John Muckridge III

Offering the Homeless a Hand Up

John Muckridge III, ’05 BSBA

John Muckridge III can tell some great success stories – like the one about the homeless man who came to the Rescue Mission of the Mahoning Valley with nothing but the clothes on his back. Two years later, he moved out on his own, employed and with $9,000 saved to buy a house.

But not every story has a happy ending for the president and CEO of Youngstown’s only homeless shelter, his staff and volunteers. “So many people go back to heroin,” he said. “We see that a lot.”

Muckridge never imagined he’d be committed to fighting homelessness when he graduated in 2005 with a YSU undergraduate degree in Business. He started as a credit manager for Wells Fargo Financial and then landed a position with First National Bank of Pennsylvania, training bank employees across the region.

Today, he overseas another sort of training – the Mission calls it a discipleship program – that aims to lift desperate men and women and set them on the road to a productive life.

“A lot of people think that we just offer three hots and a cot – three hot meals and a bed to sleep in – but we do much more,“ he said.

“We offer a handout, of course, but if we’re not also offering a hand up, we’re not being good stewards. Our goal is to develop and teach them so they’re not walking back through our door two or three weeks from now.”

The Rescue Mission is a faith-based Christian ministry, and Muckridge said his own faith deepened when he started as a volunteer in the Mission’s learning center five years ago. He accepted a paid position as Director of Education in 2013 and began making changes, adding in-depth Bible study to the personal finance, conflict resolution, job search and interviewing skills that were already part of the program.

Many of the adults who seek help at the Mission are able to work, and that’s where the “hand up” comes into play. “If they’re capable, we hold them accountable to seek employment,” said Muckridge, explaining that the Mission has partnerships with many businesses and agencies that offer its residents work opportunities.

Those that work and stay at the Mission are required to save 50 percent of their discretionary income in an account administered by Mission staff. “When they move out, we write them a check for the full amount they saved. We give it all back,” he said. “That way, they have a financial safety net, so they’re able to withstand the first storm that hits after leaving us – like when a car breaks down or their rent goes up.”

Some Mission clients balk at the restrictions, but Muckridge is adamant. “We tell them we love them, but they have to submit to what we’re doing here. That’s the only way it will work.”
Muckridge has faced two crucial challenges since assuming his leadership role with the Mission in June: a dramatic increase in the number of people seeking food and shelter there, and an 86-year-old building that is deteriorating beyond repair.

On average, the shelter had 119 guests per night in 2016 – men, women and children – nearly double the 2008 average.

In total, the mission staff and its army of 800 volunteers served 66,402 meals last year and logged 43,498 overnight stays.

Meanwhile, the building’s exterior brick walls are crumbling, slate is falling from the roof and plumbing problems complicated by asbestos have forced the closing of a much-needed bathroom.

Muckridge is heading up a $4 million capital campaign, titled “Help Us Move Our Mission,” to raise community support for a new building to be constructed on a 17-acre site the mission owns on Youngstown’s South Side. The Mission hopes to break ground in 2019 and to complete construction by 2020. For more on the building plan, visit MoveOurMission.org.