Nonprofit’s future is uncertain

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• Viewpoint: Be proactive to meet needs of homeless

  Viewpoint: Be proactive to meet needs of homeless

  It has come to my attention in the last few months — as I attempted, with mixed results, to aid Dan DeVaul and Sunny Acres in becoming a sober living center for the homeless and indigent — that there were other organizations, more established, not completely serving these clients.

  At first I thought, well, how can this be? Surely the county and various private organizations such as churches were meeting the needs of itinerant and not-so-itinerant homeless. (A large percentage of local homeless, I’ve found out, are long-term local residents who have fallen on hard times.) People like Becky Jorgeson, also a long-time resident and former Sunny Acres volunteer, were making what appeared to be “wild” statements about the unwillingness of the Prado Day Center and Maxine Lewis Shelter to assist “her” clients (she has become a self-styled independent advocate) when they were, for whatever reasons, expelled from the one shelter or refused services at the dropin center. Jorgeson kept meeting these people on the streets

• For teens in need: Nonprofit dream becomes a reality

  For teens in need: Nonprofit dream becomes a reality

  You may have seen her — the long-haired, energetic Lisa Ray — handing out Halloween costumes to children of migrant workers or scooping up bags of donations in her Pismo Beach driveway.

  She works 10- to-12-hour days running a home-grown nonprofit that in two years has gone from helping one single mom’s children to outfitting more than 3,000 homeless and other youth from Lompoc to Cambria.

  Now, what was formerly known as Lisa Ray’s Donation Group has a new name — Children’s Resource Network of the Central Coast — and a new venue where teens can pick out free clothing.

• Viewpoint: Cutting through the blather

  Viewpoint: Cutting through the blather

  It is high time that someone responded to the blather that is being circulated concerning programs to serve the homeless and the nature of the homeless problem.

  The prime source is one Becky Jorgenson, a self-designated “homeless advocate,” who has little, if any, training or experience in dealing with the homeless and the homeless problems in this area, other than working for a short time at the De Vaul Ranch.

  Jorgenson would have us disband and get rid of all homeless services providers and facilities, such as the Maxine Lewis Memorial Shelter and the Prado Day Center and solve the problem of homeless merely by asking the generous people of San Luis Obispo to open their houses and take in a homeless person.

• Grant will fund survey for Food Bank Coalition of San Luis Obispo County

  Grant will fund survey for Food Bank Coalition of San Luis Obispo County

  To document and address the changing landscape of hunger locally, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has given the Food Bank Coalition of San Luis Obispo County a $99,561 Hunger Free Communities Grant, one of 14 such grants nationwide.

• Kent State students reclaim wasted food to feed the needy

  Kent State students reclaim wasted food to feed the needy

  In a freezer in the kitchen of Beall Hall at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio, dozens of deep-dish cheesecakes are stacked up, waiting to be thawed and served as dessert.