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

The Pheasant June 23, 2008

 

       ‘The pheasant in the marshes has to take ten steps in order to get one beakful of food, one hundred steps for one drink of water.  Yet it doesn’t want to be kept in a cage.  Though it would be fed like a king, it would not be happy.’

                                                                                          ~~Chuang Tsu, Inner Chapters

 

Chuang Tsu was to Lao Tsu (author of the Tao Te Ching) as Saint Paul was to Jesus and Plato was to Socrates.  He developed the doctrines of Taoism with rigorous logic from Lao Tsu’s more poetic writings.  The seven “Inner Chapters” of his teaching represent the part of his work that scholars definitely attribute to him.

‘F’ Is For ‘Family’ June 18, 2008

 

 Current Journal                                                                                                                                 Wednesday, June 18, 2008

 

‘F’ Is Also for ‘Finding Oneself Fascinating’

One of the things I find a little grating is how we modern-day writers tend to find ourselves fascinating. Our tendency toward navel-gazing and over-sharing can be too much.  That said, I’ll proceed to do just those things, so forgive me.  This is an essay I recently wrote about my family, and I hope it makes a point that relates to the homeless, which, after all, is meant to be the focus of this blog!  KS

 

‘F’ Is For ‘Family’

 

When I look back on my childhood, I admit that there were some challenges.  My parents’ marriage was tumultuous, it ended in bitterness and rancor — some of it public — and, in my teens, I had a stepmother who, though supportive in many ways, essentially went to war with me, which almost did me in (and I don’t think the battle did much for her peace of mind either.)

 

Yet my life growing up I remember mostly as wonderful;  more and more, I see how good it was.  We were not rich, but my parents were interesting and hardworking people.  I doubt my dad would want to claim this moniker, but, in his way, he was a feminist.  When I was four, he built me a race car of my own.  It was gasoline powered (wonder what the price of gas was in the early fifties?), and he even dredged out a race track behind his Texaco service station where I, wearing my mandatory helmet, routinely drove my little car round and round, pedal to the medal, with a family of boys who were professional race car drivers.  I had my picture in the local paper, and, although my aunties predicted doom over such an activity, to me it was fabulous.  My only frustration was that my car’s engine had a governor on it so it couldn’t go reeeeeaaaly fast.

 

When I was six, Dad got me a pony, and, as a family, we traveled around Tennessee, Kentucky, North Carolina and Virginia to horse shows.  Mother sewed the elaborate costumes required for showing;  Dad and I trained and showed horses together over the next eighteen years.  Horses were my world, and the absorption with them kept me ‘off the street,’ so to speak, for a very long time.

 

Mother was a career woman, a pianist, who had a radio show with her brother called “The Romantic Young Baritone.”  Staying home wasn’t her gig, so she became the accompanist for a ballet studio and sometimes took me with her, plopping me into dance classes for eleven years (sort of against my will, but I can keep good rhythm as a result) and dragging me to every symphony concert and ballet that came to Knoxville.  My Life in a Tutu was probably a good counterbalance to my Life in Boots, Jodhpurs and a Racing Helmet.

 

So, despite the strain in my parents’ marriage, I remember our house always being full of people for Bridge and Canasta parties, which ended with everyone around the piano singing show tunes while my mother played.  I love those memories.  I had a gajillion cousins that lived close by, some rich and prosperous, some poor as church mice, but we all got together every Sunday after church at my grandparents’ house for a big Sunday lunch cooked by Grannny Maude, my mother’s mother, who I was crazy about.  

 

Granny was a strong country woman who was a ground breaker in her way.  Her sixth child, my Uncle Jack, born at home like all the others, received a brain injury from a difficult birth which left him with tremendous and evident mental and physical disabilities, including cerebral palsy.  In those days, the only acceptable answer was to ‘put him in an institution.’  But she refused.  And I can only begin to appreciate what a battle that must have been in the 1940’s.  Instead, she kept him with her until she died in the 1970’s and, scandalously, always took him in public, which was unheard of at that time.  There was no such thing as Politically Correct in those days, so she and Jackie were regularly publicly ridiculed.  “Isn’t that awful?  She shouldn’t have him out in public…people like that shouldn’t be seen…” etc.  But Granny didn’t care, or, if she did, she didn’t waver.  He was her child, and she wasn’t about to put him aside somewhere out of sight.  Before she died, she extracted strict promises from my aunts and cousins to have Jackie live with them, which they did.  What a gutsy broad she was.

 

I see homeless people downtown who have grown up very poor, like some of my cousins.  They’ve lived very rough lives, and so did many of my cousins — the ones I played hide and seek with on Sunday afternoons in my Granny’s orchard.  There are people living on the street downtown who are maybe not as severely disabled as my Uncle Jack, but nearly so.

 

I am always asking myself:  what makes the difference?  It’s a complex sociological formula, I’m sure, involving geographical location, the decade, people staying in one place rather than migrating, and a myriad of other factors.  Yet somehow the ingredient that rises to the surface in my mind is this one:  family.  

 

I have cousins that ended up multimillionaires and cousins that lived in mobile homes the size of a camper and were always in trouble with the law, usually for public drunkenness.  But these cousins helped each other, even adopting each other’s children, and that camping trailer was staked down on my Granny’s farm in the country outside Knoxville long after she died.  Nobody ever ended up on the street for long.  There was always a relative somewhere in the Tennessee hills that would take you in and, in the space of fifteen minutes, come up with a meal that would feed the five thousand.

 

When you see the pain in the lives of people who are homeless, it challenges some pretty basic assumptions about your own life, at least for me.  One of them is worthiness.  I think deep down inside of us we have to believe that somehow we deserve what we have in order to have some peace of mind about the relative splendor in which we live.  And when you see good people who’ve had really hard lives living on the street, where do you go with that?  God’s will?  Karmic justice?  Or can we, as many would like to, lay it all at the feet of personal responsibility?

 

For me, it’s a mystery and involves a far bigger picture than we are able to view from right here where we are.  I’m not willing to make too many assumptions about other people’s lives, whether they deserve what they got, whether or not any of us is ‘worthy.’  I’m just purely and simply grateful for what I’ve been given, which is a very great deal.  And the greatest of the gifts I’ve received is family, past and present.

 

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

Unity, Harmony and Constructive Dissent June 5, 2008

Thursday, June 4, 2008

Unity, Harmony and Constructive Dissent

It’s strange where one’s challenges come from in caring about people in Dallas who are homeless.  In the past, they’ve usually come from seeing the terrible vulnerability of people living on the street, or from fighting city hall, or in the pain of hearing homeless people negatively stereotyped.  There’s a joke in our family.  According to my daughters, ‘If you want to stay on Mom’s good side, don’t criticize us, her grand kids, or the homeless.’  Indeed, a new potential friendship of mine recently took an abrupt detour into the ditch when the man called the homeless ‘people who don’t want to work and just try to get everything free.’

Still, over the last few years I’ve come to understand that the need of some people to pigeonhole and denigrate the homeless — that need is in itself a kind of poverty.  And, if I really watch my own thoughts, I too am guilty of stereotyping — I may be ‘judging the judgers,’ but it’s judgment nonetheless!

Also, over time, I’m learning to come to terms with the tremendous challenges that many homeless individuals have lived with much of or all of their lives:  generational poverty of a crippling variety;  long-term abuse;  incomplete education;  the wounds of war;  physical, emotional or mental disabilities without the benefit of the remitting medical care many of us take for granted.

Though it’s early days yet, it seems to me thus far that the new direction for the homeless in Dallas signaled by the opening of the Bridge is so much more positive than anything I could have envisioned at this stage that I find myself continually catching my breath in relief, after years of anguish.  We have a state-of-the-art facility about which the homeless themselves, or at least the ones I’ve talked to, can scarcely find anything to criticize.  Not only is it a one-stop shop for services, it is welcoming and non-threatening refuge, giving people a safe place to be, 24 hours a day, without being harassed — something they have never, in this city’s history, had before.

What most often blindsides me these days, then, is when there are significant differences between those of us who play on the same team — those in the homeless advocacy community.  I was talking to a friend about it this week, a pastor who has run a street ministry for several years, and we agreed — those differences can be excruciating.  I ask myself why.  Is it because the homeless take such a drubbing in society already, and, when you find people who share your sympathy with them, it feels like such an oasis?  One thing for sure, it’s a lot more fun to do what we do — whatever that is — in the company of and with the support of others of like mind and similar spirit.

So it particularly troubles me when people who love the homeless take potshots at other people who love the homeless, using ammo that’s seriously flawed.  When such criticism becomes necessary, at least it should be based in fact and taken first to those whom it concerns.  There’s enough work to do on the problems of homelessness without squandering our energy and resources by criticizing each other falsely and unfairly.

For example, I overheard someone in the homeless advocacy community this week make audacious and untrue accusations about the funding for a recent and important initiative, accusing a service provider of ‘taking a cut’ off public funds, when in fact, the opposite is true — the provider is underwriting part of the money for the initiative.   I happened to know the numbers on this issue — and to be certain of the integrity of the provider — and, when I politely presented the facts to the accuser, the numbers that person was scattering about carelessly and presenting as fact suddenly added up very differently.

Why do we do this, attack ‘our own’?  Is it because we are passionate about a cause and fear more injustice will be perpetrated?  Or maybe we see our role in the situation changing, and it frightens us.

Whatever the motive, the issues surrounding homelessness are extremely complex, as complex as the individuals who comprise the homeless population.  Just as there is not one profile of a person who is homeless — or of a person who lives in north Dallas, or of an urban dweller, or of a south Dallas resident — neither is there one group, one role, one answer, one approach, which can alone solve all of the problems associated with homelessness.

If we are going to team up with our homeless neighbors to facilitate a process by which they can rebuild their lives, we will need all of the resources at our disposal — and then some.  What we don’t need is infighting, backbiting, labeling, accusing or to be flagrantly flinging about false information.

It’s not that we have to be unified or that we must speak with one voice.  In diversity is strength, and vigilant, constructive criticism is always and absolutely essential.  

We need not unity, but harmony.

True, there are minor glitches as the Bridge undertakes its new role and settles in to its enormous responsibilities, but what is being done there is light years ahead of what we’ve previously done as a city.  It appears as if Dallas may be emerging as a national model for ‘doing it right’ for our homeless citizens.  Isn’t that exciting and what we all want?  What an awe-inspiring change from being the Sixth Meanest City in America!  

To me, it seems that Metro Dallas Homeless Alliance and the Stewpot have taken on the daunting task of running the Bridge, providing a refuge for all who need it, and feeding all who come to eat — and are meeting the immense demands of that task extremely well.  I hope all of us who have worked with the homeless in various capacities in the past can embrace not only the beauty in the diverse faces we see in the food lines at the Bridge, but also embrace the richness of the myriad approaches brought by everyone who loves those faces and longs to see them free of the tyranny of street life.

KS

 

Article today in the Dallas Morning News: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/stories/060508dnmetbridge.3ac8372.html

Also see LA’s Homeless Blog, “When the Community Aligns”,  http://www.lahomelessblog.org/archive/2008_05_18_archive.html

 

Wrestling and Other Conversations May 31, 2008

Saturday, 5/31/08

Last night after the evening meal at the Bridge, I left the dining hall and was wandering around the campus when a couple of guys said hi, and I stopped to talk, sitting down beside them on a low concrete wall by the pavilion.

One man, Cullen, who seems very well-educated, has entered a work-to-housing program at the Bridge.  His friend, Joe, had spent the day putting advertising flyers on houses for $7 an hour.  Joe grew up in a carnival family and said he has worked at the State Fair of Texas since he was a child.  He had seen the football stadium at SMU for the first time that day and couldn’t get over how big and impressive it was.

We sat there talking, with the heat of the day dissipating and a nice breeze cooling things off.  Behind us, the large garage doors of the pavilion were open and the mega ceiling fans whirling.  Though it was still daylight at 8 PM, people were already settling into their cots inside the building for the night, because many of them start off for work at 6 AM or so.  

We were trying to identify a bird that flew onto the roof of the Bridge, and Joe began to talk about how much he liked Blue Jays and how they are sign of good luck.  He said he knows he’s in a quiet, peaceful neighborhood when he sees a Blue Jay, and he’d seen one that day while he was passing out flyers.  

I found out Joe is a celebrity buff.  He once asked a Channel 11 reporter for her autograph, and, of all movie stars, would most like to meet Bruce Willis.  Cullen and I talked about how we couldn’t believe that, at his age, Sly Stallone still did his own stunts in the last Rambo.  “Arthritis, and still running through the woods!” he said.

But Joe was most excited when he was telling us how, years ago, he had met several members of a prominent, high-profile wrestling family and what a thrill this was for him.  He was recounting the various things that had happened to that family in the interim.  Joe’s enthusiasm for everything, from Blue Jays to football stadiums to wrestlers, is contagious, and I found myself mesmerized listening to him, because of the joy which illuminates him when he talks.

Suddenly a woman appeared, standing before us.  “Remember a certain child who was always at those wrestling matches on TV and was wearing a shirt with a flower on it?  That child was me!  I am the cousin [of that wrestling family]!”  “What???  NO WAY!!!” Joe said, and jumped to his feet to hug her.

The woman’s sister came to stand beside her, adding, “And I was usually up in the stands, ‘cause I was too young for a long time to be in the ring.”  One thing led to another and pretty soon they were waxing nostalgic about the glory days of the Sportatorium on Industrial Boulevard, where these women had spent much of their youth — how it had been a significant historical landmark until it burned down, and whether that was arson — and the importance of being able to ‘whup people’s asses.’

On a personal note, as a child, I only ever got ‘whupped’ for cussing.  A foul mouth was pretty much second nature to me, and, since my parents weren’t fond of cursing, they sometimes got fed up with mine and expressed their disapproval through generally mild forms of corporal punishment (and allow me to inform you, it did no good.)  Other than feeling a natural affinity for ‘bad words’, however, I was a sickening sort of Buddhist-leaning, Sunday-school-attending, Presbyterian goody-goody who pontificated to my friends with statements like, “Don’t smush that ant!  Ants are our friends!”

But these women had grown up doing a considerable amount of ass-whupping themselves — from about the age of eleven, in the wrestling ring with their cousins, the pro wrestlers.  They demonstrated to us how they’d stand in the ring gesturing and shouting, “Bring it on!!!”

When Joe found out who they were, it was as though the actresses from the new Sex and the City movie (yes, we’d discussed them, too) had walked onto the Bridge campus.  There was a lot of ‘You’re kidding!’, more congratulatory hugging and a celebration right there on the sidewalk that was somewhere between a family reunion and a red-carpet event.

I ventured that I had been to the Sportatorium only once, for a wrestling match in the ‘70’s with a boyfriend from overseas who idolized American wrestlers.  When I expressed the opinion that night to my boyfriend that some of the ring action looked like it might be fake, he got so upset that he threw a full cup of Coke straight up in the air and showered us and everyone around us with ice and soda, which got stickier and sticker as it dried and as the night wore on.  

So it was with hesitation that, after ten minutes or so of listening to my new friends at the Bridge reminisce about this or that particular wrestling match from the glory days and not wanting to offend anybody’s sensibilities, I gingerly asked them if they thought any of the drama in the ring was planned, after someone gave me the opening, “Boy, wrestling has sure changed a lot since then.”  But the question didn’t offend anyone, and they said, sure, a lot of it was rehearsed, but still unexpected things often happened.  So there you have it, folks…the truth from the source.

KS

Question May 27, 2008

 

       “Sometimes I’d like to ask God why He allows poverty, famine, and injustice in the world when He could do something about it…  but I’m afraid God might ask me the same question.”

                                                                                                                                      ~~Anonymous

[from the OrphanCare International newsletter of Dillon International, Inc. [www.dillonadopt.com]]

 

Dinner at The Bridge May 24, 2008

Saturday, 5/24/08

Last night I helped with the evening food service at the Bridge, the new homeless assistance center in downtown Dallas.  Along with Our Calling Ministries, with whom I’ve worked at the Day Resource Center for the past couple of years, and  teaming up with David Timothy, AKA SoupMan of SoupMobile Mobile Soup Kitchen, we assisted the Stewpot staff in serving dinner to several hundred homeless people.

David served as a sort of ‘maitre d’’ to the homeless guests, helping them find seating, and my job was that of ‘gatekeeper’ at the door, teamed with one of the Downtown Dallas Safety Patrol officers who serve as security at the center, letting people into the dining hall in small groups.  I liked this job, because, each time I opened the door to the long line of people in the courtyard, SoupMan and I were able greet the people coming in face to face. 

There was a steady stream of people through the door from 6 PM until about 7:15, and a trickle of people from 7:15 to 7:30, when the meal ended.  From my perspective, the meal service went like clockwork, very smooth.

I had a few random observations of the evening:

~~  The first five people in the door were in wheel chairs and were missing some part of a lower extremity.  Three more wheel-chair-bound guests came as the evening progressed.

~~  Four women who came to eat were pregnant.

~~  The Safety Patrol officer I was teamed with asked me to request extra food for the pregnant women who came through.  This kind of sensitivity will build good relationships between the keepers of the peace / guardians of the rules at the center and those they are there to protect.

~~  There were three or four women of my age (middle age) that I had not seen before who were dressed as if they were middle class.

~~  A couple of men coming through the line were carrying a portable magnetic chess game and continuing their game as they waited.  “I’ve tried to learn how to play chess,” I told them, “but I just can’t remember how all the different pieces move.”  “Repetition,” one of them told me. “That’s all it takes.”  “I’m pretty sure my brain just doesn’t work that way,” I said to him, “My five-year-old granddaughter can beat me.”  Good laugh, but sadly true.

~~  There’s a library at the Bridge.  Many people who came through the line were so involved in reading a book that they looked up only to say hello as they entered the dining hall and waited in line.

~~  One of my young friends who is pregnant — I’ll call her Deanna — has already enrolled in the job training program at the center and is very excited about learning to do housekeeping.  I have been seeing her on the street for a couple of years.

~~  My ‘street son,’ Tim, who has no family and has been on the street for ten years, has been employed for two months at a local downtown ministry near the Stewpot and is within a month of earning his way into an apartment.  Please send him your thoughts and prayers.  He’s making an heroic effort to get his life together and to help others to do the same.  In the past, he has sometimes protected Deanna when she was on her own on the street.

~~  Inside the Welcome Center, two friendly volunteers were answering questions for homeless guests and signing up volunteers.  In offices beside the lounge, workers were still conducting interviews with homeless individuals at the time I was leaving, about 8 PM.

~~  There were two medical transports from the main building during time I was there, people being taken from the Welcome Center on stretchers.

~~  The atmosphere appears to be non-threatening and welcoming throughout the campus, but the rules of civil behavior are strictly followed.  That’s exactly the balance that is needed.

~~  A comment I heard:  “It’s obvious that they care about us.  They built these buildings [The Bridge.]”

~~  Another:  “Inside these walls you can learn to solve your problems and get your life together.”

It’s a promising start, and it was a joy to see my homeless friends in a safe, clean, beautiful environment.

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

A Middle-Class Homeless Crisis in Dallas? May 21, 2008

This blog received a comment on the post entitled “Broken” from a friend in my church, Church of the Incarnation (Episcopal) that I hope you’ll go back and check out (May 15, 2008.  Click on ‘Comments’ at the bottom of the post.)  

May I just say…I love my church, not only because it is a beautiful, old building with lovely, reverential services, but because of people like English, who care enough to ask the hard questions and to show up on Christmas Eve at the Hyatt Regency Dallas for the SoupMobile’s Christmas Angel Project — and to go to Honduras to build schools, and to New Orleans to rebuild houses, and to fight poverty in Belize, and to mentor in areas of poverty around our very blessed church property, and on and on (it requires an entire book to list all of the outreach that is done out of Church of the Incarnation, thanks to Outreach Director Martha Lang and many others).  My fellow parishioners and our priests put their love on the line constantly all over the place.

Anyway, I hope you’ll read the comments of the “Broken” post where English asked an important question:

“Do we have a middle-class homeless crisis in Dallas?”

and read the response from David Timothy, AKA SoupMan, of SoupMobile Mobile Soup Kitchen.

I would love to know what readers think.  What is your experience and what are your observations?

KS

Broken May 15, 2008

Journal Archives

Thursday, 12/22/05

I was out with the mobile soup kitchen on a feeding run tonight, and unlike most nights, the vibe was strained on the truck.  For starters, I’d arisen from my sick bed to show up for the commitment I’d previously made, realizing that in the past few weeks I’ve been writing about the homeless, thinking about them, talking about them a great deal… but that I needed to see them, touch them, talk to them — that being with them is what I love, not doing politics about them.

I felt ill on the run, alternately sweating and freezing, thinking I might pass out.  There’s nowhere to sit on the truck, and the floor was slimy with spilled soup, so we volunteers slipped and slid around as it bumped along through the downtown streets.  One of the regular volunteers was tired, which made her very sharp-edged.  When she was rude to the rest of us one too many times,  I came within an ace of walking away and hitching a ride back to my car.  It was an unusually wretched start and middle to the run, and I was determined to just endure.

Then I began talking with Joe, a homeless man we picked up at the first stop to ride with us and help us feed. Wanting to get the real lowdown, I was asking him how things were out there.  It was a grim, unflattering and unsympathetic portrait of who was out on the street and what was going on.

As the van clattered and lurched along, between bouts of bending over to slop scalding soup into paper cups, as I sweated and froze and felt I’d faint, as the grouchy volunteer barked irritable orders at everyone, as an uncharacteristically-rowdy, block-long line of ragged people milled and pushed and shoved and shouted outside the truck in front of the Day Resource Center, I thought to myself, “Now, exactly why am I doing this?”

Joe offered to do the ladling, and I stepped away to rest my back.  He was so kind to notice I was tired.  Then the director asked me to come outside the truck and ‘work on the ground,’ which I love, so it was a relief to get outside and hand people food and talk to them a little.  “How are you?  How’s it going?”  “God bless you all for being out here!” they’d say, or  “I’m OK, but I could sure use some work.”  “Joseph, I’ll pray for you.”  “Oh, thank you.”  A man getting mock angry when I let a woman be served ahead of him.  The woman giving me a hug, and then another.  “Why do the women get to go first?” a man asks.  “Does it make you men feel like chopped liver?” I joke with him.  “You call them ladies, but you call us men.”  “OK, we’ll call you gentlemen from now on!”

I was starting to loosen up, to remember, to feel what this was about.

And then I began to look into their faces, one by one, as they stepped up in line to receive their soup, sandwich, cookie and banana.  A young woman with cerebral palsy, looking brave and dignified, not wanting to meet my eyes.  A man who could barely stand, trying to signal something as he swayed away, almost as if he were crossing himself.  A woman deathly pale with a yellowish pallor to her skin and a cap pulled down that barely covered the absence of hair.  People with skin leathered and hands swollen from the cold.  Someone blind.  Someone on crutches.  So many of them thanking us, blessing us, wishing us Merry Christmas.  Loving us for loving them.  Dark faces, pale faces, every kind of face in the world.

Broken faces.  Broken, as we all are.

Beauty.  Real beauty. 

We left, and as we rumbled back toward our starting point, I thought, “This is why I do it.  To be near them.”

But, still, why?  What is the Grace that’s near them, that spills over onto me, that makes me want to be out in the cold, ladling soup, giving away sandwiches?  When I try to pin down a reason, it slides away, like mine and Joe’s tennis shoes on the soupy metal floor of the catering truck.

And then, sitting here in Barnes and Noble, drinking my hot cocoa, feeling less at odds and less resentful of the middle-class Dallas culture than I did in my first entries into this journal a year ago — accepting it, even, and my place in it, and the fact that I drive a nice car while many people have no homes…  Remembering that driving here, I drove all the way down Beverly Drive looking at the stupendous displays of Christmas lights and didn’t need to turn away in frustration, accepting that that kind of wealth is part of life, too — just observing, not judging…  

Anyway, I got it, sitting here, remembering the beauty, the desperation, the softness, the fear, the humanity, the love, the blankness, the greed, the need — in those broken faces in the crush of people outside the Day Resource Center — giving to them out of my own brokenness, as they gave to me.  I got it…

The beauty, the grace is in the brokenness.

But it makes no sense!  And when I once read that Henri Nouwen said it, I thought, well, my great hero is just wrong on this one.  Beauty in healing?  in unconditional love?  in service?  Sure.  But in brokenness?  

The only connection I can make is with Christ’s broken body on the cross.  But wasn’t the beauty in the resurrection?  The brokenness of Christ’s body I find devastating!  Do we have to be broken first in order to be healed?  Is it because only through brokenness comes the possibility of Grace?

The Spirit of Love is out there on the street, for sure — in the people themselves — surrounding them, hovering near them.  I feel the intensity of Christ’s Love there, have always felt it.

It a mystery, a magnificent mystery.

And our street people show it to me.  Every time.

KS

Liturgy and Action May 12, 2008

 

       “Do you wish to honor the Body of Christ?  Then do not allow it to be scorned in its members, in the poor, who have nothing to clothe themselves with.  Do not honor him in church with silk and then neglect him outside when he is cold and naked….  

       What does Christ gain from a sacrificial table full of golden vessels when he then dies of hunger in the persons of the poor?”

                                                                                       ~~St. John Chrysostom, Fourth Century

 

Thanks for the quote to Father Bob Johnston, Church of the Incarnation (Episcopal) newsletter, The Angelus.

Wouldn’t It Be Loverly? May 6, 2008

 

Wouldn’t It Be Loverly?

 

All I want is a room somewhere, 

Far away from the cold night air.

With one enormous chair, 

Aow, wouldn’t it be loverly? 

 

Lots of choc’lates for me to eat, 

Lots of coal makin’ lots of ‘eat.

Warm face, warm ‘ands, warm feet,

Aow, wouldn’t it be loverly? 

 

Aow, so loverly sittin’ abso-bloomin’-lutely still. 

I would never budge ’till spring 

Crept over me windowsill. 

 

Someone’s ‘ead restin’ on my knee, 

Warm an’ tender as ‘e can be. ‘ho takes good care of me, 

Aow, wouldn’t it be loverly?

 

Loverly, loverly, loverly, loverly.

 

A Song From the Musical: My Fair Lady                                                                                                        Lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner.  Music by Frederick Loewe.                                                                              

Based on Pygmalian by George Bernard Shaw.                                                                                                     Musical in 2 Acts by Alan Jay Lerner.                                                                                                

Original Broadway production opened in 1956, running for 2,717 performances.                                          Original West End production opened in 1958, running for 2,281 performances.

Special thanks to my daughter, Rose, for singing this recently and reminding me how much I love it.  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

 

Suffering and Compassion May 1, 2008

Suffering and Compassion

       “Compassion is a mind that removes the suffering that is present in the other…We can nurture the unconditional love that does not expect anything in return and therefore does not lead to anxiety and sorrow…. The essence of love and compassion is understanding, the ability to recognize the…suffering of others, to put ourselves ‘inside the skin’ of the other.  We ‘go inside’… and witness for ourselves their suffering….  Shallow observation as an outsider is not enough to see their suffering.  We must become one with the object of our observation.  When we are in contact with another’s suffering, a feeling of compassion is born in us.  Compassion means, literally, ‘to suffer with.’”

       “We have to find ways to nourish and express our compassion.  When we come into contact with the other person, our thoughts and actions should express our mind of compassion, even if that person says and does things that are not easy to accept.  We practice in this way until we see clearly that our love is not contingent upon the other person being lovable.”

                                                                                          ~~Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace Is Every Step  (81-83)

Worthy or Unworthy…Is That the Question? April 28, 2008

Giving Freely

“…a nun once said to me, ‘Mother Teresa, you are spoiling the poor people by giving them things free.  They are losing their human dignity.’

When everyone was quiet, I said calmly, ‘No one spoils as much as God himself.  See the wonderful gifts he has given us freely.  All of you here have no glasses, yet you all can see.  If God were to take money for your sight, what would happen?  Continually we are breathing and living on oxygen that we do not pay for.  What would happen if God were to say, ‘If you work four hours, you will get sunshine for two hours?’  How many of us would survive then?’

Then I also told them, ‘There are many congregations that spoil the rich;  it is good to have one congregation in the name of the poor, to spoil the poor.’

There was profound silence;  nobody said a word after that.”

                                                                                ~~Mother Teresa, In the Heart of the World

Journal Archives

Monday, 5/9/05

When the subject of  the homeless comes up in general conversation, people frequently want to discuss ‘Unworthy Homeless Persons I Have Encountered.’  Often that single, and sometimes unpleasant, experience with a street person becomes a certain knowledge of the ‘ubiquitous homeless.’  The shiftless mother who, babe in arms, asks for money for formula and takes it straight into a liquor store somehow becomes every woman out on the street who has a child and asks for help.  The stories may well be true, but they miss a couple of points.

Helping the homeless is not about their worthiness.  It is about our giving.  If receiving blessings were dependent upon worthiness, would you and I have all that we have?

If you see someone misusing a resource they’ve been given, that’s not a reason to refrain from helping the person in need that comes along.  What if she’s in earnest?  If you give aid to five women in a row who buy liquor with the money and meet a sixth who’s on the level, would you deprive that sixth hungry child of the help she’d receive from you?  Or, if you want to be sure of how what you give is used, you could go and buy formula for the child yourself.

This is one of the reasons I have liked working with mobile soup kitchens, who go to feed the homeless where they live.  There are no questions asked, as Jesus asked no questions when he helped the poor and the sick.  The worthiness of the recipients is not at stake.  The work is about compassion.  There are no qualifications required except that a person be hungry, thirsty, cold, in need of solace.  “Ask, and ye shall receive.”

There is no single profile for a homeless person.  There are hustlers, manipulators and thieves on the street, yes.  Ditto drug addicts and alcoholics.  There are also veterans:  about 40% — people broken by war in body, mind and spirit, the same people who were heroes when they went off to war.  There are families who lost their jobs and missed a few house payments, finding themselves on the street.  There are mothers with children who ran from an abusive husband in the middle of the night and didn’t know how to seek out a shelter or couldn’t get in.  Do I want to feed and clothe these people if I have the opportunity?  Yes.  Do I want the woman who lives under a bridge because her ex-husband tied her up in their basement for a long period of time and she can’t bear confinement to get treatment for her trauma?  Yes.  If she doesn’t or is unable get it, do I want to offer her a sandwich?  Yes again.

Do I want to interview each of these people when I encounter them to determine whether they fit someone’s profile of worthiness?  Definitely, no.

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.

Going Political for a Moment April 18, 2008

Because much of what I’ve previously written elsewhere regarding homeless people in Dallas has been political, I generally prefer to stay away from politics on this blog. However, we are at a critical moment in our history as a city regarding our homeless friends: the moment is full of hope and also contains some potential pitfalls, so I’d like to address a few issues here that I think are important.

THE UP SIDE:
New Homeless Assistance Center, The Bridge

Something fantastic happened a couple of years ago in Dallas: voters put hearts, minds and hands together and approved a $23 million bond package to fund the creation of a Homeless Assistance Center, The Bridge, currently being built and set to open in early May, 2008 in downtown. This is a massive step forward in ‘catching up’ with cities like Miami and Philadelphia in developing a comprehensive plan to help our large homeless population (around 6000 by census, but some say closer to 10,000) into creating safer, more productive lives for themselves and into employment, mental health services and housing.

However, there are no perfect solutions to complex human problems. Like any step forward dealing with a problem as bewildering as homelessness, there are an unfathomable number of moving parts in this one.

Add to that the complexity of pleasing many disparate groups — the homeless themselves, homeless advocates, church groups who have fed and ministered to the homeless for decades, businesses trying to thrive in the area of downtown where homeless people stay, developers in a resurgent downtown, new urban dwellers, the police, politicians — and you have yourself a very complicated formula.

Taking into account the needs and desires of these groups surrounding the homeless is a daunting task, but a necessary one. And, for the first time, I believe that the city is attempting to do a comprehensive job in this regard. We have a mayor, Tom Leppert, who truly seems to care about people in each segment of our city and to make himself accessible to them, and we have a responsive City Council.

The more I learn more about every ’side’ in this situation, the less I’m able to take sides, with one exception. I love my homeless friends downtown. They comprise an extremely vulnerable population. While often unable to exercise the responsibilities of citizenship fully and successfully, still, as members of a democratic society, they must be granted the rights thereof. How to balance their rights with the other groups listed above? Very, very difficult.

Here are some thoughts on a few of these groups and issues.

The Stewpot

The Stewpot, a 30-year homeless ministry of First Presbyterian Church in downtown Dallas, has been given the contract to provide meals at The Bridge. Since 1975, the Stewpot has served over 2,500,000 meals to the homeless downtown, and is also the primary provider of numerous other services as well.

In my opinion, awarding the feeding contract to the Stewpot is the most hopeful sign regarding how The Bridge is to be managed, because the Stewpot and First Presbyterian Church have by far the most proven track-record in homeless services for decades, and their integrity is beyond question.

For groups around the homeless to question the budget and intentions of the Stewpot at this point seems counterproductive for two reasons:
~~The contract has been a done deal since February. The time for other groups to question or apply for the contract would have been prior to that.
~~Implications that the Stewpot is making money on the contract is ludicrous. The contract with The Bridge is providing only 80% of the costs of feeding around 2100 meals a day, seven days a week (up from their current 600 lunches on weekdays), and the Stewpot is working hard at raising funds for the balance.

Dallas Police

In a recent meeting with some of their number in Central Operations Division downtown, I was struck by the compassion of the individuals involved and their sophisticated understanding of the issues on all sides. This was valuable information for me, because, as friends of the homeless, we hear more often of police abuses, which do occur. But I believe that a majority of Dallas Police do not wish to victimize the homeless, and are caught in the middle of the complex web which surrounds our most vulnerable citizens.

THE MIDDLE:
The Changing Role of Mobile and Volunteer Feeders

Those of us who have been able to meet with and feed our homeless friends at the Day Resource Center in the past few years are going through a time of transition and, at times, of fear. When The Bridge opens, the DRC will close, and so, temporarily, will volunteer and mobile feeding.

But the Stewpot has made it clear it not only welcomes but most definitely needs, in its feeding program at The Bridge, the hundreds to thousands of volunteers who have been feeding the homeless on the streets and in the DRC parking lot downtown. However, it requires about three months before it will know the level of the that need. So, for those to whom being with the homeless is a ministry, the shape of that ministry will change, but the ministry itself does not have to go away. That is not to say, though, that such a transition will be easy for anyone.

Again, there are no perfect solutions to complex human problems. But we are all on the same team, hard as that may be to remember in times of such enormous transition.

THE DOWN SIDE:
Ordinances Targeting the Homeless

Here are some concerns I do have in our dealings with our homeless citizens from here forward, expressed in a letter in the Dallas Morning News on 3/13/08:

“Letters for Thursday, March 13, 2008
[http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/letters/stories/DN-thurs_letters_0313edi.ART.State.Edition1.46c6310.html]

Thankful for Stewpot

The new Homeless Assistance Center, The Bridge, is indeed an essential step in Dallas’ plan to end chronic homelessness. However, what will happen to those homeless individuals who refuse to be welcomed into The Bridge?

Those who know the homeless at the street rather than the organizational level know that some will probably not go in. Will the city revert to the disastrous if well-intentioned practices of Operation Rescue, arresting and criminalizing those who do not choose to be welcomed into The Bridge? Or will a more creative and tolerant solution be sought?

The staff at the Stewpot knows homeless people better than anyone, having been on the front line for this population for two decades. I am glad that they are providing the meals and as much expertise and wisdom as they are willing to give.

Karen Shafer, Dallas”

Besides humanitarian concerns, there are enormous problems with laws targeting certain populations, such as the homeless — populations that are ‘inconvenient’ but not a threat to public safety. Such laws carry an ominous and particularly insidious threat to democracy. These laws may be highly controversial, like our anti-panhandling ordinance. Or they may be sleeping in public, obstructing the sidewalk, etc.

Consider this: Think of how hard it is to get stalkers arrested, even with repeated threats to their victims. And think of how difficult it is to bring to justice perpetrators of domestic violence, even after they’ve committed proven mischief and while they’re still threatening bodily harm to their victims. In both cases, the perpetrators are, in fact, actual threats to those being pursued.

Now consider a group of people who are NOT a threat to public safety, the homeless (this was proven recently in a study commissioned by the Dallas County Commissioners’ Court which was published in the Dallas Morning News). However, this group is considered by many to be a nuisance, their actions and presence generally undesirable (and there are sometimes valid reasons for these objections.)

Consider that a group of laws has been CREATED SPECIFICALLY to target this group, to control their movements, to get them out of the way, to control even their speech. Here you have panhandling ordinances, obstructing the sidewalk ordinances, sleeping in public ordinances. Think of the legality and morality of a law which prohibits one such person speaking to another citizen on a public street, even if that speech is made in an unpleasant or even aggressive manner.

Next, you have people being ticketed who cannot pay the fines. Eventually you have warrants issued for their arrest. This wastes police time and takes up space in seriously-overcrowded jails. And, one should note, these are laws which would typically not be enforced if a person involved in the same behaviors looked and dressed ‘middle class.’

Such laws are not only immoral because they target a group of people who are a public-relations problem but not a public threat. Legal scholars (which I clearly am not) have said they also represent constitutional challenges to free speech and freedom of movement.

I abhor the social conditions which lead to begging; although it does not offend me personally, I realize it can be an offensive practice to some; and I have high praise for those people who are helping to obviate the needs that drive it.

Yes, the new homeless assistance center, The Bridge, along with adequate transitional and permanent supportive housing, will drastically impact this problem in a positive way. But these solutions will take between months and many years. In the meantime, we are going to have beggars. How are we going to treat them?

Some have said it is no longer the time to debate these issues, since we are taking such positive steps in city government towards solutions for the homeless. I would argue that there is never a time when these ideas shouldn’t be debated, because SUCH LAWS CARRY WITH THEM A HEAVY MORAL AND CONSTITUTIONAL CHALLENGE. When a city ceases to argue about laws which target a particular group, it is in danger of losing its moral compass, no matter how much it solves its problems at the practical level.

Such ongoing debate goes to the heart of democracy. When we set it aside because we are fixing things at a practical level, we are in danger of returning to unethical practices when practical plans run into the inevitable snags to which even brilliant solutions are prey.

KS

Christmas Angel April 12, 2008

       “Compassion is something other than pity. Pity suggests distance, even a certain condescendence… Compassion means to become close to one who suffers. But we can come close to another person only when we are willing to become vulnerable ourselves.”
                                                                                                            ~~Henri Nouwen, Here and Now

Journal Archives
Christmas Day, 2004

Christmas Angel

I went to noon Christmas Mass by myself today, the first time in years we haven’t gone to Christmas Eve Midnight Mass as a family, as my grandchildren, at age two, are too young to be out that late. Church was lovely, and, as I drove away, I took with me the special joy of receiving the Christmas Eucharist amidst the radiance of the beautiful sanctuary, awash with green pine garlands and banked with red poinsettias and white candles.

At the intersection of I-75 and Mockingbird Lane, I pulled up near a stop light beside a woman who was begging. I happened to have some extra blankets and sweatshirts in the car, so I rolled down the window as I approached the light and offered her a stack of these things.

The most beatific smile crossed her face as she took them, and, as she tried to thank me, I realized she could make sounds but was unable to speak. It seemed as if perhaps she was missing part or all of her tongue, I couldn’t be sure. But she opened her mouth and attempted to thank me, taking my hand warmly in her weathered palms. I was able to understand, “God bless you! God bless you!”

I pulled forward to the red light and turned to watch her as she walked away. She went over to a low concrete wall and laid the stack of clothes and blankets on it. Bending over the pile and beginning to sort through it, and evidently pleased with what she found there, she suddenly raised her arms and face toward the sky and began a joyous, wordless dance! I will never forget the look of bliss on her face, the brilliance of her smile, the ecstacy in her body over the stack of clothing.

I began to cry as I headed to meet my daughters and their families for Christmas lunch, and I couldn’t stop. There was something about this woman that stuck with me, the image of her wordless praise, her arms reaching toward heaven. She broke my heart and touched me so deeply that, opened by church and the Eucharist, I was suddenly emptied of whatever concerns I’d had before I’d met her, to be refilled with a scalding mixture of pain and joy that would sting me for weeks whenever I thought of her, which I often did — this miraculous Christmas angel.

KS

Street Voices: Sherry Parker, Poet April 4, 2008

Tonight, I sat on the parking lot of the Day Resource Center and took dictation of this poem from gifted poet, Sherry Parker. Sherry, much like myself, doesn’t really ‘do’ technology. With her permission, I publish it here. Many thanks to our friend, Reagan, for arranging my meeting with Sherry tonight and for recognizing her talent.

Sherry has lived on the street for twenty years. What she wishes me to say about her is that she’s “not running on empty.”

KS

Always and Forever
by Sherry Parker
April 13, 1981

I.
Expecting to arrive,
I got there — never,
Not remembering back
Or looking forward either.
And now that I’m here,
I wonder whether
I expect to be here forever.

II.
I had a good time,
Waiting to turn twenty.
Having passed my purity,
Still, I learned plenty.
Passing by my hopes and dreams,
Somehow left me empty,
Searching for security.

Expecting forevers,
I’m enjoying the ride,
Biding my time,
Expecting to hide.
Walking thin lines
And laughing inside.
To live and accept
Is so much better.

Expecting forevers,
I’ll get there somehow.
I don’t know where or when,
But I surely do know how.
I’m biding my time
And laughing inside.
To live and accept
Is always better.

[copyright Sherry Parker]

Little Ones April 2, 2008

BLOGGER’S NOTE: Regarding the children in this story, I am glad to report that I have rarely seen children on the street in about the last three years. This is purely subjective, but our city seems to be doing a better job of getting them into shelters. I am printing this story to show what children sometimes go through.  KS

Journal Archives
Thursday, 2/19/04

Employed!

I went to help crew the mobile soup kitchen truck at the last minute today, as some volunteers had cancelled. I didn’t need to buy the prenatal vitamins for Robin after all, as she and her husband, Sean, had left for the Gulf Coast last night. I didn’t meet Sean last week, but the director told me he is movie-star handsome and is in fact an actor. He was in a soap opera in Los Angeles, then came out to Dallas for an acting job that fell through, which is how he and Robin ended up on the street. He just procured a job on an oil rig at the coast, so they’re headed south.

I worked ‘on the ground’ for the first time tonight, which means standing outside the truck receiving the food from the passthrough at the rear of the truck and handing it to people — sort of crowd control, although there’s nothing to control — our customers are usually very polite. There are most often male volunteers out front, but it was a ‘girl group’ of workers this time. I like the closer contact with people that being on the ground provides, getting to reach out and touch them and talk to them for a minute.

We gave away all the socks I’d bought at the dollar store at the first stop. There was one young man at the City Hall Plaza, dressed in a single light shirt, who asked for a blanket, but we didn’t have any. Blankets will be my focus this week at thrift stores.

One of the people that touched my heart especially tonight was a young man who couldn’t speak — though he could make sounds, I couldn’t understand him, and I hated that I couldn’t. He was asking for something and pointing, perhaps another sandwich, but we had run out.

Little Ones

It was a pretty upbeat run because it wasn’t too cold, and at most stops we had enough food for people to go through the line several times. Then at the third stop came a stomach punch. A mother and two daughters, ages about eight and ten, came through the line and got their food. The director made a special effort to get off the truck and visit with the little girls, giving them some extra cookies.

When we’d finished handing out food, I noticed the family of three sitting together under a tree across the park. I walked over to talk to them and saw that they’d made a bed on the ground out of one thin sleeping bag, so I asked if they had a place to stay for the night. The mother said they’d been kicked out of two shelters. I asked her why, but couldn’t understand her answer; then she told me the shelter said she didn’t do her chores. Privately, I questioned her story, but didn’t confront her about it. I have not known the shelters to kick out children.

For the first time since I’ve been doing this, I thought I was going to start sobbing: those beautiful, trusting little girls with their brilliant smiles were looking up at me from the ground. I asked the mother what she needed. ‘Blankets,’ she said, but we didn’t have any, so I went back to the truck and got a heavy plastic bag for them to put under their sleeping bag and also gave them two thick sweaters I had brought along. ‘Will you be safe here?’ I asked her. She said she hoped so.

The director and I wondered aloud if in fact the shelter did kick out this mother with kids, but just before we left the stop, the mother told me she might be able to get into Austin Street Centre tonight after all.

I continue to be really shaken up by this experience, finding it devastating, and I’m haunted by the thought that I should have done something more to help them. But what? Call 911? Would that have made their situation better or worse? Bring them home to stay at my house? Although the latter may be the answer in my heart, it’s almost certainly not realistic and brings up all sorts of questions. But don’t radical problems require radical solutions?

In retrospect, I believe I made a mistake in not calling 911. I had never encountered such a situation before, and we left the scene before I could think it through. One thing I know: little girls sleeping under a tree in the cold in a park in downtown Dallas is not acceptable.

KS

Guest Writers From the Street? March 29, 2008

I have long wanted to have guest writers on this blog — especially people who live on the street — but never got down to figuring out how to implement it. Perhaps this will be the way!

Today I received this comment on ‘Blogger Profile’ from my friend, Reagan, with whom I work on Friday nights at the Day Resource Center. She is one of a very dedicated group of people from Northwest Bible Church, who bring dinner to over 200 homeless individuals every Friday and have done so for many years.

These people do much more than serve dinner, however. They befriend street people in a very personal way, pray with and for them, and many of their number support homeless individuals quietly and without fanfare, helping them in countless ways with transportation, doctor visits, clothing needs, paperwork issues, and, above all, love, support and genuine friendship. The word ‘volunteer’ doesn’t even begin to cover it. They enter into real relationship and commitment with people from the street. [Website: www.ourcalling.org]

“Hi, Karen-

I’ve been thinking about you lately and have missed you the last couple of weeks at the DRC Friday nights! 

I met a woman tonight, Sherry, who lives on the street and writes about her experiences. Prose and poetry, and I really enjoyed hearing some excerpts. Do you know a way or a connection so that her stuff might be read? either on a blog or in a publication? Just a thought.

Reagan”

“Hi, Reagan,

It’s great to hear from you. I’ve missed being there on Friday nights the past few weeks, but will be coming next week.

I would love to invite Sherry and other people who live on the street to write guest posts on this blog! What do you think?  Leave it to wonderful you to help create another level to this blog which I had in the back of my mind when I began it but hadn’t thought how to implement! Synergy and Spirit, eh?

Blessings! — which you and the amazing Friday night crew from Northwest Bible Church bring in spades to our friends at the Day Resource Center!

Karen

Ups, Downs, and Blessings March 28, 2008

       “Joy is the secret gift of compassion. We keep forgetting it and thoughtlessly look elsewhere. But each time we return to where there is pain, we get a new glimpse of the joy that is not of this world.”
                                                                                                            ~~Henri Nouwen, Here and Now

Journal Archives
Saturday, 2/14/04

Ups and Downs

The mobile soup kitchen feeding run last Thursday night was exhilarating and depressing, both in the extreme. It was very cold, and several people at the first and second stops (beside bridges on Industrial Boulevard) lacked even the basics for staying warm.

We had two new volunteers from Centex Corporation; they were wonderful and seemed