In the entryway of Community Outreach Inc.'s spacious shelter, a stainless steel rack in the vestibule holds donated loaves of almost-fresh bread, rolls, bagels and the like. The baked goods come from stores, bakeries and restaurants that support the nonprofit's mission of serving thousands of people each year who have - for a variety of reasons - lost their jobs, their families, shelter, and their hope.

The baked goods always are there. Children who don't get breakfast at home can stop for a piece. The bread is tangible evidence that this is the place to go when there's no place else to find a crust of bread. But Thursday, Community Outreach Executive Director Rich Donovan announced that the agency itself is facing lean times. The nonprofit group that has been a last resort to the down-and-out since 1971 is $150,000 in the hole.

Rather than cut programs to those who have almost nothing, the COI's 40-employee staff has elected to cut its own salaries. Managers took a 15 cut while the lowest-paid employees took 5 percent. That will hurt them more, however, because it puts those employees among the ranks of the working poor - in many cases the table-clearers, fast food workers and other minimum-wage earners who sometimes need help getting from paycheck to rent payment.

Donovan said Friday that he is most concerned not with the money that he won't have, but that agencies and individuals that had pledged assistance to COI as part of the county's strategy to reduce homelessness as a cost-saving measure are dragging their feet about making good on promises.

For example, Donovan said $80,000 is pledged to COI's newest program - permanent supportive housing to provide monitoring support to homeless people. It helps them hold onto the shelter they have and is cheap at the price. It avoids the expensive revolving door of dispatching police to arrest people with mental disorders who frequently get into confrontations with police.

We're not naming the pledger - yet - in the hope that it will recognize that it's a simple matter of economics that - even in down times - it pays to support those organizations that contribute to a community's sense of peace and order. The cost to the taxpayers of sending police to round up and jail trespassers, people who intrude on businesses and who aggressively confront passersby is a demonstrably expensive revolving door.

Last year, COI provided housing to 128 homeless men, 42 homeless families with 83 children, 62 homeless women, 3,229 medical visits at its on-site medical clinic; 7,456 contact hours for 56 individuals working to recover from drug/ alcohol addiction. Of those, 40 were treated both for substance abuse and mental health disorders.

Helping parents be more nurturing, assisting in crises, counseling the abused, providing bus tickets and a contact address for job seekers all are vital links from bad times to normal lives.

As Oregon's jobless rate climbs to 9.9 percent, we're seeing job holders become job seekers in a market where few are hiring. It's doubly important that agencies and others like them do not become expendable. Especially now, we need places that still provide bread - and hope - until more employers again begin advertising jobs.