The People Concern CEO John Maceri led a live webinar educating our supporters on measures The People Concern is taking to address COVID-19. “Last week the agency implemented an Emergency Work from Home Protocol. We have divided our tasks into essential services for our front line client-facing programs and our administrative functions so that we can keep the agency moving forward.” The People Concern’s mission-essential services include: multidisciplinary street outreach, the Access Center in Santa Monica, Interim Housing, domestic violence shelters, money management, and public toilets, showers and laundromat in the heart Skid Row as well as supportive services for people in permanent housing.
John discussed some of the financial and staffing challenges The People Concern is facing during this crisis, “Our biggest challenges right now are access to Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), access to food, access to personal hygiene products and the additional strain on our limited resources.” John continues, “As you can imagine our workforce has been significantly impacted with LAUSD schools closing. We have redeployed our management and executive leadership team through a reserve staffing pool. All of us, myself included, are taking shifts at our various program sites to make sure that we are supporting our front line staff. I spent 8 hours yesterday at Cloverfield Services Center in Santa Monica. It was so heartwarming to see the clients and staff, from a safe distance, working together and taking care of each other. It was really great to have the opportunity to spend some time with the people that we serve and hear from them directly how grateful they are for the services that are being provided to them. Especially for the people who are now living indoors but have many friends still living outside whom they are very concerned about.”
Listen to the full webinar here!
Your help is needed now more than ever!
The People Concern has put together a campaign to provide options for our community of supporters to make a difference in the lives of their neighbors from the comfort of their homes. One of our current challenges is supplying nearly 2,000 residents in permanent supportive housing with non-perishable food and groceries. To learn more about how you can help, please visit our COVID-19 webpage and contact donations@thepeopleconcern.org.