For the past 20 years, Reverend Andy Bales has been the CEO of Union Rescue Mission, a faith-based homeless shelter in Skid Row. He helped guide the shelter through the lean years of the Great Recession and unprecedented turmoil of the pandemic, and now, he says it’s time to hang up his hat and return to his home state of Iowa.
“What took me back was my wife a year ago said, ‘When you turn 65…I’m returning to hang out with our redheaded grandgirls and you can join me if you’d like.’ So I gulped and thought, oh, I’m in trouble. I’ll be moving,” Bales said in a recent interview on AirTalk with Larry Mantle, LAist’s daily news program.
Looking back
“The most important work has been raising awareness that people devastated by homelessness are valuable and precious and should not be left on the streets,” Bales said of his time at Union Rescue Mission. “I think one of the best things I did was break through that NIMBY curtain, that ‘not my backyard curtain.”
He said he’s also proud of his efforts lobbying legislators in Sacramento and Washington against “hospital dumping,” the practice of releasing unwell patients back into the streets without a care plan in place.
But with the depth of the homelessness crisis in Los Angeles, there’s always more to be done.
“I sure didn’t succeed in ending Skid Row as we know it,” he acknowledged.
A faith-based model
Throughout his career, Bales has been a staunch advocate of a faith-based transitional care model for people experiencing homelessness, which requires residents to be off drugs and seeking work. This is in contrast to the now-mainstream “housing first” approach, which prioritizes placing people in permanent housing as quickly as possible. But Bales is optimistic the pendulum will swing back toward transitional care.
“I think we’re gaining momentum that you need to walk alongside people for the long run, invest in their lives, focus on recovery,” he said.
Leaving a legacy behind
When Bales returns to Iowa, he’ll leave behind his Pasadena home, which will be transformed by the nonprofit Door of Hope into 20 units of housing for families experiencing homelessness.
“I couldn’t think of a better use of our house and my favorite place, my front porch,” he said. “Kids will be able to sit and watch hummingbirds and listen to the parrots and relax.”
