Streamlined December 12, 2009

Saturday, December 12, 2009

Written December 2, 2009

Streamlined

“Give to him who begs from you, and do not refuse him who would borrow from you.”

~~ Matthew 5:42

My friend, Gabriela, who owns a lovely cafe in my neighborhood, has a streamlined method of communicating with me about clothing she collects for our neighbors experiencing homelessness downtown, because she’s done this kind deed so often.  Her e-mail says simply:  “Hey there, I have some male and female clothing items – shall i take them to your house?  pls advise.”  They appear at my house shortly, and I put them in the trunk of my car.

Shopping at Target tonight, I walk out into a cold rain, and an impulse tells me that this is the night.  Moving the clothes — two large bags — from my trunk into my front seat, I head to a place where I know people are sleeping outdoors under cardboard.

On my way, I drive through downtown, and the streets are whistle-clean of humans.  That means every single person without a home has a bed tonight, doesn’t it?  All six (or is it ten?) thousand of them?  Or have they somehow magically been swept away?

I say the streets are clear of human beings, but on a St. Paul Street corner, I pass woman with a small child knocking on the door at Family Gateway.  Since it is cold, dark and almost bedtime, I stop my car beside them.  ‘Do you have a place inside the Center already reserved?’  I ask the young mother.  ‘Yes, I have a room.  I go to school at night.  We just can’t get anybody to come to the door.  We’ve been here quite a while.’  ‘Let me call someone,’ I tell her.  ‘If you can’t get in, I’ll take you somewhere.’  I call my friend, Clare — who knows everything about helping people — to get a phone number for Crisis Intervention, realize I already have one, and just then, inside the glass door of the Center, a woman holding an infant opens the door for the mother and her little boy.  Thank God for the place.  Thank God when things work.

I drive to the encampment — a small gathering of cardboard-box houses — pull up and stop the car.  I haven’t been here for a while — the camp looks very sparse:  streamlined, as though it’s been cut down to its barest bare essentials.  It’s quite dark — not a spark of a campfire on this cold wet night.  I roll down my passenger window and ask the first woman who approaches if H. is there, a man whom I know I can trust.  She says, ‘I’m Samarah.  First I want to pray with you.’

I start to get out, but she says, ‘Just stay in the car,’ and takes my hand through the window, across the seat.  She talks for a while, then asks for prayers about her alcoholism.  I offer her some clothes.  ‘Na, I’m all right,’ she says.

A second woman says, ‘I’m ___’s wife — I just got out of TDC.’ (Texas Department of Corrections)  She shows me her nametag, as though I won’t believe her, and says ‘I don’t have anything.  Do you have hygiene stuff or underwear?’  Yes, in one of the bags, I say, and wonder, not for the first time:  what can be gained by releasing women from prison with absolutely nothing?  Maybe we feel their lives need to be as streamlined as possible when they’re starting over.

H. walks up.  He looks thinner, is in his sock feet.  I greet him, embrace him, and hand him the bags of clothes.  ‘You’ll share them out, right?’ I say to him, but he’s already ducking back inside their cardboard house with them in tow.

The wife looks into my car and asks, ‘What else do you have?’  I hand her some whole wheat bagels from my Target shopping.  H. comes back out and I give him a bag of Christmas M&M Peanuts I got at Target.  Now, THIS ONE THING feels sacrificial!  Everything else is easy, but giving away my Christmas M&M Peanuts, a generous handful of which I was planning to eat in the car…  that’s the TRUE measure of my love!  Ah, well, maybe without them I’ll be more…  streamlined.

Samarah introduces me to her boyfriend.  In a streamlined repetition of a conversation we’ve had a number of times over years, I ask H.:  ‘Has the City been here?’  ‘A few days ago,’ he replies briefly, ‘Wiped us out.’

I.  Somehow.  Don’t.  Feel.  That.  Much.  Because.  Things.  Don’t. Change.  Do.  They.  Just.  Numb.  Can.  I.  Not.  Work.  Up.  Any.  Outrage?

My emotions seem to have become streamlined, too.

Then, later, reading at bedtime, I am visited by an at-first-unnamed sadness.  Reflexively I think, ‘What’s wrong with me?  Everything’s fine.’  But soon I realize the sorrow is a familiar one and has been there all night — it was just hiding, tucked down inside me, the same way I’m tucked into my cozy bed with my book, down comforter and quilt.  I know then that I’m being visited there in my room by that ragged and rugged band of individuals who cling to a cold, hard, windy stretch of sidewalk somewhere in Dallas, squeezed down to the barest minimum of space between a chain-link fence and a gutter — and who struggle to hold on to the LIFE and to the COMMUNITY they’ve created there.

We may not like their lives, the way they look, or how they conduct themselves.  But.

IF we are going to raid and raid and raid and raid and attempt to shut down the camps, THEN we need to be able to offer Housing First in a form that their inhabitants can deal with.

I.   Guess.  I’ll.  Just.  Keep.  Saying.  It.

KS

View Kim Horner’s latest Dallas Morning News article on housing for homeless individuals (one in an occasional series) here:

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/121309dnmethomeless.4003d95.html

Hard Questions October 8, 2009

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

 

Hard Questions

 

A friend of mine moved ‘off the street’ today and into housing, and it was big news.  His was a high-profile ‘success’ story, because this particular friend has been living a life of street-dwelling homelessness for quite a long time — fifteen years — and he has often been in the news, being a person who doesn’t mind being interviewed and is frequently poetically eloquent.

 

However, as is often the case, there is more to the story than its public version.  Isn’t there always?  The ‘more’ in this instance is that a couple of people — well, actually a person and a dog — got left behind when my friend moved into his new home.

 

I got a phone call from my friend’s ‘street wife’ of twelve years yesterday afternoon, saying that her husband had been informed by his employer, who had arranged for the housing, that he was to move into his new home early the next morning — only sixteen hours notice.  Initially, both husband and wife had expected that his housing would include a place for her, too.  When they recently found out this was not the case, they thought they’d have a week or so to try and make arrangements for her safety and well-being.  Additionally, his dog — his constant companion and best friend for eleven years — turned out to be over the weight limit for the housing and would need to stay behind.  And, in his new home, my friend will not be allowed to have visitors.

 

When the wife called me yesterday, she was distraught.  Media had been at their camp as well as at the new home.  Yet, even though his wife was present during the media visits, no mention was made of the her in any news report, nor of the fact that the dog (who did make it into the story!) and she are to remain behind in the ‘cardboard condo’ under the bridge.

 

The wife is frightened to stay out in the open camp without her husband and protector, with good reason.  So some of her ‘housed’ friends banded together today and came up with the money to pay for a two-weeks’ stay in a motel for her and the dog — a temporary fix, but better than sleeping alone under the bridge.

 

On the phone yesterday, she said she couldn’t understand why she couldn’t go with him — had the rules at the housing unit been made purposefully to exclude her?  I reassured her that no, I didn’t think that was the case.  Rather it was more likely to be an issue of funding-raising on the part of the charity providing the housing.  Generally, at least in this part of the world, any sort of housing subsidy for homeless couples requires that they be legally married, which these two people are not.  They would like to be, but there are intransigent problems with his obtaining a divorce from a wife he’s been apart from for decades.

 

I’ll refrain from discussing how her husband made the decision to go ahead with his move, but I spent the afternoon today with my friend, the wife.  As we ran errands in my car, we cried together, laughed together, and visited two of my close friends who have been consistent and steady friends to people who are homeless — both very kind, wise, forthright and resourceful women.  Each of them gave the wife good counsel and support.

 

I believe that, God willing, she will be all right, and, hopefully, more than all right.  She has skills and resources way beyond what most of us possess after living on the street for over a decade, and there are a number of people who are willing to help make accessible to her tools that will help her move out of her current plight.  But her situation raises a number of hard questions, because there are many long-term, stable couples on the street in the same situation — unable to marry for one reason or another;  unwilling to separate in order to get into housing.  

 

Is there a way to make peace between our religious beliefs and morals, and the urgent need to help people — especially women as the most vulnerable parties — move from street-dwelling homelessness to a more stable life of being housed?  What is our priority?

How do those of us who are advocates and service providers share the story of someone experiencing homelessness or poverty with the public in a way that still presents him or her as a person with dignity?  How do we raise funds and practice public relations in ways that will help people move out of homelessness and poverty, without inadvertently falling into the inglorious category of helpers referred to as ‘poverty pimps’?

How do we hold people up as examples of our hopes, dreams and plans for our own organizations without exploiting them? 

 

Where does the line get drawn between the landscape of our plans for them and that of their plans for themselves, and how do we gracefully and honorably navigate the overlapping territory?  How do we do things that we believe to be truly valuable in helping other human beings without falling into the trap of believing we are their saviors?

Whose highest good is being served in this situation, when the cost of housing a husband is that his street wife and dog are left living under a bridge?

 

KS

 

Link:  See Dallas Morning News Photographer Courtney Perry’s blog entry, “Complexities,”  in response to this post at http://courtneyperry.com/pblog/index.php

Guess What’s Illegal! September 5, 2009

Saturday, September 5, 2009

 

Guess What’s Illegal!

 

You’ll never guess what’s illegal in Dallas these days…

 

I went to see my friends Mary and Samuel at the home they call their ‘cardboard condo’ under a freeway overpass yesterday.  When I pulled up at the bottom of the hill near their camp, driving a car that is not my own, Mary didn’t know who was there.  Later she told me:  “Samuel asked me who was in that car, and I said ‘I don’t know — some white woman,’ until I could see it was you.”  Since Mary’s a ‘white woman’, too, we had a giggle about it, as we do about many things.

 

“You’re never going to believe what happened today!” she said as she climbed into the car’s passenger seat and began to soak up the solace of the air conditioning.  “We got a ticket — they’d been leaving us alone for a couple of weeks, so this was the first time lately — and guess what they wrote on the citation.”  

 

“Littering?  Sleeping in Public?  Obstructing the Place-Where-Nobody-Comes-Anyway?”

 

“No, get ready.  The ticket reads ‘old furniture, blankets, clothing and cups’.”

 

For some reason, this cracked both of us up.  Gallows humor?  Might as well laugh so ya’ don’t cry?  “Oh, man, seriously?” I asked, pulling out pad and pen, “I gotta’ write this down.”

 

“I know,” Mary said, “Can you believe it?  And there was only one cup — the one in my hand that I was drinking out of.”  We just sat there shaking our heads in amazement and looking at each other.

 

“Samuel said he’d just go ahead and serve a day in jail for it to get ‘time served,’ except then he’d have to miss work,” she said.

 

“Who issued the ticket?” I asked.  “The Marshalls?  The Dallas Police?  Were they polite?”

 

“DPD — the same two guys who always come, usually twice a week.  Yes, they’re polite.  No conversation, but nice.  I started to tell them, ‘Hey, you missed a couple of cans.  Shouldn’t you put ‘cans’ on there, too?  But I thought I’d better not say anything.”

 

“So ‘Old furniture, blankets, clothing and cup[s] are against the law now?” I asked her.

 

“I guess so.  First thing I said to Samuel, ‘I gotta’ tell Karen.  She’s never going to believe this one.’”

 

KS

The Soloist: Friendship and Freedom of Choice August 16, 2009

Sunday, August 16, 2009

 

The Soloist:  Friendship and Freedom of Choice

 

“Let your good deeds be like drops of water into the ocean, which then disappear.” 

 

If you have not seen The Soloist, I hope you will.  A friend who has worked among people on the street for over a decade highly recommended it, saying it changed her view of things.  “I’ve been trying to make them like me,” she told me, “but that’s wrong.”

 

I’ve just watched it, and it utterly reinforced one of the most challenging conclusions I’ve come to in knowing and caring about some of the people who are ‘chronically homeless’ in Dallas over the last six years:  one cannot have an ‘agenda’ for people who are experiencing homelessness.  And not having an agenda — yet still knowing them, loving them, being somewhat involved in their lives and trying to be of assistance to them in resolving critical, and sometimes urgent, issues in their lives — that is a very fine line to walk.

 

This past week, someone that I know, care about, and stay in touch with who lives outdoors under a bridge — we’ll call her Mary — became seriously ill.  I’ve become increasingly close friends with this woman and her husband this year and see them from time to time.  She didn’t call me until last Monday night, when the critical part of her illness, which had lasted several days, had passed.  Fortunately, they’d had the money for a motel room for three nights when she was sickest — wracked with pain, drenched in sweat, up all night trying to get her fever down with Tylenol with cold baths.  “We thought I was going to die Saturday night,” she confessed.  “We were really scared.”

 

By the time she phoned me Monday, she had improved but was still in a considerable pain, and they were back in their outdoor camp.  She thought she could make it through the upcoming night, but asked if I would be available to take her to the emergency room the next day if the pain became intolerable again, because her husband had to work, and, of course, they have no transport, their lone bicycle having been stolen a few months back shortly after they acquired it.  I said I would.  I offered them money for a motel room that night, but they declined.

 

The next morning, I got busy trying to find out what emergency medical services are available for homeless individuals besides the ER — information I felt I should have known but didn’t.  I called and e-mailed friends who are staff members at The Stewpot and an acquaintance who’s a caseworker at The Bridge and learned the following: 

~~ Parkland Hospital has a mobile medical unit (‘HOMES: Homeless Outreach Medical Services) which is at The Stewpot on Wednesdays and every other Monday.

~~ Parkland also runs a medical clinic at The Bridge each weekday.

~~ The Stewpot has a medical clinic in-house on Fridays.

~~ If one calls the City’s Crisis Intervention Team, there’s now a streamlined procedure set up to process a person with the medical emergency at The Bridge quickly, short-circuiting any expected wait in line which might occur.  But this would only be an option, for me at least, if the friend who is homeless agreed to it, and they are often unwilling to involve city government in their situation for fear of being ticketed.

 

When I was unable to get in touch with Mary by phone all that day, I drove to their camp in the late afternoon, armed with cranberry juice for a kidney infection she thought she had, a bag of ice to combat the heat, and dog biscuits for their dog.  I was shocked at how much thinner she’d become, noticeable just in the few weeks since I’d last seen her.  She’d never had cranberry juice before, but loved it, and we made plans to go together the next morning to the Parkland Mobile Unit at The Stewpot.  This time when I offered to loan her and her husband the money for a night out of the heat in the motel, she accepted.

 

The next morning when I drove up to the camp, she came walking down to the car and got in.  I handed her the breakfast I’d brought her to eat on the way and another bottle of cranberry juice, but now, suddenly, she was hedging about going to the Parkland Mobile Medical Unit.  She was really feeling OK and was no longer in pain, she said, and she looked better.  But I urged her to let me take her to the clinic anyway.  I knew that she has only one kidney with functions fully, and I so much wanted her to avoid another crisis.  As we sat in the air conditioning of the car and the morning outside heated up, I tried again to persuade her to go see the doctor.  I knew she’d be back out in that August Texas heat all day, barely recovered from her illness.  “Shouldn’t we just get you checked out, get you in the system for Parkland?  Then, if you have another crisis or if you need medicine for your kidneys, that will speed the process up for you when you go in.”  But she didn’t want to go — it was as simple as that.  I could see that she was grateful for my help but that she wanted me to support her decision.

 

And then…  there was a moment…  believe it or not, that I almost drove away with her in the car.  I had been worried about her, on edge for two days;  I had put things on hold to help her deal with her medical crisis;  I’d canceled other plans I’d had for that morning in order to drive her downtown.  I.  I.  I.  

 

I argued with myself silently, and the inner monologue was pretty simple, going something like this:  “Are you insane?  This is a grown woman with children and grandchildren!  OF COURSE YOU MAY NOT take her to the medical van at The Stewpot if she doesn’t want to go.”  End of monologue.  I hugged her goodbye, and, bag of breakfast and cranberry juice in hand, she climbed the hill back up to their camp.

 

I know better than that ‘friend-napping’ impulse implies, and it surprised me about myself.  It was my choice to try to help Mary when she was ill.  It was her choice, then, to say, “I’m OK now.”  Would I have had the same impulse with a friend who is housed and lives in the suburbs to drive away with him or her in the car?

 

We cannot have an agenda for those people to whom we want to offer assistance.  Suddenly, in that moment in the car when I had a momentary impulse to drive Mary to the Parkland Mobile Unit to get the medical care I thought she needed, I seem to have flown into maternal — or maternalistic — mode.  I remind myself that the life Mary is living requires strengths, skills, nerve and wisdom which I myself don’t possess.

 

There are very to-the-point discussions in The Soloist about just this sort of issue.  Steve Lopez (Robert Downey, Jr.) tries to get a shelter director to force homeless cellist Nathaniel Ayers (Jamie Foxx) into psychiatric care, medication and housing.

 

Lopez:  “I want you to help him, because he’s sick and he needs medication and you have a team of doctors here.  Tell him to sit down with them.  Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do?”

Shelter Director:  “Nathaniel’s made it quite clear he’s not ready to speak to a psychiatrist.”

“Force him…”

“That’s not what we do here…   Look, even if I did want to coerce Nathaniel into psychiatry… which I don’t, I couldn’t force him to take medication.  The law’s the law.  Unless he’s an imminent danger to himself or someone else…”

Later, Lopez’s ex-wife wisely tells him, “You’re never gonna’ cure Nathaniel.  Just be his friend and show up.”

 

I think The Soloist gets it very right.  We can’t fix people, nor is it our job to do so.  We can love them and do our best to offer them opportunities that we hope will make their lives better — if we so choose.  And they, as sacred human beings in their own right, have every right to accept or decline our offers of assistance.

 

And then there’s this optimistic bit of science at the movie’s end which one may view as a form of Grace, when Steve Lopez says of his friendship with Nathaniel Ayers:  

“There are people who tell me I’ve helped him — mental health experts who say that the simple act of being someone’s friend can change his brain chemistry, improve his functioning in the world.  I can’t speak for Mr. Ayers in that regard.  Maybe our friendship has helped him, but maybe not.  I can however speak for myself.  I can tell you that by witnessing Mr. Ayers’ courage, his humility, his faith in the power of his art, I’ve learned the dignity of being loyal to something you believe in, holding onto it, and, above all else, of believing, without question, that it will carry you home.”

 

Karen Shafer

 

The Garden Is Growing! May 15, 2009

Friday, 5/15/09

 

The Garden Is Growing!

Update on The Garden: South Dallas, Texas

 

 

The Garden: South Dallas, Texas — a community garden for, by and with people who are homeless or formerly homeless in Dallas — is thriving under the leadership of the Discipleship of the Dallas International Street Church at 2706 Second Avenue near Fair Park.  Team Leaders from the DISC took charge and led a work force of forty people from The Stewpot’s Community Court Project in a successful and fun Garden-Raising Day on Saturday, May 2, 2009.  On April 2 we had a lovely but trash-littered field behind the church; by day’s end of the Garden-Raising, we had seven fully-planted organic raised garden beds!

 

All of us involved that day were tremendously joyful and proud of our accomplishment.  Not only did these energetic and hardworking crews clean up the field and dig the turf out of the seven 4’ X 12’ garden beds, they hauled and laid concrete block borders, carried organic soil by wheelbarrow from the soil pile to fill the beds, trimmed trees, dug a flower bed, built garden benches and tables, and — the best part — at day’s end, everyone celebrated their labor by planting all seven beds with vegetables, herbs and flowers.

 

To view a slideshow by Mandy Mulliez of the the garden site, planning meetings,

and the Garden-Raising Day’s events, look here:

http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLanding.action?c=1bf3gjjt.cpdg2dyx&x=0&y=bi27he&localeid=en_US

********

 For a video clip of The Garden Team Leaders speaking on television about their experiences, look here:  http://dallashomelessnetwork.blogspot.com/2009/05/garden-south-dallas-video.html

 

 

For many of us, the best thing about the day was the way that teams of homeless and formerly homeless individuals from the two programs, the Dallas International Street Church and the Stewpot Community Court Project, pitched in and worked together in a spirit which was more than harmonious — it was truly joyous!  So many of us came away from the day elated with not only the significant physical accomplishments of the six crews, but the spirit of love, unity and camaraderie that we discovered working together.

 

More than once during the day, people came up to me and spoke of how hard it can be for people who live or have lived on the street to work together because of the challenges that each faces in his or her life.  They expressed happiness both in their creation of The Garden and in the way they were able to cooperate in order to create it.  Barry, one of the Stewpot supervisors, shared an observation of how people talked about their lives and their challenges with each other as they dug weeds, shoveled soil and planted seeds and plants.

 

Since the Garden-Raising, I’m proud to report that the six Team Leaders and their teams at the Dallas International Street Church have taken full responsibility for the care and nurture of their garden beds, watering them diligently, adding new plants, and reporting excitedly at our Garden meetings about which seedlings are emerging, what plants are producing, a couple of plants that are having problems and possible organic solutions.  We already have a burgeoning crop of green beans!  I quickly learned at our first full-church Garden meeting that we had many very knowledgeable and skilled gardeners in the congregation, and that knowledge grows and is spread around as people work side by side and share their expertise day by day.  A Friend of the Garden has even donated a hammock where the hardworking gardeners can rest from their labors!

 

Here are some of the things we are growing this season:  bush beans, Swiss chard, collards, Japanese eggplant, cucumbers, yellow crookneck squash, lettuce, onions, sugar-pod peas, carrots, okra, tomatoes, several varieties of peppers, strawberries, cantaloupe, watermelon, Italian-leaf parsley, cilantro, citronella, roses, marigolds, dianthus, zinnias, nasturtiums and about five other types of flowers — many of them tucked decoratively into the spaces in the concrete blocks.  One of our gardeners is creating a special butterfly and bee garden bed.  The gardeners have not only worked hard, they’ve been very creative in their garden design.

 

Something exciting and completely unexpected happened a week ago:  just as we had exhausted our initial Seed Money Fund, an Anonymous Angel left an envelope at my house.  On one side was written:  “DON’T ASK WHO…  PLEASE.  IT IS A GIFT.  KEEP UP WITH YOUR WORK.”  On the other side, it said:  “FENCE FUND.  GOOD FENCES MAKE GOOD NEIGHBORS.”  Inside was… $500!  We are very grateful for such kindness, and this Saturday, May 17, the Stewpot DART Community Court Project is sending us another work crew, and we will install our new fencing!

 

If you are currently or formerly homeless, this is your garden, and you may become a gardener now or at any time by joining one of the teams at the DISC.  (The church office telephone is 214-928-9595.)

 

Although we are going to wait until fall growing season to invite groups of volunteers to come in from outside the community and work with us, everyone is ALWAYS welcome to visit us — just knock on the Dallas International Street Church door and ask someone to show you the path.  The Garden: South Dallas is a magical and serene place and one where we already love to sit with friends or alone, to talk or simply and quietly ‘find our peace.’

 

Karen Shafer

 

Special Thanks to:

Bruce Buchanan and the staff of The Stewpot of First Presbyterian Church, Dallas

The Episcopal Church of the Incarnation, especially Martha Lang, Outreach Director

The Garden Advisory Committee

Friends of The Garden for financial support and in-kind donations

Mandy Mulliez for photography

The Dallas Morning News and Michael Ainsworth for a photo spread of The Garden in the Metro Section on Sunday, May 3

Nancy Baker of White Rock Coffee for great coffee

Aaron Hardwick and Mindy of Breadwinners Restaurants and Catering for breakfast pastries for 100

Sandra Davis of SoupMobile for providing lunch for 100

Soil Building Systems for special pricing on Organic Growers Mix

Lowe’s at Northwest Highway & Jupiter for materials at cost

Louis, Cora and Anna for inspiration

and, OF COURSE, Pastor Karen Dudley for her great leadership, compassion and kindness to us all!

 

Wish List:

a bird bath

a bat house

birdfeeders

concrete blocks for additional beds

cash for additional organic soil purchase

any and all healthy plants

any and all seed, especially heirloom varieties

gardening tools and gloves

limb loppers and pruners

a pole tree trimmer

a subscription to Organic Gardening Magazine [http://www.organicgardening.com/]

 

E-Mail: thegardensouthdallas@earthlink.net

 

The Garden: South Dallas, Texas April 17, 2009

Thursday, April 16, 2009

“The earth is the Lord’s and the fulness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein;…”  ~~ Psalm 24

The Garden:  South Dallas, Texas

 

On the morning of April 2, 2009, I blithely put up a blog post here about gardens (“The Magic of Gardens”.)  I quote myself from that article:  ”The idea [of a community garden] is something that’s beyond my purview to [help] organize … right now,” – and I was convinced of that at the time.  However, by the same afternoon, I had received e-mails from staff members of two of the best nonprofit agencies benefitting people who are homeless in the City of Dallas saying that they were interested in being involved.

 

Janet offered the possible involvement of some volunteers.  Pat informed me that Pastor Karen Dudley, Founder and Senior Pastor of the Dallas International Street Church in South Dallas, had been wanting to start a community garden for years, and, most importantly, that she had access to land where it could be done.                                                                                           [http://www.kdministries.org/]

I realized that perhaps…  a community garden with and for Pastor Karen’s congregation and neighborhood and the street people of Dallas and was an idea whose time may have come.

 

Pastor Karen is a friend and someone I deeply admire (see “Miracle on Second Avenue”), and by the next afternoon, she and I were in the meadow adjacent to her church property, looking at a possible garden site.  A week later, several people met at the Street Church to discuss what was involved in undertaking such a project.  By the end of the meeting, these generous women, including Pastor Karen, had taken out their checkbooks and given us a significant start on a “Seed Money Fund.”  

 

Driving home, I phoned my church, The Episcopal Church of the Incarnation, and asked Outreach Director, Martha Lang, whether they might be willing to contribute to our community garden’s Seed Money Fund.  I sent her a proposal that night and received a reply that she thought they could help.  Miracle of miracles, it is two weeks to the day since “The Magic of Gardens” was written, and… The Garden: South Dallas, Texas (so dubbed by Pastor Karen) seems to be coming to life.

 

Generosity of Friends

 

~~  Our Seed Money Fund is up to $550.00, raised from the Garden Committee and Church of the Incarnation.  $300 of this money will go to purchase organic soil from a Dallas company;  the rest will go for concrete blocks to construct the four raised beds for the first phase of The Garden.  (The soil on the land is not tillable.)

~~  We are incredibly blessed to have a work force of homeless individuals coming for a Garden-Raising Day (remember old-time barn raisings?) the first week in May to clean up the land and construct the beds.  This has been arranged by The Stewpot of First Presbyterian Church in Dallas, and the group will work alongside Pastor Karen’s congregation (most of whom have also come from the streets of Dallas).  Our nonprofit friends are also providing work gloves and some tools!

~~  The Garden is being planned to be wheelchair accessible:  one of our Garden Committee members, also an experienced gardener, uses a wheelchair, and she will advise us.  Many individuals experiencing homelessness, whom we hope will come and work with us, use one as well.

~~  We have received invaluable input, research, information, donation of materials and enthusiastic support both from our Garden Committee members and from friends.  All of this is much appreciated.

 

What Do We Need?

 

~~  To increase our Seed Money Fund in order to buy hoses to reach The Garden and soaker hoses for the beds to save water, to put a second level of concrete blocks on a few of our beds to make them higher for those in wheelchairs, to afford to construct additional raised beds beyond the four that our budget allows for now

NO DONATION IS TOO SMALL (unless you want change for a penny!)

~~  Donation of new or used fencing to enclose The Garden in stages to ward off theft or vandalism

~~  Donations of healthy plants or seeds from other gardeners (we’d love to try some heirloom seeds)

~~  Gardening tools of all kinds, garden carts or wheelbarrows for transporting soil and plant materials, or anything else you can think of!

 

Who Is the ‘Community’ in ‘Community Garden’?

‘Who Is the Community’ in the ‘Community Garden’ called The Garden: South Dallas, Texas?  It is Pastor Karen’s church congregation and the friends and neighbors who live around the church (a neighborhood which would benefit greatly from fresh produce, as there are few supermarkets nearby), but also the true and full sense of community for The Garden: South Dallas, Texas, extends beyond geographical borders to include the entire homeless community of Dallas.  One may not typically think of people spread across the city in different geographical locations as such, but a community it is – 

it is a spiritual network of human beings spread across Dallas, the members of which sometimes stay in shelters, sometimes in alleys or behind dumpsters, sometimes under bridges in cardboard homes.

If you wonder whether this is a community, ask a person who is homeless on the streets of downtown whether they know a person who lives under a particular freeway overpass in a cardboard home several miles away. Percentage-wise, I’m guessing they are more likely to know that individual than many of us would be likely to know someone on our own block in the suburbs.

 

Our mission, our vision, our commitment, then, is a little different from that of the typical community garden, and also includes the desire to bring together people from disparate parts of the city with differing backgrounds to help us all come to know each other and to realize:  we are the same — not ‘us and them.’  So come and work with us!

Possibilities for the Future

 

~~  We would like for The Garden to include benches, picnic tables, and walking paths for the enjoyment of  gardeners, congregants, friends, and neighborhood families.  Our dream is that it can become a beautiful and peaceful refuge for the community, with flowers, berries, fruit trees and herbs as well as vegetables.

 

~~  In time, we would love to have a produce stand out front that the gardeners can operate as a small business.  

~~  We hope that a second phase of The Garden can contain raised beds for neighborhood families to rent for a nominal fee and manage on their own, such as is done in the East Dallas Community Garden and others.  Our first four beds will serve the Street Church, the neighborhood, and the homeless community at large across the city.

~~  Perhaps in the future our gardeners can attend Master Classes in gardening at a community college, or go to work for landscaping companies or garden centers.  Thus The Garden could come to help with job skills training.

 

For Now, a Hope for Healing

 

In a time of ’food insecurity’, growing what can sustain you has real power in and of itself.  Along with this, perhaps someone who is in transition in their lives will come to dig or weed or plant in The Garden and remember…  she or he had a garden as a child with their family, and it was a good thing.  A healing reconnection to the past could be made by someone who has been alienated from his or her loved ones.  Perhaps someone will realize, after feeling for a very long time that he or she can do nothing right in society’s eyes or their own… they have a skill, a gift and can make a contribution.  Few things are more powerful than feeling that we matter and that we have something to give.

 

E-Mail:  thegardensouthdallas@earthlink.net

Karen Shafer

 

P.S.  Within 48 hours of writing “The Magic of Gardens”, I received this e-mail from my grandson, Louis, who is six (Cora is his cousin, also six):

“i herd about the homeless garden wen you get started can we help? and is cora helpeng.  love, louis.”

Good news travels fast!!!

 

“…What I do you cannot do:  but what you do, I cannot do.  The needs are great, and none of us, including me, ever do great things.  But we can all do small things, with great love, and together we can do something wonderful.”   ~~Mother  Teresa

 

Link:  Dallas Homeless Network Blog [http://dallashomelessnetwork.blogspot.com/2009/04/garden-for-homeless-community.html]

Hot Off the Presses! DMN’S Kim Horner & Courtney Perry March 28, 2009

 

Saturday, March 28, 2009

 

Hot Off the Presses!

Kim Horner and Courtney Perry of the Dallas Morning News 

on Homelessness in Dallas

 

A friend just brought me the early edition of the Dallas Morning News for Sunday, March 28, 2009, which he knew I’d want right away.  Front and center on page 1A is the first in a series of articles by Kim Horner, with photographs by Courtney Perry, on homelessness in Dallas, with an emphasis on the ‘chronically homeless.’

 

In reading the article, I was impressed by Kim’s sensitive and comprehensive grasp of this very complicated and heart-rending issue.  I learned a great deal that I didn’t know about aspects of the problem that I never see.  I think this first installment is excellent and goes beyond anything I’ve previously read on the subject here in Dallas.  As usual, Kim is balanced and non-polemical while, I believe, laying out the complex challenges involved in addressing the problems covered.

 

Courtney’s photographs are excellent and show us that she’s been places in the city that few of us will ever go, not surprising for this intrepid photographer.  

 

Kim and Courtney have really done their homework for this series of articles.   I look forward to future installments.  I’m thinking ‘Pulitzer.’  What do you think?

 

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/stories/032909dnmethomeless.34d3691.html

 

By the way, SoupMobile gets a mention in the section, ‘Reaching out to the homeless:  Other social services’.  Well deserved!

 

KS

 

Solutions: Warming Stations & Hypothermia Vans February 16, 2009

 

Monday, February 16, 2009

 

While Dallas city officials have been busy this winter enforcing ‘quality of life’ ordinances by ticketing and arresting homeless citizens during the bitterest cold weather, other cities have found more humane solutions to the question of “Where will homeless people be during cold weather?” 

 

Here are some links from various cities around the United States which have employed the use of ‘warming stations’ and ‘hypothermia vans’ to help those without homes get out of the cold:

 

Charlotte, North Carolina

“Warming shelters open for the homeless”

http://www.wcnc.com/news/topstories/stories/wcnc-011709-sjf-warmingshelters.39facf1.html

“Charlotte leaders activating emergency homeless shelters due to the anticipated cold”

http://www.wbtv.com/global/story.asp?s=9688511

Las Vegas, Nevada

“Warming stations for homeless opened”

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2008/dec/16/wintry-weather-prompts-warming-stations-homeless-o/

 

Middletown, Connecticut

“As cold hits, city makes sure homeless OK”

http://www.middletownpress.com/articles/2009/01/14/news/doc496eb19b3ceac545935506.txt

“City of Middletown says warming station in church breaks zoning laws” 

http://www.becketfund.org/index.php/article/901.html?PHPSESSID=fc0234a1f346cd20bbadf7c67a04def6

http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081220/NEWS/812200336

 

Omaha, Nebraska

“Warming Stations Open For Homeless”

http://www.wowt.com/home/headlines/36301774.html

Rochester, New York

“Poor People United, Emergency Warming Station kicks off!”

http://rochester.indymedia.org/newswire/display/3305/index.php

 

Portland, Oregon

“Volunteers needed tonight for warming centers”

http://blog.oregonlive.com/breakingnews/2007/12/the_oregon_trail_chapter_of.html

 

San Luis Obispo, California

“Prado Day Center offers SLO’s homeless a second shelter from cold”

http://www.sanluisobispo.com/183/story/564073.html

 

Washington, D.C.

“Riding cold: Hypothermia van rescues homeless from frigid nights”

http://media.www.gwhatchet.com/media/storage/paper332/news/2007/03/22/News/Riding.Cold.Hypothermia.Van.Rescues.Homeless.From.Frigid.Nights-2786606.shtml

“Cold has agencies helping the homeless”

http://www.examiner.com/a-1170675~Cold_has_agencies_helping_the_homeless.html

 

Louisville, Kentucky

“Winter blast leaves 17 dead”

http://www.disasternews.net/news/article.php?articleid=3821

 

 

I am beginning to wonder:  are we going to be able to get it right here in Dallas?

 

Remember, we have less than 2000 shelter beds for around 6000 homeless individuals.  Let’s spend some of the money we have spent on policing this winter on warming stations (other than the jail) and hypothermia vans.  

 

KS

New Clothes for Mary February 5, 2009

 

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

New Clothes for Mary

 

I met a new friend tonight, I’ll call her Mary.  Samuel, her street husband, asked me into their lives about a month and a half ago.  ‘My wife, Mary’s, getting out of prison on February 5.  Will you help me get her some clothes together?  She’ll be coming out with nothing.’

 

Samuel, whom I met through my good friend, David Timothy (AKA SoupMan), is probably my closest friend on the street.  I’d trust him with my life.  And when I tell you I have good reason to trust him — that that trust has been put to the test —  you can believe it.  When I tell you, also, that he would be tough enough to defend it — you can believe that, too.  He’s one of the people who represents ‘street law’ among the homeless people who know him.

 

My friend, David, his wife, Shana, and I went to Samuel’s camp tonight in order for me to make the final arrangements to meet him at Dawson State Jail on Industrial Boulevard with Mary’s new clothes this Thursday, February 5, the day of her planned release.  I was then going to drive them back to their house, a series of cardboard boxes under a bridge.  Over the past month and a half since we began planning this, Samuel has asked me at least a dozen times, “Now, you haven’t forgotten about the clothes for Mary, have you?”

 

When we got to Samuel’s camp tonight, it was empty.  Someone walked by and told us he was staying at the nearby motel for the night.  We offered this person a coat and blanket, and he agreed to go into the motel to tell Samuel we were there.

 

Samuel came out of the motel courtyard waving his arms, doing a kind of ‘happy dance’, and came running to our van.  In his wake was a pretty woman with long, thick, beautiful brunette hair.  The next few minutes were a blur.  

 

David got out of the van to greet and embrace them, and, as I opened my door, Samuel flew around to my side of the van and flung his arms around me where I still sat.  “She’s here, she got out early, this is Mary, this is Mary!!!” and Mary began to hug me, too.  Then, a ‘Group Hug,’ and I realized we had Mary’s head in a grip so tight it was like a wrestling lock!  We were laughing and shouting, a pretty spirited reunion for people, two of whom had never met.  Everyone was talking at once.  “I told you, I told you,” he said to Mary.  “This is Karen!  I told you she’d come.”  We introduced Mary to Shana, David’s wife.

 

I explained to Mary that I had mentioned her situation to my good friend, Kathy Hodgin, at Salon on the Square in the Bishop Arts District, where I get my hair cut, and that she and her customers had collected a new wardrobe of clothing for her from all her sizes Samuel had given me at Christmas:  everything from top to bottom, even sunglasses and a suitcase, and that I was picking these up tomorrow.  Hearing this, she burst into tears.  “I just can’t believe it.  I can’t believe they’ve done that for me.  I have nothing, absolutely nothing.”

 

Samuel moved to the back of the van to talk to David, while Shana, an avid animal lover, went to check on Cinnamon, Samuel’s sweet and faithful dog.  Mary and I began to talk.  It did not feel like we were strangers.  “Are you glad to be out?”  I asked her.  “Oh, I can’t tell you, just can’t tell you.  180 days, no fresh air, never being outdoors.  Imagine.”  I said I’d always assumed prison inmates get to go out into some sort of yard every day.  “No, never, not for six months, no sunshine, no outdoor air.  I was supposed to get out Thursday, but today was my 180 days, and they couldn’t keep me any longer.  Huntsville called Dawson and said they had to let me go today.”  “Were you at Huntsville for a while?”  “In the beginning, then at Dawson.  While I was in there, I earned my G.E.D.!  And I can type forty-five words per minute!  I want to get a job.”  “Fantastic!”  I told her, “I’ve known some other smart people like yourself who use their time inside to get their skills together.” 

 

She confided to me, “I really want to make it this time.  I want to do right.  Please, please pray for me.  Do you know where I can get a job?  I have a felony, a non violent one.  Nobody wants to hire you with a felony.”  I told her about a job training/ placement program at a local nonprofit that might be able to help and offered to take her there, and she agreed.

 

She talked about what a good, long-time friend David had been to her.  “He even came to visit me in jail before!” she said, “and he put some money into my account so I could go to the commissary.”  “He’s truly a great friend,” I agreed, “I think we should call him Saint David, don’t you?”  “Yes!”

 

More words tumbled out in a rush as she looked down and struggled to control her emotions, “My dad died while I was in there,” she said, and her voice broke.  I asked,  “Did you…get to go out to…?”  “No, no… you don’t get out for things like that.”  Unsure if I should hug her at such a personal moment, I took a risk and did, and she cried against my shoulder.  I told her, “You surely need to let yourself cry plenty about that one.”

 

Then tears turned to laughter as she described her walk to the homeless camp from Dawson after her release.  “I didn’t have a way to let Samuel know I was out today, so I walked here.  I just showed up and said, ‘I’m here!’”  “Oh, my gosh, that must be seven miles!”  “You should have seen me!” she went on.  “At the jail, they gave me a dress that was much too big — it hung down almost to my ankles and had big yellow flowers on it!”  We were laughing.  “When I got here, Samuel was in shock that I showed up two days early.”

 

“The women at my friend’s Salon, who got you the new clothes.  They’ve not, you know, been involved with homelessness before.”  She nodded.  “They just really wanted to support you.  We all want you to feel that people have your back.”  She looked down and began to cry again, this time with joy.  “I can’t believe all of you have done this for me.  I just can’t believe it,” she said.  “I don’t know how to thank you.”

 

I’ve known Samuel for three or four years, and I’ve never seen him like he was tonight having Mary back with him.  He was giddy with laughter, alternately crying, talking up a storm, practically frolicking like a pup.  A man who is tough enough to keep order on the streets, brought to his knees by love.

 

There was a tremendous feeling of celebration, of new beginnings, around the van as we all stood in the dark and talked, our gathering lit only by the light from the motel courtyard near by.  We made plans for me to bring Mary’s new wardrobe, which was waiting packed and ready at Salon on the Square, to her at the camp the next evening.  David, Shana and I said our goodbyes and reboarded the van, pulling away as Samuel, still talking excitedly, followed us down the driveway, shouting his thanks, while Cinnamon trailed along behind him, and, farther back, Mary stood waving.  

 

Such incredible joy.  A family, reunited.

 

Karen Shafer

Changes at the Bridge June 30, 2008

Monday, June 30, 2008

Here is the link for a Dallas Morning News article of Saturday, 6/28/08.  The article states that Metro Dallas Homeless Alliance, which runs the Bridge, has terminated its contract with PATH Partners, the contractor hired to offer social services at the facility.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/stories/DN-thebridge_28met.ART0.North.Edition1.4e0188c.html

Since it opened May 20, the Bridge has been sleeping 700 to 800 per night; it was designed to sleep 300. According to Mike Faenza, president and CEO of MDHA, “We have a tidal wave, and we want to succeed. The numbers of people, and their needs, and the risk, were so high. I felt like we could not have that second layer in between MDHA and these people, because we had to move very fast. Managing a contract was too cumbersome given what the situation was.”

Some people may see this as a setback for the Bridge, and I’m surely no expert on the inner workings thereof.  But I do want to offer some observations from my limited time spent there volunteering in the feeding program, run by the Stewpot, most Friday nights since the center opened.

~~As I entered the Bridge campus last Friday night, my friend, J., walked up to tell me happily that he i employed full-time within the Bridge now, and he was clear-headed as I’ve seen him in months.

~~My friend, Chris, was very sunburned Friday night from having worked all day.  When I asked if he’d wear sunscreen if I brought it, he said yes, but he seemed proud that he had gotten his bright red coloring from being employed.

~~Many residents were wearing blue badges saying “Resident.”  I learned from the Stewpot employees that the 100 beds for individuals enrolled in the Work-Live Housing (seeking employment) and/or Interim Housing (needing supportive services) have been/are being filled.  People have to meet qualifications and have goals for themselves to be in these programs.

~~As I handed a woman, D., her plate in the food line, her arm was weak;  she told me she’d had a stroke that week.  She’d just been released from Baylor, where she had been getting the medical care she needed.

~~A man in the food line a couple of weeks ago was so well-dressed he could have been an executive.  When I complimented him, he was pleased to tell me he was on his way to work.

~~After the Pavilion cots are filled (300), others wishing shelter from the streets are allowed to sleep in the courtyard of the Bridge campus.  This is currently, as stated above, an additional 400 to 500 people.  As I was leaving the campus around 7:45 PM Friday, these individuals were retrieving from storage nice, thick, single-size black mats, which prevent them from having to sleep directly on the concrete or grass.

~~Most importantly, when you talk to homeless individuals themselves, they are positive about what is going on there and feel good about the services and opportunities for growth that are being provided (and this is not always the case, believe me!)

The most important thing from my perspective is that things seem to be changing for the better among the homeless, both in individual lives and from an overall perspective.  I attribute this to many things, but mostly to the fact that the Bridge has lived up to its promise to have a welcoming, non-threatening approach to our homeless neighbors.  There was a fear (and I was one that expressed it) that many among the homeless population would not choose the shelter over homelessness.  If the Bridge’s and the city’s approach had been the traditional one of booting people back onto the street at dawn, then arresting them for being there, and/or of making them ‘clean up’ before they were given services, we would still be experiencing the stagnation and disastrous effects of those policies that we’ve seen in the past.

Here’s a quote from an article in the Dallas Observer of May 8, 2008:

“By federal definition, the chronically homeless are those unaccompanied adults who have a disabling condition (such as substance abuse disorder or a serious mental illness) and have been continuously homeless for a year or more, or have had at least four episodes of homelessness within the past three years… as [Mike] Faenza likes to tell his staff, the more times a person has been in jail, been arrested or beaten up, the more welcome he will be at the center. 

“We want this place to be very slow to reject anybody,” Faenza says. “You don’t have to be likable to deserve services. You can be aggravating and annoying and still deserve services….They are not going to act grateful. But you can’t lecture. You can’t coerce. You can’t shame people.”"

[http://www.dallasobserver.com/2008-05-08/news/dallas-the-bridge-homeless-center-s-progressive-approach-may-actually-make-a-difference/]

From my perspective, this approach seems to be working.  One thing I can say for certain, MDHA made an excellent choice in contracting with the Stewpot, the experts in providing homeless services here in Dallas, for running the feeding program.  With an expectation of feeding around 700 people per meal, and with the reality often approaching 900, the dining hall is running swimmingly.

KS

Puppies From Heaven June 10, 2008

Journal Archives

February, 2007

 

Poochie and Quiet Storm

I was sitting behind a table in the parking lot of the Day Resource Center.  The table was filled with giveaway clothing, and homeless people were filing by, picking out the two items they were allowed.  A woman, very quiet, stood in front of me, looking at items, tentatively holding them up to see if they’d fit.  She moved to another part of the table and then reappeared.  “Do you need some help?” I asked her.  She didn’t answer and kept her eyes down. 

I noticed how thin she was, how her skin was tan and weathered, signs she had been on the street for a while.  She had long brown hair tied back in a ponytail, but strands of it had escaped and blew outward in the cold wind, creating a kind of halo around her head in the floodlights of the parking lot.  It was hard to guess her age, but I’d say maybe mid-thirties.  

Thinking she didn’t hear me, I leaned forward and repeated, “Do you need help finding your size?”  Still, she didn’t look up, but kept her face a mask, then slipped away, silent as a wraith, to the other end of the table where the women’s clothing was concentrated.

A voice to my left told me, “She doesn’t talk.  Not ever.”  I looked up to see a young man with wonderful looking dreadlocks and an incandescent smile standing at my elbow.  He was waiting for the line to move forward so he could pick out his clothing items.  “Really?” I said, “Do you know why?”  “No.  I call her Quiet Storm.  There are three of them out here, three women, who never talk.”  I looked at the woman, and, as I often do, chilled to think of her vulnerability living on the street.

I remembered seeing this young man before, recalled his upbeat attitude and outgoing personality.  “I’m Karen, by the way,” I said, and stuck out my hand to shake his.  “I’m Poochie,” he said, “I’ve seen you here before.”

 

The Sky Is Falling, or Rather, Things are Falling Out of It

“Where’d you get the name ‘Poochie’?”  I asked him, as the clothing line was stalled while those ‘shopping’ searched through the piles.  He motioned across the parking lot toward the chain link fence that separates the Day Resource Center property from the sidewalk beyond.  I peered into the gloom.  Some of the children of the volunteers were stooped over a backpack which lay open on the ground, huddled over… I couldn’t see what.  “See in my backpack?  My dog!”

Then I made out a small shape among the children’s outstretched hands — they were gently petting… a small dog.  “Where did you get him?” I asked, “He’s cute, and it looks like he’s made friends here already.”  Poochie’s answer was a little, no, let’s say a lot surprising.  “He fell into the top of my tent,” he said.

“What?” I said, clearly not getting it.  He explained,  “Somebody threw him off the bridge, and he landed on my tent, which was just underneath.”  “You have got to be kidding,” I was staring at him, stupefied.  “Where were you staying, in the I-45 bridge camp?”  “That’s right.”  “And somebody actually threw that little dog off the bridge, and it landed on your tent?”  “Yep.”  “Wow,” was all I could think of, then “Wow” again.  

I had stood in the homeless encampment under that bridge a number of times.  It was a very high bridge, several stories.   “Was he injured?”  I asked, incredulous.  “Nope.  I was sleeping one night, and I heard him hit the tent. Another guy in the camp saw him fall.  He was fine, a little shaken up.”  I shook my head.  “Now why would anyone do a thing like that?  And what kind of person?”  But I knew this was a fairly futile question, and a rhetorical one, because sometimes we human beings treat not only dogs but each other with that kind of callousness and cruelty.  “I don’t know,” Poochie answered, “but that’s how I got my name.”  “Well, it’s a pleasure to meet you, Poochie. That’s quite a story,” I said, as his turn came to move up in the line and choose his clothing items.  ”I know you and your little dog will take good care of each other.”

KS

The Bridge Is Open! May 22, 2008

 

This past Tuesday, May 20 was a momentous day for Dallas and its homeless citizens.  A new, $23 million, state-of-the-art homeless assistance center, The Bridge, opened in downtown.  Here is a letter from David Timothy of SoupMobile describing the ribbon-cutting ceremony and the facility.

 

Subject: Report from the SoupMan to SoupMobile Advisory Board

Date: May 21, 2008 3:58 PM

 

Dear Advisory Board Members:

The following information is an update of recent changes in the homeless situation in the City of Dallas.

On Tuesday May 20th, the new homeless assistance center, The Bridge opened for business. The Ribbon Cutting Ceremony was held in the main courtyard of the new center. In attendance were the Mayor Tom Leppert; the Dallas City Council; Mike Rawlings (The Homeless Czar); various dignitaries; guests and about 150 homeless people and five members of the staff/board of the SoupMobile.

The Bridge is a multipurpose facility designed to provide services to the homeless ranging from basic medical care; job training; hair cutting services; restrooms; showers; food and shelter. However it is not a true shelter in the way we would normally think. Inside the main building are approximately 100 beds that are actually small cubicles that have a bed, locker, drawers and chair. These 100 beds are called transitional beds. They are NOT for long term use. They are to be used for patients coming out of Parkland Hospital; clients transitioning into drug or alcohol rehab programs; and other clients which are transitioning into permanent housing.

[Blogger's Note:  There is even a kennel for pets of the homeless, and a playground and secured area for women and children.  KS]

In addition to the 100 transitional beds the facility has an open aired building that will house up to 300 homeless people per night who will sleep on cots. These cots are not permanent housing. Each night as the homeless enter the facility they can sign up for a cot. If more than 300 people want cots, then they will do a lottery to see who gets a cot for the evening.

The new facility is a big step up in services for the homeless. However it is not the ‘cure all’ for the homeless problem in Dallas. Its estimated that there are more than 10,000 homeless men and women in the Dallas area. Clearly The Bridge will only be able to serve a portion of these men and women. Even with The Bridge online, there will still be a massive need for additional homeless services.

… I will be personally volunteering from time to time at The Bridge. I am starting by volunteering this Friday evening to help them serve the evening meal in their cafeteria….they are in need of help and [we want] to keep our finger in the pie as we look to possibly partner up with The Bridge at some future date.

May the Lord bless you all. 

David Timothy, a.k.a. The SoupMan

SoupMobile

3017 Commerce St.

Dallas, Texas 75226

 

Blogger’s Note:

May I add that I am very optimistic about the impact this center will have on the lives of our homeless friends.  I am particularly encouraged by an article I read in the Dallas Observer, May 8, 2008.  It’s well worth reading.  Here’s the link:

http://www.dallasobserver.com/2008-05-08/news/dallas-the-bridge-homeless-center-s-progressive-approach-may-actually-make-a-difference/full

A non-punitive, non-criminalizing approach is the most workable and effective when approaching the problem of homelessness, in my opinion, and statistics bear this out.  I am heartened to see that this appears to be the philosophy which will implemented ‘top down’ at the Bridge.

True, there are concerns from the homeless advocacy community:  for example, as it appears the Pavilion will fill up quickly and people will be turned away at night as there are not enough temporary beds to provide shelter for everyone who wants it, there is concern that this will lead to ‘zero-tolerance’ from the city on the streets, arresting those who are still sleeping outdoors and once again filling the jail with homeless people.  However, it looks as though those who don’t have a bed will still be able to stay on the Bridge campus.

Nonetheless, as I sat and listened to the speeches at the ribbon-cutting, and, later, as I watched the new lounge fill up with hot, exhausted, drained, thirsty homeless individuals seeking refuge in the beauty, cleanliness, and icy cool air-conditioning of the center, I felt that the weight of the world was off my shoulders and that, for now, nothing could dim my optimism about this giant leap forward for Dallas.  The entire community has pulled together to offer the best to those who have nothing, and I call that a great day.

KS

Services Provided by The Bridge May 3, 2008

Dear Readers,

Here’s a link to the website of a group of people who have generously allowed me to work with them on Friday nights at the Day Resource Center for the last couple of years while they serve dinner and give away clothing.  They provided me with a way to give away the clothing I like collecting, which opportunity I lost when the homeless camps were razed by the city in 2005.

The post gives a list of the services to be provided by the new homeless assistance center, The Bridge, when it opens in May.

http://www.ourcalling.org/2008/04/25/the-new-center-will-provide-what/#comments

KS

 

The Stewpot Calls for Volunteers, Donations at The Bridge April 22, 2008

Here is an excerpt from the current newsletter of The Stewpot, “In As Much”:

“Dear Friends,

Many of you have stepped forward in the fight against hunger. We ask that you go another round….
No knockout punch will be thrown in this ring. This fight is about endurance. It’s about compassion.

The Stewpot will continue to offer a wide range of social services at its current location. But in the next month we will move our meal service to the city’s new homeless assistance center (The Bridge), allowing us to expand from five meals a week to 21.

We ask that you consider adopting a day or a meal to assist our downtown neighbors. The Stewpot will underwrite 20 percent of the cost not covered by city funding. That means a $1000 donation will adopt a day for your congregation or group. A gift of $400 will cover lunch or dinner, and a gift of $200 will cover breakfast for the estimated meals that will be served each day. [Any amount will be appreciated!]

There are volunteer opportunities as well. Your congregation or group can adopt breakfast or dinner any day of the week at no cost. Lunch is available for volunteer groups to serve on the weekend.

Sincerely,
Rev. Dr. Bruce Buchanan
Director”

To donate:
1. On-line credit card at: www.thestewpot.org/loavesandfishes.asp
2. Mail payment to: The Stewpot, 408 Park Avenue, Dallas, TX 75201
3. Call: (214) 746-2785, ext. 236, or E-mail Lee Hutchins at leeh@thestewpot.org
[A percentage of every dollar donated between 3/1/08 and 4/30/08 will be matched by the Feinstein Foundation.]

To volunteer:
Contact Bobbie Taylor at: bobbiet@thestewpot.org
Indicate day of the week, Monday through Sunday, and preferred meal times: Breakfasts from 6
– 7:30 a.m., Dinners from 6 — 7:30 p.m., Lunches from 11:30 a.m. — 1:00 p.m. (weekday lunches are already taken)
Please provide: contact person for church group; email and phone of contact person; organization name; address of church, city, state, zip; # volunteers available.

The Good; The Bad; The Very Sad March 9, 2008

Journal Archives
Tuesday, 5/10/05

The Good

Today I got this thrilling e-mail from my friend David, which speaks for itself:

“Today, I saw Patrick. He said he and Candance were still having problems and were not together. However I found another man who lived in the apartments just up the street from where Patrick and Candace were living. I didn’t get all the details, but it seems that Candance was staying in one of the apartments temporarily with a family. I gave the Bible to the man/family that Candace was staying with. He promised to give it to Candace.”

I am over the moon with joy at hearing some word about these two sweet people. And, although it is sad that they are not together, it is wonderful that Candace is off the street, where life is particularly hard for women. Knowing they are alive and well gives me tremendous peace.

The Bad

Received two very disturbing phone calls today from another friend who says that the I-45 homeless camp, where Dee and her dogs, Mack, and around a hundred people live, was once again razed this morning. Texas Department of Transportation bulldozers and dump trucks moved in and scooped up people’s homes and belongings — five dump-truck loads went into the city landfill. It’s especially frustrating because the camp was at its most well-stocked: church groups had just donated new tents, blankets, towels, clothing, food and personal care items. From a purely practical standpoint, what a waste of resources for both donors and recipients!

The Very Sad

A couple of weeks after this I learned that, in the chaos of the camp being destroyed by TXDOT, the beautiful Simba, the older of Dee’s two dogs, was hit by a car and badly injured. After languishing for many days, he died.

KS

Chocolate That Melts In Your Hand March 3, 2008

       “Love until it hurts….What I do you cannot do: but what you do, I cannot do. The needs are great, and none of us, including me, ever do great things. But we can all do small things, with great love, and together we can do something wonderful.”
                                                                                                            ~~Mother Teresa

Journal Archives
Wednesday, 4/13/05

I had a great time going to Target and buying shoes and other essentials for Candace and Patrick. My daughter, Rose, chipped in some things, and we were able to put together several outfits for Candace from donated clothing, as well as a sizable bag of body care products given by my neighbors. I packed up t-shirts, jeans and socks for Patrick.

Rose went with me to take it all to their house, but they were not at home. We drove over to the large homeless camp to take Milk Bone treats for two dogs who lived there, Simba and Dude. The dogs won Rose’s heart as they gamboled around her feet in the dust of the camp while we talked to their owner, Dee, an intelligent and friendly woman who has a tidy tent near the camp gate. Dee works full-time as a temp but can’t get housing because she was once in prison.

Candace and Patrick were home when we got back to their house, and Candace ran to meet us as before, with Patrick walking behind. I introduced them to Rose, and we handed them their clothes and supplies. They were overjoyed.

“There’s a bag of Snickers candy bars in there for you guys,” I told them. “Well, you’d better give them to me if you want me to have any,” said Patrick, “’cause I didn’t get one bit of that Easter candy.” Candace giggled. “Yep,” she said proudly, “I went to sleep that night with my candy clutched so tight, held up here against my neck so nobody would take it from me, that I woke up with it melted in my hand!” We all thought it very funny, especially Candace, who was pleased with herself. But, though Patrick took it in good humor, you could see he was disappointed that she now had charge of the Snickers. “Candace, are you going to share with him?” I teased her. She held onto the sack with the Snickers inside. “Hmmm, maybe,” she said slyly.

After we’d talked for a while and were preparing to go, Candace threw her arms around Rose and said happily, “I’m going to be your ‘Auntie!’”

[to be continued]

KS