St. Martin's Barn The Benedictine  Sisters and a faithful core of volunteers opened  St. Martin's Barn in 1983 to provide emergency food and clothing to the local poor. But a series of  home visits uncovered other dire needs — one  of the biggest problems being grossly substandard  housing conditions. Saint Martin's tried to respond  by expanding its services to include supplemental food distributions and an emergency program for  rent, fuel, medicine and other basic necessities. The mission of Saint Martin's Ministries is to help meet basic human needs  of impoverished people, to respect  and affirm their dignity, and to address  the root problems that perpetuate the cycle of poverty. www.stmartinsministries.org As the economy worsened, more and more people turned to  St. Martin's for help. With the able assistance of the  Franciscan Sisters, Saint Martin's Barn continued its  outreach ministry. But the sisters remained haunted by the homelessness of women and children. In the early 90's, the Benedictine Sisters and Saint Martin's Staff collaborated with Interfaith Housing Development Corporation  to try to ... In Fiscal  1999, St. Martin's Barn: -Fed 9859 People -Prevented evictions for 131 families -Prevented utility cut-off for 151 families