New agency is latest Catholic Charities federation member

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Karen Wallensack

Catholic Charities Community Services is the newest federation member of Catholic Charities of St. Louis.

Karen Wallensak, executive director of Catholic Charities Housing Resource Center, was named executive director of Catholic Charities Community Services in July, while remaining head of Catholic Charities Housing Resource Center.

Catholic Charities Community Services is made up of nine Catholic Charities programs that have been serving the St. Louis community for a combined total of more than 150 years. They are the Housing Resource Center, Catholic Legal Assistance Ministry, Refugee Services and the six outreach sites -- Father Tolton Center, Jefferson County Center, Midtown Center, St. Charles Center, St. Jane Center and Southside Center.

The new federation member is a separate corporation with its own board, said Catholic Charities president Brian O'Malley. "This pulls together a lot of the free-standing services," he said.

Wallensak explained, "This will help us deliver services more effectively. Ideally a client should be able to come to any one of the sites and be able to access the full array of services of any of those organizations. These are the community-based services that Catholic Charities carries out. These reflect the corporal works of mercy of the Church very clearly.

"We hope this will help impoverished people to get the services they need more quickly and to be able to access these services more easily. And we are trying to reach out to the entire archdiocese and hope to build on the foundation we have already laid to extend services to underserved areas of the archdiocese."