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Project Dignity

serving the homeless with dignity, humility & love

When is it Really an Emergency?

When is it Really an Emergency?

Some days you get no phone calls.  Some days they pile up quicker than you can handle them.  That’s when you have to “triage”—decide which call gets handled now and which ones can wait for a bit.   Face it, they are all emergencies.  No one ever calls just to say hello.  Someone’s on the verge of eviction because they can’t pay the rent, someone’s car just broke down, someone needs food, someone needs to get to the doctor.  The key word is need.  Everyone needs something and they pretty much need it right now.

Depending on the size of your staff and/or volunteer base a day with a lot of phone calls can either go smoothly or cause you to spin in circles if you’re not careful.  If it’s just you handling the emergencies you need to take a deep breath, make your best decision and get on to the next one.

Last week there was a day with multiple phone calls and emails, all with serious requests, involving rent, food, transportation and a sick child.  Guess which one got handled first?  Right, the one involving the sick child.  We received an urgent call from one of the motel residents asking for help for another family whose baby was very sick.  (Motels are mini microcosms, communities unto themselves.  The residents take care of each other).

One resident helped get the baby and mother to the emergency room.  Another helped get them home at 2 am when the buses were no longer running.  Unfortunately, they ran up against a problem they couldn’t solve.  They all had heart.  What they didn’t have was money.  The emergency room saw the baby and diagnosed her with a bad case of the flu.  Then she was released to go home, with a 103 degree temperature and a prescription.  When the mother went to the 24 hour pharmacy to fill the prescription, she found out there was a foul-up with her Medi-Cal coverage.  The prescription cost $150 and she didn’t have the money.  Neither did anyone else.  She had to take the baby home without the prescription.

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March 17, 2014 /// Filed Under: Matters of the Heart, Practical Matters, Working with Children /// Tagged With: child, children, emergency, heart, homeless, practical

What We Do

While we don’t feel anyone can ever fully understand the motel situation, we believe we understand it better than most. To our knowledge we are the only local organization who is focusing their services solely on the homeless population living in residential motels and we’ve been doing it since 1996.

It’s a long haul from homelessness to home, so our programs “wraparound” the challenges. Our first objective is to ease the burdens of daily living for our clients by assisting with necessities most of us take for granted–food, clothing and hygiene items.

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A tribute to our Founder

In 1986 doctors told Linda Dunlap she had 6 months to live and she told them the Lord knew more about that than they did. She said He had a lot more work for her to do. She proved herself and God right by living another 22 ministry-packed years.

Linda went into the motels singlehandedly with nothing more than her backpack and a few medical supplies. She won the confidence of people who had never had anyone care about them or help them before. Her belief and vision that one person can make a difference grew into 10,000 people being helped annually by Project Dignity.

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Project Dignity

12913 Harbor Blvd., Ste. Q3, #253
Garden Grove, CA 92840

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