BURBANK : Center for Needy Helping Ex-Donors

As she was getting ready to ask the Burbank City Council for money to help her center for the homeless and the needy recently, Cherie Combs stepped out of City Hall to collect her thoughts and found her best argument:

A homeless man on a bench.

“This could happen to you,” Combs told the council, using the homeless man as an example of how hard unemployment and poverty have struck the city this year. Combs, executive director of the Burbank Temporary Aid Center, said that she gets called a few times a month by either the police or a local church or synagogue to help the homeless.

“For the first time since 1974, when we started, we are now seeing (people who had been) donors coming in for assistance,” Combs said.

The Burbank City Council gave $5,000 to the center, using money that came out of the $21,000 in salary and benefits that Councilwoman Susan Spanos waived for her first year in office to fulfill a campaign pledge.

Combs said $35,000 in donated food was given to the center this year, down from $40,000 worth last year. Meanwhile, the amount of food given out jumped from $37,000 to $46,000. In November alone, the shelter helped 1,666 people, gave out $12,000 in food and another $3,000 in other assistance, Combs said.

Burbank still has a small homeless population, about 35 to 50 throughout the city, she guessed. However, many of those who are coming to her agency for help are part of a new poor--shy and embarrassed about asking for help.

“We’ve had people who have been donors in the past come in and seeking help,” Combs said. “We are seeing more of the white collar people coming in and a dramatic increase in low-income (clients).”

The council approved the donation 4 to 1, with Councilman Bob Bowne objecting because of the great demand the council faces every year from every charity that needs funds.

Mayor George Battey, who supported the donation, said that he had already been called by another competing agency, the Salvation Army, to remind him that he had been there for Thanksgiving dinner when the people they help were “lined up out in the street.”

Combs said the money donated by the city would be used to restock the center’s shelves after the typical drop of donations following the holiday season.

After she left the council chambers, Combs went back outside to look for the homeless man she had seen.

“He was gone,” Combs said. “I didn’t receive a page or phone call during the night. I’ve wondered where he was.”