St Vincent De Paul Village

While the environment may be questionable most of the time, St Vincent De Paul is the pulse of the homeless community in San Diego. You can eat a hot meal, 7 days a week, thanks to the service of devoted volunteers and people staying there.
Someone popping off or saying something totally inappropriate during the meal comes with the territory. But these people make it impossible to go hungry in San Diego!
We know many friends who have checked in — and right back out — of the sobriety program. They have a family program, yes, but the shelter /​prison /​institutionalized ENVIRONMENT is NOT suited for families. Every homeless woman I’ve seen enter here with kids has had them taken. Hmmm…
If you are a single male or female who has your wits about you and are willing to sacrifice some very basic human rights for a place to stay, then… they may have space for you! I’ve been asked to show proof of pregnancy just for a kid’s carton of milk. Yup!
But you can each eat seconds, thirds, and fourths if you’re willing to wait in the long line at lunch. FOOD MATTERS TO THE HOMELESS. If you come with your family, you just show your badge to the front and bypass the line. It makes a big difference, and on most days, someone will assist you with your trays and managing the kids food.

It’s always a pleasure volunteering here. The tenants of SVDP are always so thankful and grateful. It’s a humbling experience.
My company has 1 event per month and I’ve never missed a single event that I have taken lead in the last 8months :) unfortunately I had to pass the torch to the new leads and will definitely miss volunteering here.
Im grateful for programs/​organizations like Father Joe’s to help families or individuals in need or get back on their feet.
It’s warming to see everyone get together and helping one another, whether it be serving dinner for a couple hours.
I enjoy serving dinner at both kitchens (family & adult). The kids are so adorable at the family kitchen and I enjoying socializing with the adults at the adult kitchen.
I would love to volunteer when the opportunity becomes available.

Great place!
I signed up for some volunteer this past weekend and was pretty excited and nervous all at the same time.
Signing up to be a volunteer was the most difficult part. Communication and correspondence with the volunteer coordinator was rather slow. I had to send follow up emails constantly in order to get a response back. It’s not fast turnaround time, so when you decide to do some volunteer work, I’d plan for 2 weeks out.
We signed up for a Saturday night dinner shift (4 – 7) to help serve food in the kitchen. We showed up REALLY early (3:30) so we decided to walk around until 4:15 when they told us to come back
.
The staff was all really friendly and informative (shout out to Charles in the kitchen who was awesome!).
The kitchen is really sanitary and clean. They provide you with hair nets, gloves, and aprons.
We got in there, served some food, had some nice conversations, and met some great people. Overall, just a humbling and great experience. I’ll definitely be signing up again soon!

They do excellent things for people in need not just feed them, but finding the few that very want help and leading in a better direction. Oppertunities

I belong to the Women’s Guild at the village. They do such great work and fundraising to help the kids. It is such a worthy cause and it really makes you feel how lucky you are. The women here are all so nice and very friendly.

I’m sorry to say that when I arrived in’85 the people then, are still there, they did not find jobs, and that just doesn’t fill the bill. Suggestions?

My wife and I donated a working Seadoo/​Jetski with a trailer. It has 2 titles for it. They were nice and all on my first call and very quick on picking things up. I got my tax write off paperwork and they only gave me a value of $ 600. I called the office how come I only receive one. I have 2 titles. I questioned nicely why I was only getting $ 600 for the Seadoo. The book value on the seadoo was over $ 2500. Trailer value was over $ 800. The lady I was talking to was so rude. Toward the end of the year they ask for you Social Security and it stated that you cannot claim your write off unless you provide the information they need. I said, what the heck. I was not asked for that information before with another charity group when I gave a Saab 900 Turbo.
My wife and I said that never again we will do that. we have talked to other people as well after the fact and they experience the same thing. I just felt that they are nice to you before getting your item and they treat you like crap after. I don’t mind giving. My wife and I had given a lot of stuff to charities, but never was treated like what we have experience with this group.

I saw a commercial asking people to donate their vehicles to support Father Joe’s Villages and I thought I’d donate my old car. Making the arrangements was easy and the driver who came to pick up the vehicle was courteous.
I felt good about doing a good deed — I could have sold the car, but figured that a charity could benefit from the vehicle much more than I oculd. That’s when everything went wrong. A few weeks later I got a notice from the City of San Diego informing me that my old car had been impounded and that I was still listed as the owner. I kept getting notices, despite my insistance that I I didn’t own the vehicle. I kept calling and the woman I spoke to said, «Well, who owns the car then?» I told her, «Ask Father Joe, not me.»
This went on for a while. Then I got a notice from the DMV asking me to pay for car registration. It took weeks for me to convince everyone concerned that I didn’t own the car. I had to resort to calling Father Joe’s Villages and insisting that they take care of the mess.
I can’t see myself ever donating a car to charity ever again because I don’t want to worry that it’s going to affect me in the futre. I feel bad that I can’t trust a charity.
Father Joe, you failed me.

Cheers to this organization! It really is a breeze to donate a car through them. I have donated two, one in LA and one in Palm Desert — they arranged pick-​up very quickly (in Palm Desert it was 20 minutes and the car was on a tow truck) and send the paperwork and receipts right away!
Great donation experience.

This is my first time volunteering at this location. The set up is in a real nice kitchen/​dining area. Very sanitary.
My two youngest and myself joined my church’s teens to help feed the homeless this weekend. There were plenty of characters who provided great conversations with me. I was the server of juice and soda that day and I had a blast.
I can fill this column with my experience that day but will not. If you can, sign up for this place. It’ll keep you in check with what’s important in life.

Lo and behold, a selfless and altruistic man that cares for the homeless and needy.

A friend of mine is in a local community gospel troupe, and they were invited to perform at a local arts night at St. Vincent de Paul Village downtown, near Barrio Logan. He asked if I’d come, and I quickly said yes, along with some other friends. We had no idea what we were heading toward.
The St. Vincent de Paul Village here on Imperial was founded in the 1980s and seeks to reach out in a meaningful and comprehensive way to the homeless or marginalized of San Diego. Here they offer housing (both transitional and permanent), job training, health services, and food for needy men, women, and children in the San Diego area. That night they held an arts show to display the work of the various residents from aged adults to bright faced teens. The artwork was astounding, but what was more amazing was the mission of this place, an open-​hearted service that was absolutely dedicated to a sincere and compassionate love and respect for the people within its walls. I talked very briefly with staff at the center and they spoke of the mission of loving and treating with dignity and respect the people living at SVDP, and I oculd see the sincerity they projected.
The SVDP Village is a marvelous, haunting place where high minded talk of «helping the less fortunate» and discussions about the «Problem» (homelessness? drugs? overcrowding? neglect?) are actively encountered in a meaningful, difficult, loving way. They’re faith-​based without being preaching or domineering from what I can see, and they’re dedicated to the people that live there.
I’m really impressed and humbled by such a place. If you’re at all interested in volunteering in anything from preparing food to helping ESL students to using your medical expertise, please contact the Village at either 619.645.6411 or email
to be a part of something bigger than us.
Thanks for the public service announcement. It’s a meaningful place.