Business Profile: Blanchet House

Scott Kerman stands outside Blanchet House’s downtown Portland meal and transitional housing building. Photo by Tumelius Media for Heritage Bank

Helping people in need for 70 years

ARTICLE BY JOHN STEARNS

In the earliest days of the pandemic, Portland’s Blanchet (pronounced Blan-shay) House of Hospitality saw demand for its free meal service surge as other social service agencies closed, a challenge exacerbated by having to close its dining hall amid the broader health emergency.

“There was no question we had to keep serving. We literally served dinner inside on March 16, 2020, and then had to figure out how we were going to serve outside at 6:30 a.m. the next day, so that’s what we did,” said Scott Kerman, executive director of Blanchet House since August 2019. “What we didn’t know was going to happen was that we would go from 1,000 meals a day to over 2,000 meals a day, almost instantly, because nobody else was really serving.”

While a couple organizations in Portland continued to feed the hungry early in the pandemic, there was a period when most closed, he said. Not only did Kerman need all his staff to handle the extra meal demand, but he also needed to find temporary staff to help.

“I didn’t know where the money was going to come from; I didn’t know where the food was going to come from; and we suddenly needed to buy to-go packaging for every meal and beverage, plus plastic utensils and more—an unexpected $70,000 expense that first year,” he said. “What I didn’t know at the time was that there was going to be a lot of generosity in our community and people were going to donate to keep us going.”

When Blanchet House struggled to secure a Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan from another bank, Kerman emailed Kathy Swift, senior vice president, nonprofit development officer, at Heritage Bank in Portland, who he’s known for 15 plus years. He had a previous banking relationship with her while at other organizations and has seen her at various nonprofit events over the years.

“I felt like she snapped her fingers and it happened,” Kerman said of the PPP loan, ensuring he could manage payroll.

“I had wanted to move … a good part of our banking business over to Heritage because I just love Kathy, I love her team and I trust them. I know what a heart they have for nonprofits and the work that we do,” he said.

PPP opened that door and Heritage now handles Blanchet House’s main operational account. Heritage also assisted with a 12-month high-yield CD for a generous gift Blanchet House received.

“I always know if we have a need, I can call Kathy or someone else on their team and they’re going to pick up the phone,” Kerman said.

Blanchet House continued its to-go service for 25 months, until May 2, 2022, when diners returned indoors.

Food, clothing, shelter, support, dignity

Blanchet House says it makes a difference in people’s lives by providing food, clothing and supportive housing programs.

“We serve anyone who comes to our doors without judgment because we believe everyone deserves dignity, hope and community,” its website says.

According to its website, Blanchet House was founded in 1952 by a group of University of Portland alumni as a “House of Hospitality” like those established by the Catholic Worker Movement. The founders were rooted in the Catholic community but Blanchet House is not affiliated with any religious organization, adding its mission “derives from Catholic social teaching principles, including honoring the dignity of every person, offering aid to the poor and vulnerable, and solidarity.”

Blanchet House / Julie Showers Blanchet House

Blanchet House started by serving meals at a downtown facility and eventually added some short-term housing for men upstairs in 1958. In 1962, the founders purchased a 40-acre farm in Yamhill County as a place for men struggling with addiction to escape the city’s temptations, work on the farm and pursue sobriety. The farm today is 62 acres, offering addiction recovery in a rural setting allowing men to work on the property and support each other in recovery.

Blanchet House built a larger building downtown for its meal and transitional housing program in 2012. That building is next door to the original building.

The organization only houses men but is fundraising for a women’s housing facility that it will operate with another nonprofit.

Blanchet House serves breakfast, lunch and dinner Monday through Saturday at 310 N.W. Glisan St. That’s 18 meals a week, the most by any agency in Portland, Kerman said. Not everyone who eats there is necessarily unsheltered, with some living in a shelter but looking for a nutritious meal, while others are homeless and live on the streets, in their vehicles or couch-surf.

Kerman estimated more than half the diners are over 60 and suffer from physical disabilities. Many homeless have chronic conditions like diabetes and high blood pressure, others are in wheelchairs and there seems to be an increase in amputees since the pandemic. “I’m just astounded at how these individuals survive,” he said.

Many of the homeless who eat there suffer from traumatic brain injuries, mental illness or addiction. Many abuse substances to self-medicate, he said.

“From my experience, the number one or number two reason that a person is houseless is trauma,” he said. “Trauma in their life has led them to be housing or food insecure and being homeless on the street here is, in itself, traumatizing. So, we’re dealing with an extraordinary amount of trauma and many people turn to drugs as a way of self-medicating. It’s a whirlpool that’s hard for folks to get out of.”

Two types of housing

Kerman describes Blanchet’s housing options, which include a 45-person facility downtown and 21-person facility on the Yamhill County farm, as bridge housing. Other terminology is transitional or temporary housing.

At its downtown apartments located above the dining hall, Blanchet House offers a nine-month housing program, with an option to extend that another nine months. It’s designed to give people time and support to get back on their feet. They may be couch-surfing, getting out of jail, emerging from treatment or have lost a job and are down on their luck, and likely would end up houseless without Blanchet House.

“The design of the program is: you’re here because you want to get back into the workforce and get back into stable housing,” Kerman said.

The first three months, residents must work in the kitchen or café; stabilize in the house; and meet with case managers, think about goals, work on soft skills and learn to live in the community of men. Case managers meet with them weekly to review their health, financial or legal issues, employment or education, housing and post-program maintenance.

After 90 days, residents can work outside of Blanchet House or attend school and reduce their Blanchet work hours, but they still live there. They then meet biweekly with their case manager. After nine months, some men are offered a private room for nine additional months.

The house does not allow drugs or alcohol and strictly enforces that policy.

Blanchet House / Julie Showers

Farm housing with addiction recovery

The farm program is similar to the downtown housing, except everyone at the farm has some kind of an addiction—from drugs and alcohol to video games. The farm runs a 12-step program with daily Alcoholics or Narcotics Anonymous meetings.

The first three months, residents work on the farm and tend to animals, gardens and beehives. There’s also a wood shop that they can work in.

The men, many of whom unsuccessfully tried other addiction-recovery programs, enjoy working in the shop and fields as well as the complementary peer support community, Kerman said.

“The opportunity to work with our therapeutic animals, to be in a remote, beautiful, natural environment, to do work with their hands, is really therapeutic for our residents,” he said.

Housing expansion

Blanchet House has launched a $10 million capital campaign to build long-term transitional housing for women similar to its downtown program. The housing will be somewhere in the Portland metropolitan area. Blanchet House is partnering on the project with Women First, a BIPOC, women-led Portland nonprofit that works primarily with women who are, or have been, incarcerated. Some of the money raised also will help update the current Yamhill County farm housing for men.

In mid-July, Blanchet House had 22 employees, including three at the farm and the rest downtown. Its operating budget is about $2.4 million a year, which covers payroll, insurance, utilities and the like.

About 95% of Blanchet House’s food is donated. The in-kind value of that food in 2020 was nearly $2 million. It also tries to raise about $3 million annually and, with other in-kind contributions, has about $5.5 million in annual revenue. It receives no government funding.

It needs about 40 volunteers a day to serve its meals but also has some who sort clothes, which Blanchet House distributes to those in need. It accepts gently used clothing that is dignified. “We say if we wouldn’t wear it, why should they?” Kerman said.

Blanchet House also distributes hygiene kits with supplies that are also donated.

Its website, blanchethouse.org, offers links to get involved, whether individuals or companies, through time or donations.

Heritage support is broad

In addition to banking support, Heritage employees have volunteered to help assemble care kits for Blanchet House, and the bank also provided a grant this year at its annual fundraising brunch, its biggest fundraiser of the year.

“They’re so people-oriented and so nonprofit-oriented,” Kerman said. “They want to provide service that is effective and efficient and allows my team to get back to what it is we’re supposed to be doing.”

That mirrors Kerman’s own background. He was active in community service at Santa Clara University where he got a degree in political science. He continued that service while in law school at the University of Virginia, where he started a community service organization. He spent summers interning with agencies helping low-income people and the homeless.

He got his law degree but wanted to do something service-oriented first. He joined the then-new Teach For America program to teach in at-risk communities—noting that he was the first law school graduate to enter the program.

He taught in a rural North Carolina middle school for a year and loved it. He then took the bar exam and became a criminal defense lawyer, working for a prominent Houston attorney.

“There’s always been that kind of element of serving people for whom there are not a lot of people in their corner,” Kerman said of his internal compass.

After three years of law, he missed teaching and became a middle school teacher at a Catholic school in Houston, then taught in Massachusetts, then moved to Portland and added bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English. He continued to teach before moving into school leadership. He spent about 20 years in education, then opted for a new challenge.

Blanchet House had an opening.

“The move to Blanchet House didn’t feel that strange to me because that thread had always been there,” he said of the similarities between schools and nonprofits.

“Who we’re serving now … they are the people left behind and there’s a lot of pride in being there for them and sort of understanding, ‘If not us, who?’ I’m not saying there aren’t other agencies doing the same work … but collectively we are serving people who feel that they have been left behind.”

Heritage’s support of that mission is special. Asked what insights he could offer others about working with Heritage, Kerman didn’t hesitate.

“They are in the banking business of supporting nonprofits. They have a rich history of supporting nonprofits as a banking and lending institution, but also, their team walks the walk, is involved in nonprofits, serves on boards of nonprofits and brings that level of dedication and service to their banking work,” he said. “They get it, they get what we do, they get how we do it and the circumstances in which we do it—and that’s not always the case with other banks.”

ABOUT BLANCHET HOUSE’S RELATIONSHIP MANAGER KRISTEN CONNOR

Kristen has more than 16 years of experience in the commercial banking field, with expertise in business development and portfolio management for commercial and nonprofit businesses. These include some of the region’s leading nonprofits and businesses, whose missions focus on a broad range of sustainability and social justice issues.