religious organizations at their word on the religiousness of their activities makes it hard for the government to challenge if those activities are actually religious,' said Luís Calderón Gómez, a professor at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University who specializes in tax law. 'You open the doors for abuse when you just look at whether there's a sincerely held belief rather than actually looking at the activity' the business is engaged in, he said. The Catholic Charities Bureau describes itself as the 'social ministry arm of the Diocese of Superior' in Wisconsin and says that it carries out a 'wide variety of ministries for the elderly, the disabled, the poor,' and others. Catholic Charities and the other organizations challenging the state are represented by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. The group said its employees would continue to have unemployment coverage but that it would be provided by a church-affiliated entity rather than the state. The group's opponents say employees in other workplaces may not be so lucky. Forty-seven states and the federal government include exemptions from unemployment taxes for religious organizations similar to Wisconsin's suggesting the court's decision could have wide impact. Approximately 787,000 employees work for six multibillion-dollar Catholic-affiliated health care systems, according to the Freedom from Religion Foundation, which filed a brief supporting the state. The Service Employees International Union, which also backs the state, estimated that more than a million workers are employed by religiously affiliated organizations. Wisconsin told the Supreme Court that Catholic Charities has participated in its unemployment insurance program without complaint since 1971. This story and headline have been updated following oral arguments.
Yahoo
05-03-2025
- General
- Yahoo
St. Paul: One former homeless woman's story at Dorothy Day Residence
A few years ago, you might have found Debra Gatto living in a tent in the woods near Blaine, or perhaps in the green near the Cathedral of St. Paul. She passed the time sketch-drawing bridges, with the general goal of documenting every major bridge in the capital city. Her five years of unsheltered homelessness offered her a unique vantage point, but not always a safe one. After a month in a battered women's shelter in Plymouth, an attorney working on her case directed her toward Catholic Charities' Dorothy Day Residence in downtown St. Paul. Gatto, who had once managed three Dollar Tree stores at a time and before that test-fired a Patriot missile during her five years in the U.S. Army, was able to secure a small efficiency apartment of her own in late 2019 a few floors above the large Dorothy Day cafeteria that serves the city's neediest residents. A housing voucher from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development-Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing covers all but about $80 of her nominal monthly rent. Getting back on your feet while homeless, 'it's almost too scary to try to figure out on your own,' Gatto said. 'With the VA saying 'you don't have to pay rent,' that was hard for me to wrap my head around. … It's downtown St. Paul, and I'm a suburban girl. I was scared. One person told me, 'That's where people go to die.' I'm like, what?' Gatto, who has enrolled in online data analytics courses, said she's found her footing at the Dorothy Day Residence, in part by knowing who to talk to and who to avoid. She now has her own small kitchen, from which she's prepared a Thanksgiving meal for all the residents on her floor. That alone has been a small blessing, compared to the meals she once ate on the fly while living in tents or on friends' sofas. 'Homelessness is the most expensive thing anybody could go through,' Gatto said. 'We all get food stamps, but none of us have refrigerators. You have to buy gas station food you can eat right away. You can't put stuff away.' Her first day in her apartment, she washed every piece of clothing she owned and soaked in the bathtub for four hours. 'It's my zen thing,' she mused, recalling how passersby once avoided her because of her disheveled appearance. 'I couldn't catch a ride across the street from someone if my hair was on fire.' Homelessness is 'more embarrassing for females,' Gatto added. 'Nobody wants to sit behind a tree and pee. Guys, they don't care.' At the Dorothy Day Residence, Gatto took art therapy classes when they were offered, and led some sessions of her own. 'I've learned a lot about myself,' she said. 'You have people who are here to help you, or not, because all the services are voluntary. I don't have to go to my case manager. You have to initiate that stuff.' 'A lot of drama comes with this environment,' she added, noting she's seen people who own nothing take from others who own nothing. 'I don't understand that, when homeless people steal from each other. It works for you if you want it to.' She's hoping someday to relaunch a career and move to a small apartment in Lowertown, like a loft, somewhere near the Mississippi River, with her Mastiff dog Minnie. Now her thoughts go toward her four adult children, each of whom have had their own successes and setbacks. Two of them strike her as stable. One son has been in and out of prison — the COVID pandemic upended his progress — but has promised to avoid further trouble. A daughter seems almost unreachable, dead-set on living life on her own terms. 'She's out there, and she's just not getting it,' Gatto said. 'We're batting about 75%. I fear for her all the time because I know what it's like out there, and I worry. She knows she doesn't have to listen to me because she's an adult.' 'Everybody in the world knows about homelessness,' Gatto said. 'But nobody really knows it until you experience it.' Local News | Newspaper delivery delayed by up to four hours on Wednesday Local News | Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, Garrick Ohlsson and Pablo Ferrández are guests for the 2025-26 Schubert Club International Artist Series Local News | Robbinsdale man who said he stabbed St. Paul light-rail rider in self-defense sentenced to probation Local News | Contest for St. Paul City Council's Ward 4 seat draws Cole Hanson, Molly Coleman, Cristen Incitti Local News | St. Paul man admits to throwing fatal punch outside East Side bar
