St. Vincent closing after serving poor since 1896

The St. Vincent de Paul Society, which has lent a hand to the region’s most needy for 112 years, will close its Family Service Center in Spokane at the end of next month because of financial problems, the charity’s board president announced Wednesday.

“We have explored every avenue and crunched every number to find some way out of this, but it just isn’t there,” said Michael Cain.

The service center, 722 N. Regal St., is Eastern Washington’s largest direct provider of food to the needy. Last year, it helped 60,000 people with food and other emergency services.

Though the society will continue to provide services through various Catholic parishes on a smaller scale, Cain said, the service center that has become a landmark since it opened in the early 1970s will close Feb. 29.

Cain cited declining and aging membership in the local Society of St. Vincent de Paul and “competition with other charities for finite resources.”

In August, the society, which was established in Spokane in 1896, announced it would close if it could not raise $360,000 in 12 months.

“We’re not even close to that,” Cain said on Wednesday.

This year, Catholic Charities, which provides social services to thousands in Eastern Washington, also came up short of its $750,000 fundraising goal at a time when parishioners have been asked to contribute $10 million toward the $48 million bankruptcy settlement between the Spokane Diocese and victims of child sex abuse.

“There are only a certain number of Catholic dollars, only a certain number of dollars period,” Cain said.

St. Vincent de Paul clients will be referred to Second Harvest, the region’s food warehouse and distribution center, and the Salvation Army, the only other direct food provider that serves clients from anywhere in Spokane County.

“They provided a tremendous amount of service over the years,” Second Harvest director Jason Clark said of St. Vincent. “It is certainly a loss to us.”

Clark said that at a time when need is increasing anyway, St. Vincent’s caseload will be spread “across the community.”

At the Salvation Army, Maj. John Chamness said the “impact will be quite extreme.”

The charity’s Inland Northwest regional coordinator expects the number of people who visit the food bank at the Salvation Army Family Resource Center, 204 E. Indiana Ave., to double from 1,100 a month to 2,200 a month.

Last year, St. Vincent de Paul shut its thrift stores at 2901 E. Trent Ave. and 2106 N. Monroe St. At the time, executive director Adrienne Brownlow said it had been at least four years since the stores made enough money to help fund social services. The Family Service Center employs four full-time and three part-time workers.

Cain said the board was “working on arrangements” for those employees.

At the center on Wednesday, Charles Pearson, 43, learned that the resource on which he has relied off and on since 1985 soon will be gone.

“This place means a lot to me,” Pearson said. “It will be sad to see it close.”