La Posada Providencia’s E-Newsletter

Fiscal year offers respite for shelter improvements

Tuesday, July 21, 2015

(SAN BENITO, Texas) The mission continues.

On June 30th of this year, La Posada Providencia closed its 2014-2015 fiscal year. The steep spike in clients served the previous fiscal year – a record-breaking 1,411 in fiscal year 2013-2014 – waned significantly, but the demands for services did not. In total, La Posada served 378 clients from 15 countries across the world.

“The increase in clients served the previous year was due to the influx of Central American women and children immigrants,” said La Posada’s Development Coordinator Alma Rock. “It was a trying year, where we were overwhelmed by the amount of clients served. We are grateful to the community who stepped forward and helped us with such a tremendous task.”

The most recent fiscal year, however, allowed no time for rest. La Posada staff provided a total of 6,630 bed nights; 21,228 meals; and drove clients more than 25,000 miles to and from appointments, bus stops, health centers and social service agencies.

“Given the nature of what we do, we can’t predict how many clients we will receive in a particular period of time,” explained La Posada’s Program Director Sister Zita Telkamp, CDP. “We are always ready to serve and meet the needs of our community.”
 
The community played a big role in the close of a successful fiscal year. Several projects at La Posada were started and/or completed thanks to generous donors who heeded the call to “welcome the stranger and make a difference.”
 
Some of these projects included establishing a butterfly garden for clients to learn about sustainability and the environment; a new playground for our children (made possible thanks to the generosity of the Trull Foundation); and a 1,000-square-foot, three-bedroom, two-bathroom, pre-manufactured home for live-in staff, which enables La Posada to free up space to host women and families more comfortably.
 
“La Posada never stops working for the benefit of the hundreds of men, women and children who come through our doors every year,” Rock said. “We are constantly looking for ways to improve our services and infrastructure. We never know when an influx in clients will occur, so we must always be prepared to serve.”
 
The more than 300 clients served in the most recent fiscal year are living proof of the valuable purpose La Posada has in our community. All of our clients are referred to us by the United States Bureau of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement or local immigration attorneys. They are in the legal process of seeking asylum, residency or some other legal alternative. While they wait for their cases to advance through the court system, most of these individuals have no place to go, and arrive at our doorstep hungry, tired and with little but their clothes on their back. Many arrive in the U.S. with both physical and emotional scars from their journeys from places as far as Africa or Asia.
 
For those clients, La Posada is pleased to report significant outputs, which include:

• 97 clients granted political asylum
• 118 clients received I-94 forms
• 136 clients received work permits
• 103 clients were given Social Security Cards

“Without La Posada, many of those clients could end up homeless with nowhere to go,” Telkamp said. “While they await the outcomes of their legal pleading, at La Posada they are treated with dignity and compassion.”

We would like to thank all the staff, volunteers, donors and supporters who made our previous fiscal year a truly successful one. Thanks to you, La Posada has now served more than 8,300 clients since opening its doors in 1989.

Thanks to you, we can look forward to another year of welcoming the stranger and making a difference.