For 75 years, Father Joe’s Villages has been helping San Diegans facing homelessness transition onto the path of long-term stability and success. The nonprofit is the city’s largest provider of homelessness-related services, including shelters and housing (which serve upwards of 3,000 people each night), addiction recovery, medical care, job training, childcare, and food assistance at a rate of about a million meals per year. Father Joe’s Villages also works to overcome the root causes of homelessness, a Herculean task, especially in a high cost of living city like San Diego.
Building the Foundation
Though Father Joe’s Villages is now a large-scale operation that offers an array of services, it has humble roots. It began in 1950 as the St. Mary of the Wayside Chapel in downtown San Diego, which opened with a mission to serve the poor.
“There was an increasing number of individuals that were falling onto the streets, and, initially, it started as a soup line, in a sense, so people could catch something nutritious for lunch—PB&J sandwiches, for example—and have a compassionate ear,” says Deacon Jim Vargas, president and CEO of Father Joe’s Villages…