Bethesda Project still helping the homeless

Three years ago, David Kopena was living on the streets in Philadelphia. Now he walks the blocks he once called home, photographing the city's buildings and architecture with a digital camera.

Kopena, 64, lost his apartment when he was laid off from his job of 10 years at Notations, a wholesale women's clothing store. Homeless for nine months, he was living in and out of shelters until a caseworker recommended that he contact Bethesda Project, a nonprofit that aids and houses the city's homeless. That's when Kopena's life changed.

Bethesda "started a photography class that has been one of the best things they ever decided to do," he said. "It's turned my whole outlook around and taught me to have a better, different attitude on life. It's just fun."

Kopena now lives in permanent single-room housing for men at Bethesda Bainbridge on South 15th Street, one of 15 locations Bethesda Project operates across Center City. Residents pay small portions of rent, but all other costs are paid for through donations and fund-raising. Bethesda Project's 16th annual gala and auction will take place at the Diamond Club at Citizens Bank Park at 6 p.m. Tuesday.

It's been nearly 34 years but Bethesda Project founder and executive director the Rev. Domenic Rossi still recalls when the organization first began helping the homeless in 1979, housing women in a rented apartment at 12th and Sansom Streets.

Rossi, 64, and members of his prayer group from Daylesford Abbey in Paoli rented the building from Mercy Hospice to house homeless women in Center City. He said the group's desire to help overcame the fact that its members had no idea what they were doing.

"We were all amateurs," Rossi acknowledged. "But we thought, 'What if this was my sister or my aunt or my grandmother?' "

Bethesda seeks out men and women most difficult to house due to trust issues, substance abuse, addiction, or mental illness and provides permanent housing and programs to help them stabilize. Bethesda, which serves more than 2,000 people each year, creates a supportive relationship similar to a family. Volunteers make sure clients go to doctor appointments and take their medications.

"We go after the person who has nobody else, whoever is all alone," Rossi said.

Although most are happy to call Bethesda their home, some are reluctant to accept services or do not want others to know they are receiving help. Rossi, wanting to provide housing for these residents, turned an emergency shelter on South 15th Street into a "safe haven" for 20 men. He called it My Brother's House.

"We didn't want people to feel embarrassed about where they were staying," he said. "So when people asked, 'Oh, where are you staying?', they could say, 'Oh, at my brother's house.' "

Rossi's desire to help Philadelphia's homeless comes from a belief that God cries out when people are abandoned in society. Rossi said he was inspired by the people he helps, recalling one cold winter night in 1984 in particular.

At the time, Bethesda was operating two emergency shelters, at Old First Reformed United Church of Christ on Fourth and Race Streets and in a room in the basement of an unused school in Fishtown, which provided men with food, clothing, a shower, and a place to sleep. Volunteers picked up the men in vans and drove them to the shelters.

Rossi said one night, when the last van was leaving to take the men to the shelter, one man, Bobby, started pounding on the side of the van from within and yelling for the driver to stop. The driver looked outside and saw a man running to catch the van wearing only a T-shirt and pants - no socks, shoes or coat. Bobby threw open the door, took off his coat, socks, and sneakers, and gave them to the man. Rossi was shocked.

"Witnessing the compassion of a homeless person to a total stranger, that's inspiring," he said. "I guess I have more than one coat, more than one pair of shoes, but I can't say that in that situation that I would have done that."

Addictions and mental illness typically prevent homeless men and women from holding a job, something Bethesda volunteer Michelle Howard realized after she retired and began helping the homeless 14 years ago.

"They're not just people who just don't want to work," she said.

Howard, 65, visits Bethesda Bainbridge each week to have lunch and play bingo with residents like Kopena. Other days she is delivering casseroles, sheets, clothing, and toiletries to the other Bethesda sites.