The Arlington Life Shelter had the renderings and plans to renovate parts of its buildings.
Working with UT Arlington interns at the Arlington Urban Design Center, the Life Shelter was able to get work done for free that would have cost thousands of dollars otherwise.
The renderings could be used to go to donors and show them what the shelter plans to do, both saving money on the planning and renderings and using them to raise funds.
But that’s not happening for a while now.
Economic turmoil and uncertainty have led to decreases in donations to Arlington’s only year-long 24/7 shelter serving everyone from single adults to families. Helping more families is one of the biggest goals of the project.
“It became very obvious that the rate of family homelessness was on the rise,” Arlington Life Shelter CEO and President Stephanie Melchert told KERA News.
But the project would cost around $200,000 to $300,000 for the next phase, about the same amount of money Arlington Life Shelter anticipates losing from donation cuts in the coming year.
As of May, Melchert said the shelter is already around $500,000 short of meeting its budget for the year and, unless something changes, that deficit will just grow.
These financial woes aren't just anticipated by organizations like Arlington Life Shelter. The Chronicle of Philanthropy, an online magazine covering non-profit industry and trends, reported in February that organizations across the country are preparing for money trouble in the near future, though they haven't been as vocal about it as some experts would expect.
The renovations planned at the shelter would have provided more dorms for families so men and women, including boys and girls, didn’t have to separate in the shelter. Existing family rooms were already part of the building when it opened in 2020, but the project would allow the shelter to add more.
But now, instead of raising money to improve the building and provide more space and opportunities to serve vulnerable communities, Arlington Life Shelter is trying to find the money to continue operations, according to Melchert.
“It costs us about $3.5 million to run this place and that’s not with any fluff,” Melchert said. “I just felt that right now we need to focus on keeping our doors open and provide the services that we need to provide.”
Money trouble
A drop in donations isn’t exclusive to Arlington Life Shelter.
UTA public affairs professor Hannah Lebovits said services like that are facing reduced donations across the nation. It’s common to see donations to non-profit organizations drop amid economic uncertainty, she said.
Lebovits said organizations like the Arlington Life Shelter rely on two primary sources of funding: public policy initiatives, like grants issued by the federal government, and donations from people, businesses and other organizations in the community.
President Donald Trump’s administration has been cutting and decreasing grants in the name of reducing government spending, something Lebovits said could make it harder for organizations that serve those in need to carry out their missions.
The loss of federal grants is even impacting organizations that don't receive them, NPR reported in April. The loss of that funding has led to more competition for the same non-governmental money, be it grants from philanthropic non-governmental organizations or individual donors.
The cuts to grants coincides with a drop in donations as both large pledges and smaller individual donations fall off as they tighten their own budgets, in large part due to increased prices from inflation and the effects of trade tariffs. The two combined can create budget deficits.
“When you cut off or severely reduce the ability of funds to transfer through those two major pipelines of public policy efforts and philanthropic efforts, you just lose your money,” Lebovits said.
Maintaining existing services
The updates to the shelter would have included more living space for families experiencing homelessness, upgrades to a children’s space that would allow teaching skills like cooking and laundry and renovations to social work offices that would allow parents to keep an eye on children without having them present for difficult discussions.
Arlington Life Shelter is more than just a place for people experiencing homelessness to sleep.
The shelter offers its own programs and works with other organizations for things like job searches, job interview clothes, training, like skills, medical needs, social works and even some addiction recovery. It even offers emergency shelter to people during severe cold or heat.
Those programs, along with feeding and offering temporary housing to those in need, are what make up that $3 million budget the shelter works with each year.
Melchert said continuing those services is more important right now than the renovation. She said the organization has even decided not to write grants that might help with the construction.
That time would be better spent finding funding for general operations, and the immediate need from donors is money to keep the doors open, Melchert said.
“We had to kind of sit back and really see, ‘do we have the bandwidth to do this right now?’ ” Melchert told KERA News. “If we asked donors to support this, would we be taking their donation away from our general operating budget?”
What can non-profits do?
Lebovits said it’s a question a lot of organizations are asking right now.
They’re also having to look for ways to make cuts. She said that could mean reducing paid staff and asking for more volunteers, tapping the breaks on, or completely stopping, some existing programs and putting plans for new services or facilities on hold.
These organizations are limited on options to make up for this funding even as the economic troubles that cause a downturn in donations also lead to more people in need of services like this, Lebovits said.
She said being open and transparent about funding difficulties could help underscore the need and bring in more donations “if the funds are even there.”
“Unfortunately, you have the combination of the most compelling storyline for why our social services need additional funds, but the economic insecurity isn’t solely the political and public policy changes,” Lebovits said. “It’s also coming from the true and real economic uncertainty we’re living in, that’s the biggest gap.”
The Chronicle of Philanthropy reported in February that organizations will struggle to fill voids in domestic and foreign aid left by cuts to federal funding, even with $1.5 trillion in assets across the nation.
That means that even as many organizations struggle to maintain current operations, cuts to funding leave more people and communities vulnerable and create new needs to meet.
For the Arlington Life Shelter, that looks like more fundraising campaigns that use more unique messaging.
Melchert said the shelter is working on a campaign right now to help make up for lost funding. Of the $500,000 the shelter is short as of May, Melchert said $350,000 of that is federal funding the shelter was relying on but has been cut.
With the shelter's facilities turning five this year, Melchert said one idea is to ask people in the community to donate $5 a month to the shelter. That number is just a starting point, she said. Any amount people can give helps the shelter's mission and the organization won't say no to $50, $500 and $5,000 donations, either.
Her hope is that money will help tide the shelter over. One idea is to pair that ask with facts about the shelter. Details like how Arlington Life Shelter has been a 24/7/365 shelter since it opened in 2020, the amount of toilet paper the shelter buys each month, fun facts about services offered and details about where money goes and why.
Ultimately, Melchert said the shelter needs to raise more than $2 million. The shelter will have to raise that as other non-profits across Arlington and the rest of North Texas experiencing the same funding troubles compete for the same money.
Missing that goal won't force the shelter to shutter its doors, but it could result in lower capacity, fewer services and finding other expenses to cut and save money.
Melchert said there's one elderly woman who mails two one-dollar bills to the shelter as a donation each month.
"Every time we get it, we're like, 'She gets it,' " Melchert told KERA news. "She doesn't have much to give but she wants to give something and that $2 is $2. And donations like that add up. They really do."
Got a tip? Email James Hartley at jhartley@kera.org. You can follow James on X @ByJamesHartley.
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