St. Joseph’s Breaks Ground

By Olin Ericksen
Staff Writer

March 28 -- When Sisters Louise Bernstein and Marilyn Rudy moved the fledgling St. Joseph’s Center’s headquarters into an aging parochial school nearly 25 years ago, the two nuns never dreamed the tiny non-profit would grow to take over almost the entire building straddling Santa Monica’s southern border.

However, with a groundbreaking last week for St. Joseph’s new 30,000-square-foot headquarters at the Venice site, that impossible dream moved a step closer to becoming a reality.

“This is very hard to believe,” said Bernstein, who with co-founder Rudy and city officials from Santa Monica and neighboring cities came out with shovels in hand to attend the event.

“It’s become all we’ve hoped for and so much more,” she said.

Calling the relationship between Santa Monica and St. Joseph’s “a partnership that we appreciate” Santa Monica Mayor Bob Holbrook gave a congratulatory address before a crowd of more than 100 at the March 22 event.

Though the project is short some $1.5 million, St. Joseph officials say they hope to complete the rebuilding effort sometime in 2007.

For decades, the site at 204 Hampton Street -- a block off Main and Marine streets -- was a make-shift home to the cramped administrative offices where officials coordinated offsite homeless services and programs aimed at helping the working poor stay on their feet.

St. Clement’s school and church, which is owned by the Archdiocese, will continue to operate out of the second floor of the new building. The Catholic Church will also continue to hold the deed to the property, which will again be leased to St. Joseph’s.

“Service to the poor and needy is at the heart of the mission for all three of us,” said St. Joseph’s Executive Director Rhonda Meister, who characterized the relationship with the church as exceptionally close.

When completed, the non-profit is scheduled to move out of its temporary site at Pico Boulevard and Fourth Street and into the new two-story facility, which will increase in size by 19,000 square feet.

It is estimated the space will continue to serve approximately 3,000 working poor families and individuals out of the location each year and remain the main nerve center for coordinating homeless services at other locations.

St. Joseph’s officials reiterated that while the new location will offer job training, adult education, a program for affordable groceries, a daycare center and senior services on site to working poor families, it will not provide services on-site to the homeless -- a touchy subject for area residents.

With a recent homeless count by the County indicating that homelessness in the county, Santa Monica and other Westside communities is on the rise, the new facility will come at an important time, Meister said.

“The percentage of (working poor and homeless) families are increasing precipitously,” she said. “Our goal and purpose is to help people stay in housing.”