June 12, 2008 | Read Time: 1 minute
The Church of the Holy Apostles, in New York, “is a church only two-sevenths of the time,” writes Ian Frazier in The New Yorker (May 26). The rest of the time, it’s the largest soup kitchen in New York City, serving roughly 1,200 meals each day.
Mr. Frazier, who’s long taught a writer’s workshop at the kitchen, recalls the people he’s met there. He writes of Sundance, a hobo, who “wrote about etiquette in hobo camps and told me where to go in the Newark train yards if I wanted to hop long-distance freight trains.” Then there’s Donald, who wrote a book-length memoir, in blue ballpoint about being homeless, and got an opinion article published in The New York Times.
The charity needs about $2.7-million each year to keep operating. Roughly 35 percent of the money comes from individuals. Their contributions are generally reliable, says Mr. Frazier.
But the support of governments and foundations is not.
Foundations’ moods can change, says Mr. Frazier. “Recently, foundation charity has been more focused on ‘making a difference,’ an idea that works against the soup kitchen, which changes people from hungry to not, but invisibly,” he says.
The soup kitchen has also found it hard to keep up with increasing demands for “measurable outcomes.” The kitchen can’t easily track the impact of its food and other services on the transient population it serves.
In the past 18 months, several big foundations have dropped their support, and no new ones have been found.
“There’s enough money for now, and for a while, but the future is unclear,” writes Mr. Frazier.
