Sacramento Bee - Major homeless nonprofit plans to close 90-bed shelter after loss of state funding

Volunteers of America (VOA) is facing a serious loss of funding that will impact the region’s most successful program to reduce homelessness: Mather Community Campus. This funding loss will force VOA to cease critical components of the Mather program model which will significantly affect the program’s ability to help clients get off the streets and back on their feet:

• Loss of funding will strike a fatal blow to Mather’s Community Dining Hall/Culinary Training Kitchen.
  The Community Dining Hall will close - clients will no longer receive 3 hot meals daily. The Culinary Training Kitchen will close - clients will no longer receive valuable job training to help prepare them for employment once they leave the shelter.
• Mather will have to turn away 90 new clients, year after year – that’s 90 beds that will go unused each year. That’s 90 people who are on the streets now, ready for change, but will have nowhere to go.

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