The Union Rescue Mission of Western Maryland, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) organization in Cumberland, Maryland classified as a homeless shelter that serves the Tri-State Area of Western Maryland, Southwest Pennsylvania, and Northern West Virginia. The mission of the Union Rescue Mission of Western Maryland, Inc. is to decrease homelessness by providing shelter, food, basic necessities, and rehabilitation to those living in poverty in the Tri-State Area with a commitment to the transforming hope found in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Union Rescue Mission was founded in 1963, with the dedication and opening of the physical facility following on November 8, 1964. Throughout our history, the Union Rescue Mission has been known by its initial slogan as a “beacon of hope in the darkness”. The original Union Rescue Mission was composed of a men’s shelter and was most often frequented and utilized by “drunks” who were seeking a better life according to the historical documentation of the ministry. The men’s shelter remains the cornerstone of our Queen City Pavement building. As the face of poverty and the needs of the served population have evolved, adjacent properties were procured in the 1980’s in order to expand the services to include a women and children’s dorm, deemed “Hope House”.

The ministry of the Union Rescue Mission now encompasses housing and feeding those in most desperate need as well as providing our residents and the public with clothing, hygiene items, medical and psychiatric care, and personalized case management at no cost. A multi-disciplinary approach is now being taken, with the goal of complete rehabilitation, leaving behind the old person tied to poverty and embracing the new hope and future promised through Christ. Individuals who find themselves as residents of the URM complete a basic intake that helps define the needs to be addressed. Each resident is then placed on a uniquely developed housing plan that addresses his or her needs, ranging from procurement of a basic government ID, to paying off debt, to educational goals, to eventual housing procurement. The focus of the URM has shifted from the solution of an emergent need to a focus on the future for the individual with a further goal to decrease the number of homeless persons in the greater Cumberland and larger Tri-State Area. Thus far, the Union Rescue Mission has survived and flourished because of the generosity of donors, both individual and corporate, who share the heart of taking care of those less fortunate.