Over the past three months, the staff at Rock Island’s Christian Care homeless shelter has helped Fred Balzer get back on his feet. Now that the shelter has had to lay off nine of its 17 employees, he hopes to return the favor by helping solicit donations.

“It’s a bad thing, but we have to do certain things for the mission,” the Vietnam War veteran said. “I’m almost back on my feet. I do volunteer work to help out. It makes me feel good doing that for others.”

Since he’s been at the mission, staff members have helped the Quincy, Ill., native get medical treatment and helped him put together a resume and look for work. In the meantime, Balzer is doing what he can to help.

Christian Care announced the layoffs late Thursday and said they were dispersed evenly between the rescue mission at 2209 3rd Ave. and the domestic violence shelter for abused women and children, which has an undisclosed address.

Margaret Babbitt, Christian Care’s development director, said the loss of manpower means remaining staff will have to carry a heavier load.

“We’re going to have to do with a skeleton staff for a while,” she said. “We do not expect to have any changes in the services we provide.”

The clients who live at the shelters can help with basic needs such as cleaning and cooking, Babbitt said, but the layoffs included case managers and staff who work on community and donor relations. It will be harder to compensate for those losses.

“It was emotional,” Babbitt said of the layoffs. “Clients had to say goodbye to” case workers.

She noted that the 93-year-old mission has served record numbers this year, including 42,193 meals and 10,346 nights of lodging.

Babbitt said Christian Care operates primarily on donations, which have been down this year because of the poor economy.

“There have been an awful lot of people who have been unable to maintain their giving this year,” she said.

The layoffs also come right before Christian Care’s leanest months for donations — January through March — when utility bills also are higher, Babbitt said.

Other agencies that offer services similar to those of Christian Care do not anticipate an influx of clients.

Kit Miller, the shelter manager at Winnie’s Place, said she does not expect her shelter for homeless and battered women to be affected by the cuts at Christian Care.

She said there has been no indication that Winnie’s will be asked to take over housing or other needs for those currently served by Christian Care.

“I don’t know much about it, yet,” she said. “From what I understand, Christian Care is not cutting any services.”

Sandy Walters, director of Humility of Mary Housing Inc., hopes Christian Care can, indeed, continue services at its present level. If her organization had to cut its staff in half, “we would have to close down.”

Her organization, in addition to the transitional housing it has provided for families for 20 years, took over operation of the John Lewis homeless shelter in downtown Davenport last year.

Like Christian Care, the shelter is buoyed by donations. There was a large-scale fundraiser held when the organization took over the operation, Walters said. When that money is gone, however, there will be about a $10,000-a-month deficit, she said.

King’s Harvest, which is hoping to have an overflow shelter this winter in Davenport, is having difficulty raising the $23,000 it needs to operate it, said Terri Gleize, director.

Just $950 has come in through donations, she said, although it received a major contribution Friday from the Riverboat Development Authority. King’s Harvest is hoping to hire at least one person who will lose their job from Christian Care.

“I think the economy is really hurting fundraising,” she said. “Our numbers are really up, too — the people we serve and people coming for groceries and pet food, it’s doubled. It’s such a different crowd of people, too. They’re middle 20s with young kids. Before, it was a lot of the chronic homeless.”

As for the lack of financial support for the overflow shelter? “We’re just trusting God right now that it’s going to work. I’ve got a great big God.”

(Staff writers Ann McGlynn and Barb Ickes contributed to this story.)