Mission Statement

Willie Jordan can't tell you exactly how she took over as president of the Fred Jordan Mission on Skid Row just as women and children became a common part of street life in the 50-block area of downtown Los Angeles. Nor can she tell you exactly how five of her seven wild-as-the-next-kids ended up working alongside her, four of them specifically with women and children.

But Willie's late husband, who founded Fred Jordan Mission in 1944, had an inkling before he died of what was to come.

In April 1988, after Fred Jordan suffered a massive heart attack, Willie didn't leave his bedside.

"Can't you see how God's timing is perfect?" Fred, 78, asked her. "When I started the mission, it was for men. That was my burden. Now we have so many women and children in the inner city, and it's going to be carried on by a woman. You have the heart of a mother, a woman. You see things differently than I do."

"You know," said Willie, 66, "after he was gone, I saw that."

Now four of the couple's grown children, along with two daughters-in-law, work full time at the mission, which is known for huge events such as its annual Christmas celebration for 16,000 children and mothers. And their eldest, 42-year-old Miki Jordan, heads another major social services agency only two blocks from her parents' mission, serving homeless families and children in poverty.

Nobody knows exactly how many thousands of people live in Skid Row's rundown hotels, at shelters and on the streets of the area bounded by 5th, San Pedro, Main and East 9th streets. The population is too transient to track. But in the last several years, service providers say the influx of women with children has been striking and mirrors a national trend brought on by cuts in public assistance, skyrocketing housing costs and other circumstances.

According to a December 1999 survey by the U.S. Conference of Mayors, for instance, families with children make up more than one-third of the homeless population across the nation. Experts started noting the change in the late 1980s; in 1987, the U.S. Conference of Mayors reported that the number of homeless families had increased by 31% in the previous two years.

At the Fred Jordan Mission, 60% of the clients now are women and children. (The mission estimates it provides services to 380,000 people a year, although it's impossible to know how many are repeat visits.) In the mission's first 40 years or so, more than 90% of the homeless population was men, Willie said.