An “alarming” increase in the number of emergency assistance requests to diocesan Catholic Charities has stretched the organization’s already tight budget to the max. The $400,000 fiscal year allocation for those needing assistance paying rent, utilities, prescription medication, clothing and food has dwindled rapidly in past months as Catholic Charities has experienced a 450 percent escalation in requests.

At the organization’s current pace of giving, the $400,000 is in danger of being depleted by the end of January. Charities is not in crisis, said Steve Luteran, director, but its emergency assistance offices at Christ House in Alexandria and the Western Regional Office in Leesburg have been forced to “scale back” how much assistance they give out.

“It’s at the limit,” said Luteran, who added that emergency assistance also is provided on an on-call basis at their office in Fredericksburg or through any parish.

Where in the past Charities would have been able to pay an entire rent or utility bill for a family in need, the organization now can only partially cover those expenses. That’s bad news for Charities’ emergency assistance clients who usually rely on the organization as a last resort.

“If we can’t pay for somebody’s utility bill, or we can’t find another agency that would pay for it, then the utilities would get shut off,” Luteran said.

Pleading to utility companies for leniency does little good, as Jeanne Bailey, spokeswoman for Fairfax Water, Virginia’s largest water utility, said that, due to its trust indenture, the company is not allowed to offer discounted service or payment assistance. It does, however, refer those in need to a Fairfax County assistance program — and the number of requests for assistance and referrals are steadily rising.

In its Western Regional Office, Catholic Charities has seen a 128 percent increase in requests for services, according to Luteran.

“In the last two or three months it’s just been going through the roof,” he said.

Dawn Dumas, the manager of social services at that branch, has noticed a clear shift in clientele in recent months.

“It used to be the working poor, the people that have always been low-income, but we’ve definitely moved into middle-class families that were living middle class-lifestyles,” she said. “Now one or both (parents) have been laid off and so they have mortgages that are going into foreclosure.”

Job loss and home foreclosure lead directly to a struggle to buy food, Dumas said. Donations from the nearby St. Francis of Assisi Parish in Purcellville and St. John the Apostle Parish in Leesburg go immediately to clients — especially those many who “are sitting in our office and their stomachs are rumbling,” Dumas said.

“It is an emotional issue,” she said. “It’s unimaginable some days.”

Food is the No. 1 need, Luteran said. Higher food prices combined with increasing job layoffs have had a drastically negative effect on those in lower-income brackets. Christ House’s food pantry is low on staples of cereal, pasta, sauce — everything, really, except for Campbell’s Chunky Soup, thanks to the annual soup drive in October by students at Bishop O’Connell High School in Arlington.

“We’re seeing groups that will do a food drive and maybe bring in 10 grocery bags, and that’s helpful, but what we really need to be seeing is a truckload of food coming in,” Luteran said. “We’ll give it out within a week.”

Ruth Guillen, a 16-year veteran of the emergency assistance staff at Christ House, said they receive phone calls every day from people all over the area in search of sustenance.

“We have had a huge increase in the food requests,” she said.

Christ House’s emergency assistance is limited to distributing $3,500 per month, according to Guillen, and, due to mostly to the increase in unemployed clients, they run out of funds during the first week of the month.

Because there is a $300 limit per family, Guillen and her co-worker, Cassandra Lee, have to talk to each person in need and decide whether or not they can realistically help.

“It’s not easy to listen to their stories,” Guillen said. “Sometimes I go home and I don’t feel well. It’s a very hard job.”

And while need is increasing, monetary donations to Catholic Charities have been, if only slightly, decreasing.

“Our donors who are supporting us are still giving us money, but their gifts are not as much as maybe last year or the year before,” Luteran said.

As the year progresses Catholic Charities will re-examine its budget, taking a careful look at resource allocation.

“We’re going to try to see if there’s anything we can do without,” Luteran said. “We’ll have to tighten our belts that way. The things that we can live without, we’ll do because we want to give our clients the first priority to the money that comes in.”

At the same time, it’s a balancing act to keep afloat all of Catholic Charities’ endeavors, not just its emergency assistance.

“It’s hard to keep pumping money into emergency assistance when we have other programs to support,” he said. “What we’re always balancing is how much do we put into emergency assistance and at what other expense?”

Programs like counseling, for which there is a waiting list, become more essential during tough economic times, Luteran said. To top everything off, stressed and worried parents lead to an increase in familial abuse cases.

Only time will tell whether or not funds can be raised and needs can be met.

“My previous four years we’ve never had anything like this,” Luteran said. And “if you look at what they say about the economy, this doesn’t look like it’s going to get better.”

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