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iAUDIT! - In my columns, I usually only mention people by name when they are associated with specific program or policy statements. The purpose of my articles is to spark discussions about program performance, not about what certain people believe or support. However, some people have had such an impact on homelessness, they stand out as beacons in a dark world.
One such person is the Rev. Andy Bales, who is retiring after a lifetime of service to L.A.’s unhoused community. As head of Skid Row’s Union Rescue Mission, Rev. Bales has been on the forefront of the homelessness crisis for more than 20 years. URM has a history of reclaiming lives from one of the most desperate areas in the city, and it does it using programs that most advocates say don’t work. Rev. Bales supports neither the Housing First nor Harm Reduction policies that control homeless interventions in Los Angeles. The Mission expects its clients to be active participants in their return to mainstream society, instead of passive recipients of services deemed necessary by others. Bales has been a voice of reason on LAHSA’s Board of Directors, which is otherwise packed with pro-building consultants and service providers.
More importantly, Rev. Bales has always put service to the unhoused before ideology. His is a practical, real-world service model that personifies St. James’ admonishment that “faith without works is dead”. Despite living in Pasadena, he’s been equally at home at the Mission, in the midst of Skid Row on San Pedro Street. He often does interviews in the mission itself instead of plush offices where other providers can present sanitized visions of their operations. Sadly, his is a lonely voice. Union Rescue Mission has been successful despite a lack of government support because it does not follow the Housing First model. While other corporate nonprofits make tens of millions of dollars in government contracts and have little to show for it except more misery, URM stands out as a success story and a place of redemption for hundreds of people in the worst situations imaginable.
From the LAHSA Board to media encounters, Bales never shied from speaking truth to power. His critiques of Housing First, based on decades of personal experience, were among the reasons I began researching homelessness interventions. His experience is backed up by data he publishes on the Mission’s website. Likewise, his observations of the disastrous human costs of Harm Reduction policies, (which he calls “harm creation”) remind us policies have real consequences. His comments were often pointed but were always rooted in St. Paul’s command to speak the truth in love. Unlike many other advocates, to whom the unhoused are merely convenient symbols of economic injustice, Rev. Bales respects his clients as human beings, worthy of respect and redemption.
Rev. Bales also puts his money—and his home—where his mouth is. As the Times article mentions, he is selling his home well below its market value to the nonprofit Door to Hope to become a transitional living facility for up to 20 families. Despite the loss of parts of both legs to disease, he continued to serve his clients, and only retired when his wife told him it was time to move to Iowa and spend time with their grandchildren. But he leaves knowing his work isn’t finished. In every interview I’ve seen since he announced his retirement, he has lamented the fact homelessness and its associated evils have increased. You can feel his sense of an incomplete life. Yet, as Mother Teresa reminds us, the most we can do is our best under the circumstances we’re given: “Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough; give the world the best you’ve got anyway.”
Others who know Andy Bales and his work far better than I do will note his retirement more eloquently and personally than I can. When I’m at a loss for words, I often turn to Shakespeare. He could have been writing about Rev. Bales when he said, “To be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of ten thousand”. Godspeed, Andy Bales.
(Tim Campbell is a resident of Westchester who spent a career in the public service and managed a municipal performance audit program. He focuses on outcomes instead of process.)
