From reckless to hopeless

Five years ago, Jim Martin started as a receptionist at a Seaford homeless center. Now he's the executive director of it.

Nestled next to the Stein Highway overpass, the A.C.E. Peer Resource Center serves about 40 people a day, helping them find jobs, housing or giving them their first meal of the day.

The door is open to anyone. The disabled, drug addicted, mentally ill and anyone else who has no place to go can find a place here, Martin says.

The acronym A.C.E. stands for acceptance, change and empowerment – three words Martin knows well.

Martin's checkered past landed him in Seaford after years of transience. Following his formative years in Catholic school and graduation from an Augustine order high school, the Drexel Hill native attended Villanova University intending to become an Augustine monk. Instead, he married and had three children, raising a family in the Willow Grove, Pa., area.

“It's kind of ironic that I went to college to be an Augustine monk, and now I'm doing this,” Martin said. “I've come full circle.”

He speaks rapidly and confidently as he talks about his successes and failures. While running a small-engine repair shop in 2003, Martin won a seat on Upper Moreland Township Commission by a slim three-vote margin. He served four years, he said, but battles with local developers who wanted to build high-rise apartments cost him the following election. He lost by six votes.

Years of drinking socially and privately, compounded by an oxycontin addiction he acquired after a back injury, finally took their toll on him. His lost his business, left his family and headed to an Augustine-affiliated shelter in Wilmington that he remembered from his Villanova days.

His stay was temporary, and for years he swapped jobs and living arrangement up and down the state before settling in Georgetown.

A job with Oxford House, setting up housing for homeless men, gave Martin insight on lower Delaware's homeless problem.

“Suddenly, I realized why I was sent here,” said Martin, whose faith in God remains strong.

'Like a family'

Martin works out of a narrow storage closet in a renovated garage. A plain, handwritten sign reads “Jim's Office” on the door.

On a hot, steamy July day, a steady stream of people enter the center. Some come for a shower and hot meal, others sit at a computer terminal searching for jobs, and others relax watching TV and stay cool in the air conditioning.

Volunteer Jamie Basara stops in before taking a few volunteers out to work on a community garden.

“ACE center is like a family,” she said. “I started here as an intern, and I started the GED program that helps with tutoring and taking the test.”

The center also helps job seekers get the documentation they need in order to apply for a job. There are runs to the Division of Motor Vehicles to get driver's licenses, to vital statistics for birth certificates and to the Social Security office for identification cards.

About five people a week find employment through ACE, said Linda Williams, a peer education specialist.

Restaurant, poultry plant and landscaping are the most popular. A chicken farmer came in the other day and asked if there were five people who wanted to earn money rounding up chickens, Martin said. At the center, people can also learn drywall skills useful on construction jobs. “We're known as the spackle and mud program,” he says with pride.

Brian and Donna Hafko lost their living arrangements recently and have come to the center in search of a job. Brian said he had already sent off 12 applications and he is hopeful that one will come through soon.

“My goal is to find employment,” he said.

Martin said he has no doubt Brian will. “They may be here a couple of days and then we might not see them again. We have people like that come by here all the time.”

Partnership of three

A partnership with La Red helps people with mental illness or medical problems get treatment. ACE can help with some issues – a hearing voices meeting had 30 participants – but La Red is better navigating through healthcare paperwork to get people the medical treatment they need, Martin said.

In return, La Red works with ACE center or TAP Faith to help homeless people find housing.

At ACE center, a La Red employee brings in paperwork for two people who need a place to live. Often, a monthly disability check is the only money coming in. “We're trying to make his budget work on $725 a month,” Martin said.

The collaboration of the three groups has caught the eye of the Delaware Community Foundation. The board of directors has given them $100,000 a year for two years now.

“We like the idea of networking,” said Bill Allan, senior vice president for southern Delaware DCF. “We wanted to get agencies working together.”

The result has been a success, Martin said. “We get the synergies of all three instead of each working independently.”

Walking under the Stein Highway overpass, Martin leads Allan to the center's community garden. Martin leads the way, fighting through a thicket of growth, and then chuckles when he sees a worn path nearby.

“That's kind of the story of my life, taking the path least traveled,” he says with a down-to-earth charm.

Returning to the center, overpass traffic thumps above, echoing in the cool, concrete world below. Graffiti covers the pillars and walls, changing from gang tags and profanity spraypainted in harsh black and red to light blues and greens with paintings of birds and butterflies. “It's supposed to show there is hope at the end of the path,” Martin said.

A few feet away from the overpass, a yellow, two-story house is home to eight men who pay $80 a week in rent. Martin was once one of them, and he can tell the difference between people who want to make their lives better and those who are gaming the system. The heroin epidemic has excacerbated the number of people taking advantage, he said. Martin said he has seen needles on the ground and empty heroin baggies swirling around in the wind near the center.

“There's reckless and pointless and then there is hopeless,” he said. “I can't do anything about reckless and pointless. A guy came here the other day and left with a sleeping bag, and we heard he sold it. With hopeless, we can at least help him find hope.”

The center is working to become a nonprofit. In addition to the DCF grant, it receives money from the Delaware Department of Health and Social Services, but in a roundabout way. DHSS sends money to the the Mental Health Association of Southeastern Pennsylvania, a nonprofit which in turn sends money to ACE. ACE receives $285,000 a year for its peer-run, drop-in center, said Jill Fredel, DHSS communications director.

“We fund them indirectly but if they become nonprofit we can fund them directly,” she said.

Martin now has his eye on a church property next door that is on the market. With 25,000 square feet, he could help hundreds more needy – his calling in life.

“I can't be in an ivory tower. I have to be on the ground floor,” he said.