Now three years deep, the recession’s latest local casualty is Faith at Work, a nonprofit that serves the poor and homeless in Santa Fe County.
The center has been around for 12 years and has recently served around 1,400 people a year with housing assistance, food and clothes. It stops accepting material donations after July 18 and ultimately shuts its doors July 31.
“It’s just really sad that the economy has taken its toll on this really quiet agency that has never really been loud, but has done wonderful things,” Liz Reynolds, the director of La Familia Medical Center’s Health Care for the Homeless, which has partnered with Faith at Work, tells SFR.
Faith at Work Executive Director Angela Merkert lists smaller donations from corporate foundations and reduced government funding as causes of the organization’s demise.
“[The closing] is putting additional stress on already-stressed nonprofits in this city,” Merkert tells SFR. “That’s my greatest sorrow about this. It’s putting these people who are already vulnerable in more vulnerable positions.”
