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MILFORD, CT – As Beth-El gears up for its Summer of Love: The 60’s Annual Spring Gala Fundraiser, Jennifer Paradis, Executive Director of Beth-El said fundraises like Summer of Love 60’s help the Center provide for those in Need in Milford.
“We have our annual gala, which will be fun,” Paradis said. “We will have a band, surprise celebrity appearances and more surprises.”
Summer of Love: The 60’s Annual Spring Gala Fundraiser for Beth-El Center is on Saturday, June 17, from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. at Grassy Hill Country Club, 441 Clark Ln., in Orange.
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Beth-El recently released its Q1 stats (Jan. 1 through April 30) of 2023, a new effort by Paradis to show how many people the Center serves.
“For was not just what the outputs were for the first quarter but whom are we serving,” Paradis said.
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In Q1, 67 percent of the people Beth-El Center served said the primary contributing factor to homelessness is that their expenses exceeded their income.
“This is data that we collect from the folks who participate in our programs,” Paradis said. “They’ve stated their expenses exceeding their income is what landed them at Beth-El.”
Paradis referred to the Q1 stats and said 71 percent of the households they serve at Beth-El Center have income.
“67 percent of those folks said they have income, but it’s not enough,” she said. “When we talk about homelessness, there are those individual contributors, and we want to know why? Is it domestic violence, addiction issues, or you didn’t work hard enough?”
Paradis said that when homelessness is looked at, it is easy to focus on the individual contributors, but the other percentage of people with income is left out.
“So much of the increase in sheltered and unsheltered homelessness we have seen throughout the state has been on the end of structural change and not the individual contributing factors,” she said. “Until we fix those structural and systematic issues, we will continue to see people experience homelessness that doesn’t have to, quite frankly.”
Paradis said the one “most heartbreaking” statistic for her is that 20 percent of the households they serve at Beth-El Center are over 62.
“I started working here eight years ago, and we’ve occasionally had the senior citizen or older adult at Beth-El Center,” she said. “Now the population of people unsheltered and sheltered is getting older. It’s sad because those individuals are the ones who have fixed income.”
“This is a population for those who are willing and able to go back into the workforce are discriminated in the workplace and find it hard to find employment that is of substance and value,” Paradis added.
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Another statistic in Q1 for Beth-El Center is that 25 percent of the households served were U.S. Veterans.
“We don’t just want to say this is what we did to help,” Paradis said. “We wanted to answer who we are helping and help educate people on the barriers people face.”
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