August 2006 Contents

• There's No Place Like Home - Read about our new structured housing program and how you can help!
• Open House - You are invited to an Open House at our new house!
• Current Finances - Help us fund our 2006 Budget! (You can even donate online!)
• Well Endeavors – Community highlights during January through July 2006. 
• Prayer & Support - How to keep us in your prayers! 
• Wish List

"the Well Walkers" - Our team at NAMI Walks, an awareness event

sponsored by the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI)

There’s No Place Like Home

There’s no place like home.  Home is where the heart is.  Home sweet home.  For most of you, these long-held adages represent reality.  However, for the Community Members of the Well these sayings reflect unfulfilled aspirations.  Living with the effects of mental illness, they stand little chance of obtaining and/or retaining safe, decent, and affordable housing. 

Many factors contribute to this situation including low incomes, high rents, stigma and discrimination, and lack of accessible and appropriate support services.  Daily I hear the accounts of our Community Members: a boarding home with raw sewage leaking underneath, rampant drug abuse & sexual deviation, staff who verbally abuse residents, operators with questionable ethics.  The list could go on. 

Faced with these issues, the leadership of the Well Community has for some time been praying and strategizing about our corporate response.

We began last summer by launching our supportive housing program.  Over the past year, eight healthy and independent Community Members have moved out of boarding homes and into efficiency apartments at Tyler Street Manor (922 W 9th Street).  We continue to provide encouragement and basic assistance to these members, and are proud to report that all eight are doing well in the program.  Apart from our help they would certainly still be living in a boarding home.  

However, not all of our Community Members could, or should, live independently.  Therefore, we are now initiating a structured housing program, for members that currently require a higher level of life management.  In the past month, the Well leased a 5-bedroom duplex (915 W 8th Street) and before the end-of-July we will be housing up to ten of our Community Members.

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Our First Residents: (from left) Durwin, Lauri, Sherri, Jan & Robert

The residents of the home will be trained in life-skills (e.g., cooking, cleaning, etc.), empowered in the overall management of the house, involved in Christian formation activities, and participating at the Well’s Community Life Center and Saturday Night Life.  We have selected two Community Members, a healthier, married couple, to live and provide oversight at the home.  Regarding finances, this project, beyond start-up costs, will have little effect on the Well’s budget, with residents paying their way for rent, utilities, and food. 

Please be in prayer for us.  Overall details have gone smoothly, but there are still numerous details & logistics to firm up.  As you remember us, please lift up the Well’s staff and the initial residents.  Please pray for a spirit of love & family to pervade the home. 

This week, I met with the family of a potential resident of the home.  As they described the pains that they have faced in finding suitable housing for their loved one, tears came to their eyes.  While the tears reflected past troubles, I was encouraged to know that they also represented the hope they placed in this new project. 

Your support in the primary stages of this project is requested.  While many items have come in, we still need your help to properly furnish the home.  While gently used items are welcomed, we have set up registries at Target and Wal-Mart with our current needs (First Name: the Well / Last Name: Community).  Donations can be dropped off during weekday hours at Cliff Temple (125 Sunset Avenue) or pick-up can be arranged by calling the Well’s office (214/942-8601).

Current Finances

Thanks to your support, the year has started strong financially for the Well.  As of June 5, 2006, the Well Community has received $62,495.85 in gifts and donations, 94% being given by over 85 individuals.  Five congregations and several organizations contributed the remaining 5% ($3,571.79). 

However, as work continues to expand so do our expenses.   So far we have had operating costs of $66,711.25.  While this is healthily under our total 2006 budget of $190,000, you might notice that our expenses to-date exceed our contributions.  Before panicking, know that our 2005 balance has covered us thus far, with our current balance sheet demonstrating cash assets of $33,882.95.  However, the negative expense-to-income trend cannot continue! 

Therefore, as we march through the summer months your generous assistance is requested.  the Well is a grassroots effort – people caring for people.  While we are diligently seeking additional funding through a variety of means (foundations, large donors, civic clubs, etc.), we will never cease to require your gifts.  Therefore, become a Community Friend of the Well by supporting this ministry financially!  Join us today!

Well Endeavors (Spring & Early Summer 2006)

See a PDF slide show of these events...

Lee & Carolyn                                         Marie & Robert

The Church has become less welcoming to the stranger.  We are to create “communities of refuge,” not adopt the exclusivist ethos, ethics, and practices of the very society against which we struggle.

Prayer and Support

In 2 Corinthians, Paul testifies that, “[God] has delivered us… [and] on him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us, as you help us by your prayers. Then many will give thanks on our behalf for the gracious favor granted us in answer to the prayers of many.” 

To that end, we request your prayers on our behalf.  Anything of value that the Well has achieved to date has been through his power and guidance.  Therefore, we provide this suggested guide to inform your intercession. 

Wish List