"Assisting families and individuals of Delaware County in a collaborative effort by providing personal emergency assistance with dignity and respect in their time of need"
Economic struggles reflected in PIN demand Februrary 23, 2009
People In Need executive director Kevin Crowley stands in one of the storage areas of the
organization’s headquarters at 274 N. Sandusky St. PIN is currently struggling to find space
at its Sandusky Street home to keep up with the needs of its growing list of clients.
By MARK A. CLAFFEY Staff Writer Demand for service at People In Need, DelawareCounty’s family service agency, is at an all-time high. “We had 51 new families who we never saw before ask us for help in January and February alone,” said Kevin Crowley, executive director of PIN. “That was on top of serving 491 families, the most ever in this agency’s history, during our Holiday ClearingHouse event in December.” Crowley has been the head of PIN since 1997 and said the spiraling economy which has affected millions of Americans has also hit DelawareCounty residents very hard. “This economic issue has definitely manifested itself on our doorstep,” he said. Crowley said PIN has seen a steady 3 to 6 percent increase in its services provided to clients every three-to-six months. He said in 2008 more than 1,500 people were helped and of those more than 80 percent had some steady income in the household. “These people are not the type of people most expect coming to us,” Crowley said. “Forty one percent of those people served last year had one working income in the household and 8 percent had at least two working incomes in the family.” He said 21 percent of the people who asked for assistance from PIN last year were receiving at least a fixed income like Social Security or Supplemental Security Income. Crowley’s numbers also show some startling totals of individuals who asked for emergency assistance the week of Feb. 16 - Feb. 19. Emergency assistance includes help with things like paying rent and utility bills, purchasing prescriptions and buying insulin. “This week alone we helped four people with their rent, two with their dental bills, one person buy glasses, 16 people with their prescriptions and purchased 130 syringes with insulin for people with diabetes,” he said. Crowley’s four-day totals for emergency services don’t even include the people who walk through the PIN front door at 274 N. Sandusky St. asking for food assistance. The numbers of people coming to PIN keep growing and growing, Crowley said because there is a growing need for the organization’s services. “People get recommended to us all types of ways,” he said. “We get landlords who recommend clients to us, utility companies, Community Action, HelpLine and Grady Memorial all sending people to us who might be able to use our services.” The total number of clients has left Crowley with a case load in the thousands and the demand continues to grow. Crowley said there is a common misconception around central Ohio that DelawareCounty is a “rich” county and there is no homeless problem or poverty in the county. The reality reveals itself when one attempts to calculate each person’s take-home pay, Crowley said. “When you take 10 people in the southern county who make $500,000 a year and 10 people in the northern part of the county who aren’t employed and add their incomes together it’s no wonder it seems likeeverybody in DelawareCounty is rich,” he said. Crowley said there is a homeless problem in the county, most people just don’t see it or don’t care to notice it. “You just don’t see the homeless shopping cart people here pushing carts up and down the street,” he said. “DelawareCounty’s homeless people are the one who have four or five families living in a single apartment. Those are the people in between.” He said he has high hopes that a homeless shelter will be built in the county within the next five-to-10 years. “The problem is where are you going to put it and who is going to fund it?’ Crowley said. mclaffey@delgazette.com
