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It's morning at the Urban Ministry of Palo Alto drop-in center., Quite a few poor people are there, drinking coffee, checking mails or making phone calls. About 10 o'clock, Don Jensen, director of the UMPA, arrives.

"Morning! How's it going?" he asks Brooke Scharnke, director of Homeless Service of the program.

"The same," Brooke answers. "More people come to our center."

The drop-in center, near the downtown Palo Alto train station, is one the six programs run by Urban Ministry of Palo Alto, a nonprofit organization to help the homeless and low-income people. The center is a for these to have a hot drink, receive mail, make free phone calls and get bus passes. UMPA also runs programs involving food and clothing closets, bread-breaking meals shelter for the homeless and money management.

"Given the downturn of economy," Jensen said, "the needs for our service have increased dramatically. At the same time, much less money is coming than before the war on terrorism."

"In the previous years, typically, we have about 100 people coming to the center," he said. "But the number increased by 50 percent in the last month. In the past few weeks, it's common to see 165 people here in the morning, and one day last week we had a record number of 177 people."

Jensen said "After the war started, we've had record numbers of people coming to both the food closet, the clothing closet and the drop-in center. Moreover, we also have record numbers of the new clients that we have never seen. That's something worthy of attention."

In the food closet program,, UMPA usually distribute about 1200 packages of groceries monthly to needed people, last month, it gave away 1,680 packages. And the numbers of different people using it has been climbing from 159 in January to 174 in February, to 229 in September and then last month to 242As to new clients using the food closet, it rose from 28 in January to a record of 74 last month.

"More people are in need," Jensen said. "It's a lot of pressure. Last week, we run out of canned tuna twice, and today again, we run out of spaghetti. It's fully predictable that it will happen again and again in the coming days."

As demand increases, donations are falling off. UMPA has an annual budget around $650,000, and 80 percent of that comes from individual donors and churches. . Usually, fall is the time of the year when most of the donations come in, but in the last month, UMPA saw a decline and things could be even worse in the near future.

"It seems to me that there's a general feel of uncertainty and insecurity in people," Jensen said, "and it's hard to know when this period of uncertainty is going to end. So then the donations really fell after the war began."

Against the hope that more people will continue to give more money, food and clothing, is the fact of the continuing increase of people in need.

"We cannot ignore that," Jensen said, adding that more money is needed UMPA is now working to expand the base of donation to get more foundation and government support..

Despite all the difficulties, UMPA will still manage to host the Thanksgiving dinner for 300 people on Nov.22, from noon to 2 p.m. at the All Saints Episcopal Church, 555 Waverley Street. The program is now looking for people to cook,and bring dishes, since enough pies, potatoes and turkeys have not yet been committed.

"I hope we will have enough turkeys then." Jensen smiled, "If not, I just have to make it myself."