PORT ANGELES — After losing her job managing a large apartment building, the Peninsula Home Fund helped Patricia Gillian, paying part of her rent and electric bill and giving her a kick start to financial stability.
More than that, she says, she learned she wasn’t alone in her struggle and the “people here really care about each other.”
She adds:
“I was one of those who thought ‘I’m hard working and self-sufficient so I’ll always be OK.
“But after what I’ve been through, I realize everyone is vulnerable.”
“I owe the Home Fund and those who donate to it a huge thanks.
“I just really want people to know it’s there, and to use it only when they really need it so it’s there for others who are in dire need.”
Her life changed quickly after new owners took over the apartment building.
It was decided a 24/7 manager was no longer necessary, and “just like that I was out of a job.”
Not only was she out of a job, she now had to pay for the apartment she had gotten rent-free as the resident manager. Plus pay the utilities.
“Every single one of my unemployment checks went to pay rent, every bit,” she remembers.
“Anything that cost me money — toilet paper, paper towels — I didn’t have it to buy.”
A couple in the building moved out and left her “all kinds of things like toilet paper and food stuffs that helped me get by.
“My door had always been open to assist the residents, so they continued to knock on my door for assistance and questioning, ‘Why, why, why are you no longer our manager?’ ”
Minimum wage
She hunted for a new job.
After turning in “countless of applications,” she got one job offer that paid minimum wage.
She was happy to get it.
“The people there were wonderful to work with, and I got my self esteem back,” she says.
But it was a very physical job, and it was hard on her.
She had spent years working in Alaska canaries, making “excellent money until my body could no longer handle it.”
She’d developed a chronic back problem — and now, at age 62, it was difficult for her to keep up with the demands of her new job.
“My doctor finally told me, ‘No more work for you.’”
She was again jobless.
She received unemployment until she was told she was no longer eligible: “To be on unemployment you have to be searching for a job at the same time, and with my deteriorated health I couldn’t.”
Then, she says, “I got really desperate trying to find ways to survive, and I do mean survive.”
Home Fund caseworker
When the shut-off notice came from the electric company, she approached OlyCAP — nonprofit Olympic Community Action Programs — the No. 1 emergency-care agency on the Peninsula.
OlyCAP manages the Peninsula Home Fund for the PDN, screens the applicants, carefully disburses the funds and provides life-changing counseling and services to those who need a “hand up, not a handout.”
She met with volunteer Home Fund caseworker Laura Calabria.
“I literally had no income and was extremely depressed, yet she reassured me help was available; she told me I wasn’t alone, that it wasn’t my fault I was in this position,” says Patricia.
“She was first one who helped me feel better about myself and that I wasn’t a beggar.”
Laura accessed the Home Fund to pay her past-due electric bill and part of the rent, got her on LIHEAP — the federal Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program — plus secured bus passes to get to and from her doctor’s office and information on dental assistance through Provide One Care.
“She shared many resources with me, but the biggest thing is the Home Fund helped me stay in my apartment, and that’s huge,” says Patricia.
She got seniors’ discount coupons for the farmers market that allowed her to buy “peaches and beets and a whole lot of other fruits I canned.
“I got foods I could live off for quite some time.”
She also applied for Social Security and received her first payment at the end of October.
She says she was one of those people who didn’t plan on getting a disability; who didn’t plan on retiring at 62 because it’s $400 a month less than if she’d waited to 67, “but I needed it now just to keep on living.”
As she concentrates on getting caught up on other bills she finds it “just weird” to not wake to an alarm clock every day with a reason to get up and go.
She credits her cat Benjamin for not allowing her to lay in bed and mope by “nudging and pushing me to get up.”
“Without the Home Fund I don’t know how I could have done it,” she says.
“And if Social Security hadn’t kicked in I don’t know where I would have ended up.
Money almost gone
As of Monday this week, the Peninsula Home Fund — a safety net for North Olympic Peninsula residents when there is nowhere else to turn — had helped 3,941 individuals and 1,255 families in Jefferson and Clallam counties since Jan. 1.
As we move into winter, the toughest period of the year, all of the remaining money from last year’s fundraising campaign is almost exhausted.
Only $207 remains from the $268,389 contributed by individuals, couples, businesses, churches, organizations and school groups in 2013.
And what good it’s done!
From Port Townsend to Forks, from Quilcene and Brinnon to Sequim and LaPush, money from the Home Fund, now in its 26th year, has paid for hot meals for seniors; warm winter coats for kids; bus passes; keeping the power on; home repairs for a low-income family; needed prescription drugs; dental work; safe, drug-free temporary housing; eyeglasses — the list goes on and on.
No money is deducted by the Peninsula Daily News for administration, fees or any other overhead.
Every penny goes to OlyCAP to support our neighbors in need in Jefferson and Clallam counties.
Shoestring philanthropy
The Home Fund is not a welfare program.
The average amount of help is usually below $100 — this year it has been $69.16 per person — with a limit of one grant from the fund within 12 months.
But even though the dollar figure is small — some call it “shoestring philanthropy” — the impact can be big, in huge, life-changing ways:
Instances of help are designed to get an individual or family through a crisis — and every effort is also made to put them back on the path to self-sufficiency.
That’s the “hand up, not a handout” focus of the fund.
As was done with Patricia, Peninsula Home Fund case managers at OlyCAP work with individuals or families to develop a plan to become financially stable — and avoid a recurrence of the emergency that prompted aid from the fund.
And, as needed, Peninsula Home Fund contributions are often used in conjunction with money from other agencies, enabling OlyCAP to stretch the value of the contribution.
To apply for a Peninsula Home Fund grant, phone OlyCAP at 360-452-4726 (Clallam County) or 360-385-2571 (Jefferson County).
If you have any questions about the fund, phone John Brewer, PDN publisher and editor, at 360-417-3500.
Or email him at jbrewer@peninsuladailynews.com.
