The Midnight Mission is a human services organization in downtown Los Angeles' Skid Row.[1][2] It was founded in 1914.[3] A secular non-profit,[4][5] the organization provides food, drug and alcohol recovery services, "safe sleep" programs, educational training, a mobile kitchen, and family housing with an emphasis on developing self-sufficiency.
Background
editThe term "midnight mission" was common in the 19th and early 20th centuries to designate efforts by domestic missionaries in the United States against so-called "white slavery", a deprecated term for prostitution.[6][7]
History
editThe Midnight Mission was founded by businessman and lay minister Tom Liddecoat in 1914. Meals were served at midnight, after church services.
As of 1920, the mission held nightly religious services.[8] The mission became an incorporated non-profit in 1922.
During the Great Depression, the Midnight Mission was a major residence in Los Angeles for people who lacked permanent housing.[9]
During World War II, the mission began assisting with job placement and established job training programs.
References
edit- ^ "Midnight Mission Provides Services to Skid Row Community", NBC Los Angeles (August 19, 2019)
- ^ "Fault Lines: A Trip to the Midnight Mission", Anna Scott, KCRW (September 19, 2014)
- ^ "Q&A: L.A. has tens of thousands of homeless, hungry people. We ask Midnight Mission how it helps — and how we can", Noelle Carter, Los Angeles Times (May 3, 2018)
- ^ "Midnight Mission celebrates 100 years of service", Dana Bartholomew, Los Angeles Daily News (August 28, 2017)
- ^ "Skid Row’s Midnight Mission Running Club is Racing Off to Rome", Shayna Rose Arnold, Los Angeles Magazine (January 21, 2015)
- ^ Muhlenberg, William Augustus (1870). The Woman and Her Accusers: A Plea for the Midnight Mission. New York: Pliny F. Smith. pp. 24, 39.
- ^ Bell, Ernest A. Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls, or, War on the White Slave Trade. Chicago. pp. 398–449. OCLC 665193718.
- ^ "Three S. Mission". The Glendale Evening News. Vol. 15, no. 244. June 17, 1920. p. 1.
- ^ Mullins, William H. (1991). The Depression and the urban West Coast, 1929–1933 : Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, and Portland. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press. pp. 32, 63. ISBN 0-253-33935-9. OCLC 21599231.