Peoples' Self-Help Housing

The Mission of Peoples' Self-Help Housing is to provide affordable housing and programs leading to self-sufficiency for low-income families, seniors, and other special needs groups on California's Central Coast.

Please share this October issue of our PSHH E-News with your family, friends and business associates.

Peoples' Self-Help Housing E-Newsletter

PSHH Mourns the Passing of Board Member Reverend Donald G. Carey, ThD Peoples' Helps Save Foreclosed Home PSHH Youth Love to Dance! Giving Corner Staff News Upcoming Events

Summer ends, and Autumn comes, and he who would have it otherwise would have high tide always and a full moon every night. ~ Hal Borland

PSHH Mourns the Passing of Board Member Reverend Donald G. Carey, ThD

Reverend Donald Carey passed away on September 23rd in Santa Barbara.

Rev. Carey has been affiliated with PSHH since 1976. He was a strong advocate for our first self-help and rental housing developments in Morro Bay, Los Osos, Paso Robles, Santa Maria and Guadalupe.

He served on the PSHH Board of Directors from 1987 until 1993. He rejoined the Board in 1997 after he and his wife Louise moved to Santa Barbara where he served as a Parish Associate at St. Andrews Presbyterian Church.

Rev. Carey grew up in San Bernadino and graduated from Valley College and the University of Redlands. He completed his Master of Divinity and Doctorate of Theology degrees at San Francisco Theological Seminary. In 1958 he became minister of the Orcutt and Los Alamos Presbyterian churches. After training church leaders in the Phillipines, he became pastor of the Morro Bay Presbyterian Church.

The passion and enthusiasm Carey brought to PSHH led to the development of much needed affordable senior housing. He was also a driving force behind the development of the Youth Education Enhancement Program.

His support, dedication and smile will forever remain in our hearts.

He is survived by his wife Louise, daughter Anna of Morro Bay and sons Norman of El Segundo and John of San Jose. Memorial contributions may be made to Peoples' Self-Help Housing, 3533 Empleo, San Luis Obispo 93401.

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Peoples' Helps Save Foreclosed Home

My wife Celia and I want to let you know how very much we appreciate PSHH Housing Counselor Brian Kerrigan for all the time and effort he spent helping us secure our home loan restructure. The numerous letters, phone calls, and faxes that he made to the lender on our behalf were amazing.

He also shepherded us through the loan process, giving us direction as to what the lender would consider useful information. He assembled our packet for submission with expertise. Brian made a lengthy, tedious process much easier.

He also made sure that our expectations were realistic. It was reassuring to know that someone with his acumen, and pleasant demeanor, was "on our side". We are confident that his thoroughness and attention to detail were instrumental in our successful loan restructure agreement.

Again, we just wanted to let you know what a fine job he did for us and that we're very grateful for all the help from Peoples'.

James D. Mendenhall, R.N., N.P.

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PSHH Youth Love to Dance!

By Kim Gaspar, YEEP Educator

At the Youth Education Enhancement Program (YEEP) in Paso Robles, students enjoy dance class twice a week. The teacher is Karina Vega, a 13 year old student who lives at our Canyon Creek Apartments with her family. Karina and her siblings have attended the YEEP program for the last three years. Now that Karina has entered junior high, she comes to the center to assist the students with their homework and teach dance class.

The dance class starts out with stretching and then the girls work on learning dance routines as a group. It is wonderful to see girls ages 5-11 work together and encourage each other!

On October 22, all the YEEP centers will be celebrating the Lights On Afterschool Open House event along with 7,500 other after school programs nationwide. The Canyon Creek open house will feature the girls' dance performances. At YEEP we are one big family and we appreciate our financial supporters and the parents and student volunteers who help make our program such a success.

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Giving Corner

By Rochelle Rose, CFRE

The Generous Procrastinator:
The Importance of Year-End Giving

It's hard to believe that it is October and that the holidays and year-end will be soon upon us. With the downturn in the economy, many people wonder how charities like Peoples' Self-Help Housing have fared during the recession.

Year end giving in 2008, the year which many think marked the beginning of the recession, has been analyzed. Network for Good, the Internet's largest nonprofit giving portal, examined 2008 data about how donors turned to the internet for year-end giving.

Their observations are based on donations through their system from mid-November through December 31 in the last five years (2003 through 2007).

• There isn't a long ramp up to year-end online giving. Rather, there is a fast spike of donations concentrated in the last few days of the year.
• In December, nearly 50% of the donations for the month usually come in the last 6 days.
• More than 45% of annual giving via this portal is during December; this percentage of annual giving has remained consistent within 5% since 2003.
• The average donation amount is higher in December: In 2007 it was $189 versus during other months when the average donation was $135.

It is comforting to charities, like Peoples', to know that despite the economy, charitable giving continues to be a part of Americans' holiday and year-end plans. With more demands for affordable housing from low income households, Peoples' needs your financial support to continue help hard working families to have decent shelter and greater self-sufficiency. Your charitable donations and belief in our mission continue to make a difference in our communities-and we are grateful to you.

If you would like to a confidential, no-obligation conversation about the effects of estate planning or charitable giving on estate tax, contact Rochelle Rose CRFE, Development Director at Peoples' Self Help Housing at rocheller@pshhc.org or (805) 962-5152 x227

Please visit the our GiftLaw pages for articles, updates case studies and valuable information about planned giving opportunities:

PSHH Planned Giving Gift Law Info Pages

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Staff News

Welcome to new staff member Susan Burroughs

Susan is the new Site Manager at Los Robles Terrace in Paso Robles. She was born and raised in the Bay Area, and moved to Virginia in 1992 to raise a family.

In 2008 Susan moved to the Central Coast.

She replaced Chris Morrison, who now manages Oceanside Gardens and Ocen View Manor in Morro Bay. 

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