MODELS FROM ECUMENICAL PARTNERS:
People's Emergency Center: A 'Continuum of Care' for Homeless Families

In 1972, National Council of Churches General Secretary Bob Edgar -- then chaplain of Drexel University -- founded People's Emergency Center "in response to a real and unmet need to serve the growing number of homeless families in Philadelphia."  Along with the Rev. Jim Hallam, now pastor of Lima (Pa.) United Methodist Church, Dr. Edgar started PEC as a weekend shelter and soup kitchen.  It was a shoestring operation of student volunteers using borrowed space in a church near campus.  Today PEC has three of its own buildings, a paid staff of 90, and national recognition as a model of how to help the homeless.  For all its growth, PEC remains committed to the original ideas of service and social justice on which it was founded.

Since its grass-roots beginnings, the People's Emergency Center in Philadelphia, Pa., has developed into a “continuum of care” that addresses the long-term antecedents as well as the immediate crises that precipitate homelessness, and the effects of both on women and their children.  PEC has an unusually high success rate—over 90 percent of its “graduates” never revert to homelessness—and has been named a “Best Practice” by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

About 150 families call PEC “home” each year and make use of its array of programs.  These include emergency food, clothing, and shelter; transitional housing; case management and counseling; parenting and life skills education; child care and out-of-school programs; teen services; health care; employment preparation and placement; the creation of permanent housing opportunities and follow-up for at least a year. 

But direct services are not enough, Gloria Guard, PEC’s dynamic executive director since 1983, has also become a leading advocate on public policy pertaining to the homeless.  She has even gotten the President’s ear.  In Philadelphia last March to promote volunteerism, George W. Bush visited PEC and hailed it as an exemplary service organization.  As he left to deliver his speech, he invited Guard to ride with him.  Seizing the occasion, Guard spent much of the trip downtown discussing welfare reform and the inflexible systems that hinder PEC mothers who sincerely want to work.  The next month, she sent a policy brief to one of President Bush’s aides.   As Guard puts it, advocacy is integral to the agency’s mission: “In many ways, PEC was created because homelessness itself was created—by systemic societal forces that demand a systemic communal response.”

On October 9, 2002, PEC marked its 30^th Anniversary—sad that homelessness remains a reality for so many families but proud that PEC is, as one mother put it, “a great place to get your life together.”   Visit PEC’s Web site at www.pec-cares.org.