94 of the Missions income comes from donations
"It's an uphill battle but we are a Christian agency so if we don't have faith, we have nothing," says Ron Dunn, the Executive Director of Windsor's Downtown Mission.
The organization is planning for 2019, with $1-million less than it had in 2018.
With a 2019 cash budget of $4-million — the same as 2018 — Dunn says $1-million of that last year, was a one-time donation from local philanthropist Alan Quesnel.
"So what we're doing right now is we're looking at all of our programming, what can we scale back? Our shelter system has exploded, our food bank was 1,100 people per month, now it's over 2,000 people a month. We have to continuously look and reconfigure ourselves," says Dunn.
(Kristylee Varley/AM800 News)
He points out that minimal funding comes from outside agencies.
"The Local Health Integration Network (LHIN) pays for our Phoenix Recovery and Wellness Program, so we get about $115,000 a year from them and the City of Windsor partnered with us on our enterprise program and they gave us a grant for about $53,000. So, it helps, we have reached out to every level of government thought."
Dunn also points out that the people who come to the mission aren't just people who live on the street, saying "Not just the opioid crisis but the addiction crisis, the mental health crisis and the affordable housing crisis all come to a head at the mission. So it's just people in general who are struggling and at the verge of homelessness, they're on that bubble."
Dunn says 94% of the Mission's income comes from donations. In 2018 they received $2.7-million in in-kind donations and $2.54-million in community donations.