Ruth Anne White — ‘called to serve less fortunate’ — brings lifelong experience to Catholic Charities of Diocese of Wilmington

Photo: Ruth Anne White, executive director, Diocese of Wilmington Catholic Charities. Courtesy of Joseph P. Owens, The Dialog

October 25, 2024 – Wilmington, DE – Some might wonder how a Cleveland, Ohio, native, mother of three, youngest of 10 siblings, finds her way to be executive director of Catholic Charities in the Diocese of Wilmington, serving Delaware and the Eastern Shore of Maryland.

Get to know the story of Ruth Anne White, and it all makes perfect sense.

After a national search by the diocese, White, 53, began her job at the local Catholic social services agency in July, replacing longtime administrator Frederick “Fritz” Jones, who retired earlier this year.

To get an idea of her path here, it’s best to start at the beginning.

“The evolution kind of makes sense,” she said in an interview with The Dialog.

A proud Ohio State University graduate, White’s first job was working in homeless shelters in Columbus, Ohio, where she noticed antagonism between family shelters and an overwhelmed child welfare system.

“That bothered me,” she said. “I thought that wasn’t productive.”

White got a job in Washington, D.C., working on housing, homelessness and how it interacts with the child welfare system.

“I did that for a long time and it was very productive work. I liked it.”

She then was recruited to work for Catholic Charities USA, where she became director of housing and community development

“I really liked that. I worked on cradle-to-grave issues. I got to work with the members. I developed some lifelong friendships with some Catholic Charities directors.”

White found herself getting back to the issue of housing for families and child welfare. With a former boss from the Child Welfare League of America, together they worked to bring housing resources and knowledge to child welfare agencies in order to improve family functioning, prevent family homelessness and reduce the need for out-of-home placement.

“There is a line item at HUD called the Family Unification Program and it provides a set-aside of housing choice vouchers for these families who would potentially lose their kids,” White said. “I had been lobbying to reinforce that funding source that had gone dormant for several years.

“A year-and-a-half into my time at Catholic Charities we learned the funding had been restored. So, we realized we had to set up an agency to go out and train housing authorities to do the work.”

That’s when they founded National Center for Housing and Child Welfare, working to leverage $300 million of new Section 8 voucher funding for families and those aging out of foster care.

“I worked with a group of former foster youth to make those vouchers universal, synchronized and on-demand for youth aging out of foster care, so that was such a big win, it means that all the kids aging out of foster care, if they have a voucher, they will have permanent housing when they leave foster care,” White said.

“We’ve eliminated homelessness for youth aging out of foster care. It means regardless of where they’re aging out in the country, or when, they can get a housing choice voucher to have a platform for economic self-sufficiency. The point is if we’ve taken a kid from their family as a dependent kid, and put them in the system, of course they shouldn’t become homeless.”

How did she land in Wilmington?

“Because we were able to make that housing program, it’s codified and part of federal law now,” she said. “Essentially, I can move on now, and I felt really good about that.

“I was recruited for this position and I think the timing was divine intervention.”

White was raised in a large, Catholic family. She says her dad was “an extremely conservative Catholic” while mom was a bit more progressive. Her mom began attending a nearby black church, so “Ruthie” wound up going to Mass on Saturday evening with her dad and Sunday morning with her mother where they enjoyed singing in the choir.

“I had a very interesting upbringing because I was very involved in two parishes. But, irony of ironies, because of all the consolidation, they are now the same parish.”

When she first heard about the Diocese of Wilmington, she was uncertain because she didn’t know a lot about Delaware, but she was very familiar with the Eastern Shore where her organization had a subcontract to end youth homelessness.

“The idea of going back to my Catholic roots, going back to my program roots, and being able to see progress in an area with boundaries,” she said, “I thought would be a nice pivot. And really rewarding.”

White and husband Brian Klopp have two boys and a girl, ages 24-18, and with the youngest just beginning college they’re confronting the empty nest at their home in College Park, Maryland. She is splitting her time at home there and with a relative in Hockessin while the family looks for a house in the diocese. Klopp works as a collective bargaining official for AFSCME International.

In announcing her appointment last spring, Bishop William Koenig called White “one of the nation’s leading experts on child welfare and housing policy.”

“Her vast experience working with the homeless, youth and children, coupled with her tremendous management and administrative experience, makes her the ideal person to lead our ministries serving our most vulnerable brothers and sisters,” the bishop said.

White has a degree in social work from Ohio State, a master’s degree in social administration from Case Western Reserve University and is a doctoral candidate at the National School of Social Service at Catholic University of America.

She says she is learning the lay of the land in her new job and understands the varied demographics from seaside resorts to rural agricultural landscape to suburban and large urban areas. People in the diocese can face a wide array of challenges and there seems to be plenty who want to help, she said.

“I look at the whole thing as kind of exhilarating,” White said.

“You have housing quality, housing quantity, transportation woes, sizable migrant farm worker population. Learning how all of that fits together with suburban areas with people who want to contribute and want to be a part of solving those problems, you need to be the conduit for that.”

“Working more closely with parishes, those relationships, I’m intrigued with how all of that fits together. Issues of poverty in urban areas but having a faith-based community gives a little more opportunity to bring those resources to the fore. And see solutions manifest right in front of your eyes and watch neighborhoods improve or watch families be a little less reliant on assistance.”

Catholic Charities prides itself as the largest non-government social services agency in the U.S. Locally, the group delivers direct care human services to more than 83,000 people and families. No one is excluded from service because of race, color, religion, sex, age, disability, national origin or ability to pay.

Getting the message out about how it makes a difference is part of what White hopes to accomplish.

“What we’re called to do in our daily lives is carry out Christ’s message,” she said. “And you can do that in a variety of ways. You can do that by just being a good neighbor. You can do that by being a good parent, being good at your job, there are all kinds of ways you can do that.

“But we are called to serve the less fortunate. Catholic Charities isn’t the only conduit to carry out that portion of Christ’s message, but it’s a very important conduit. The day-to-day contact that we have with our neighbors that have really, really fallen on hard times, it’s poignant and beautiful.

“It’s a big opportunity for me to be back to my roots. My roots are working in the shelters, so imagine having the opportunity to have a window into someone else’s struggles. They give you the gift of their story and your job is to listen and help them chart a path out and back into society. That’s a very, very hefty responsibility.”

Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Wilmington is a faith-based, social services organization, delivering critical direct care human services to over 83,000 individuals and families residing in Delaware and Maryland’s Eastern Shore. To learn more about Catholic Charities, please visit https://www.ccwilm.org