Overwhelming Need November 14, 2009

 

Saturday, November 14, 2009

With winter upon us, it’s a good time to reflect upon the extremes of need that will exist this year for those who are not yet housed and are living on the street.  I found this entry in my journal from the end of last summer, when I still volunteered at the Second Chance Cafe, run by The Stewpot at the Bridge, and thought I would share it.  KS

Journal Archives, Friday, August 16, 2008

Overwhelming Need

Sometimes the amount of need among people who are experiencing homeless in Dallas — even with the welcome advent of the Bridge, our new homeless assistance center — seems overwhelming.  This was one of those nights.  The enormity of the problems of the people involved, the monumental scope of the pain in their lives, the scarcity of readily available solutions, such as adequate housing:  these things were at the forefront of my mind tonight as I left the Second Chance Cafe at the Bridge after helping to serve dinner to somewhere between seven hundred and eight hundred people.

 

Of course, this evening’s bright spot was, as it always is, looking into the eyes of people as they came through the food line.  Always, but even more so tonight, the eyes of the guests meeting mine as they came through the line — almost without exception — were full of light, respect and dignity, longing for acceptance,  willingness to respond with love to the smallest kindness — so much more so than I would ever be able to be in their circumstances.  They almost always say ‘Very Blessed,’ or at the least ‘Can’t complain,’ when asked how they are doing.  The other great blessings are the other volunteers, who show up every week, and the Stewpot staff, which shows up every day.

 

I find that if I just hand somebody a plate in the food line at the Bridge, they may be looking down, preoccupied or frowning, and go on their way with a ‘thank you,’ but without ever looking up.  If I greet them or ask how they are doing, their whole face, their whole being changes — they become radiant.  If I say their name, they become a friend.  And that is no different than you or me.  It’s just that the desperate nature of their circumstances keeps it real:  they know how much it means to have a friend, and what it means not to have any.

 

Why is it that sometimes, like tonight, I look at homeless individuals and the scope of homelessness in Dallas and feel weighed down by the challenges?  Is it seeing people as their ‘diagnosis’ or label rather than seeing them just as the people they are, in the here and now?  Maybe. 

 

I usually see the beauty when I go to the Bridge.  Tonight I could only see how far there is to go.  It was one of those rare times when I say to myself, “How do those who deal with this face to face every single day — for example, the Stewpot staff or the caseworkers and management at the Bridge — how do they do it all the time without losing hope or becoming jaded?”  Granted, I think, write or talk about homelessness in Dallas every day, but I go to the Bridge only a couple of times a month.

 

Perhaps it’s a ‘fix-it’ mentality that one can get into, although trying to ‘fix it’ is a necessary component of approaching the problem as a whole.  Sometimes, though, until we can figure out what we need to ‘do,’ maybe it has to be enough just to go to where the pain is and ‘be with’ it.  It seems that there is tremendous grace in that.  In face, maybe, while action is necessary, being present for someone is the most important part of taking action anyway.

 

Granted, it may not be enough to ‘hang out’ with people who are experiencing homelessness.  But being with them, talking with them, sharing their concerns — one human to another — is one of the most essential parts of what we do, just as it is with our families.

 

KS

A Night To Remember: Steve Martin and CDM October 28, 2009

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

A Night to Remember:  Steve Martin and the Steep Canyon Rangers

An Evening of Bluegrass and Banjo Benefitting Central Dallas Ministries

One of my daughters and I attended the above concert at the Meyerson Symphony Center last evening, and we had a great time.  The hall was sold out, and the concert was not only fun, the music was terrific.  Of course, Steve Martin told his share of funny jokes and played a masterful banjo, and the Steep Canyon Rangers are excellent musicians and vocalists.  A fine concert supporting an extremely worthy organization.

 

After the concert, my daughter and I were talking to the fiddle player, and I was telling him that Bluegrass music is close to my heart, since I’m from Tennessee.  ”Eastern Tennessee?” he asked.  ”Oh, yeh!” I said.  ”Our band lives in Asheville,” he told us.  We high-fived.  ”You know,” he said, “East Tennessee and Western North Carolina are a separate state unto themselves.”  ”Yes,” I said, “no more beautiful place on earth.”  ”Absolutely,” he replied, “a well-kept secret.”  A band after my own heart.

KS

Standing in a Circle August 28, 2009

 

Friday, August 28, 2009

 

Standing in a Circle

 

Imagine that each of us who cares about and works to solve the problem of long-term, street-dwelling homelessness in Dallas is standing in a circle.  In the center of the circle is the problem — one that is enormous and complex:  it is a given that each of us sees it and its solutions from a different perspective because of the position in the circle which we stand.

 

Some of us sit at desks inside nonprofits and make policy.  Maybe we ‘make the rounds’ to see how things are ‘on the ground’ within our organization, or maybe we don’t.  This alone will help determine our perspective. Those who do make the rounds and who attempt to be the link between the employees on the ground, the homeless guests, those who sit upstairs making policy, and the public have a particularly hard job.

 

Others inside nonprofits work closely with the homeless population in a direct way, talking to them, touching them.  Some of us befriend them; others think we should keep our distance.  Friendship is vital to those on the street who have nothing: so are boundaries.  Which looks more vital depends on where we stand.

 

Some of us take our homeless friends into our churches and homes for meals and prayers when no one else wants them.  Others of us go out on the street and offer hungry people food and drink people.  All of it matters.

 

Some of us go out, from time to time, and talk to people where they live in cardboard boxes under freeway overpasses, or where they sleep, as best they can, out of sight in the city.  This is one of the things I occasionally do (there are others who do much, much more.)  I listen to and try to understand their problems and struggles; I bring them clean, dry clothing;  I drive them to the doctor.  I go home and research what services are available to help them, and I share the possible solutions with my friends under the bridge, offering to aid them in getting through the system. Sometimes I plead with them to get help a particular kind help if I think it’s vital.  But they are human beings and are free to choose what is best for them.

 

For one of my friends, her place ‘in the circle’ this week was at the gates of a highly visible and well-funded nonprofit serving the homeless population in Dallas.  There, she observed and documented abusive language by guards directed towards homeless people trying to gain admittance to the property.  Not every guard.  Not every homeless person.  But any is too many.  This verbal abuse by some employees has been a common and persistant practice since this facility opened.  Why is it still happening, my friend wants to know?  She shared this information with the staff of the nonprofit itself and with others in the service community.

 

Others ‘in the circle’ criticized how and why she did what she did.  Why didn’t she do it differently?  Better still, why didn’t she ask them how they wanted her to do it?  The answer is that she stands at her own place in the circle, and it’s a place very few have the ability or fortitude to stand.  She is one of the very few people who successfully brave the often thankless role of ‘linking person’ between the ‘powers that be’ regarding homelessness in Dallas and the extremely vulnerable people on the street.  I don’t know anyone who could do what she does.  I most certainly could not.

 

How things look when I stand with my friends who are living under the freeway overpass is quite different from how things look sitting in an office making policy that determines much of how they live, but that does not mean my view is more right or that it’s better.  It simply means that I have information — in my mind, in my heart, in my soul, in my experience — that someone who has not been there doesn’t have.  

 

It is equally true that someone sitting in an office in a nonprofit agency or at City Hall may have a great deal of information that I don’t have — an overview, or an awareness of the scope of certain problems.  From this, perhaps they design a policy that seems good and even vital, but that policy may look untenable from where I stand.

 

I try to carry forward with me as I go along my path the assumption of good will from everyone in the circle toward our friends on the street.  It is easy to become cynical as I listen to expert public relations and know full well that what happens in practice is quite different from how it seems in a sound byte, and that how it sounds is going to have a great deal more impact on public policy and opinion than how it is — because the people experiencing the results of policy generally don’t have a voice.

 

KS

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]

The Magic of Gardens April 2, 2009

 

Thursday, April 2, 2009

 

The Magic of Gardens

(Someone, Please Steal This Idea!)

 

I love to garden in the winter, and in our North Texas climate, that is probably a good thing.  One has to get an early start on the Texas heat, and it’s always tricky striking a balance between getting a jump on the drought and blistering sun with plants that are liable to bolt, and trying to ‘cheat’ our freeze date of March 17 by planting tender things like potatoes early — then remembering to cover them if we get a late freeze.  There was one year when my kids were little — by the first of April, I had a burgeoning garden over which I was blissfully prideful, only to watch a late freeze take it down in mid-April!

 

This year, my son-law-law and grandson beat me to the punch.  They had their onions in by mid-February, and now theirs are way ahead of mine.  Still, by the second week in March, I could see the beginnings in my small vegetable patch of sugar-pod peas, carrots, Swiss chard, onions, tomatoes inter planted with nasturtiums, Italian parsley, radishes and bibb lettuce — all planted with the help of my three grandchildren.  And in the perennial bed, lavender, rosemary, lamb’s ear, echinacea, artemisia and perennial marigold had over-wintered successfully and were leafing out.

 

Then my granddaughter found some potato plants growing out of small pieces of potato skin in the compost pile, and she pulled them out.  One already had teensy baby potatoes growing on the roots, not an eighth of an inch long.  She and I were pretty thrilled with this discovery and stuck the plants into the dirt at the end of the veggie patch.  Four out of five are still going strong!  

 

Today, she and I found a cloves of garlic sprouting in a basket in the kitchen, took them outside and stuck them in the ground.  Later, we were thinning the lettuce plants, and she asked, “Do we take these and put them somewhere else?”  “We can eat them if we want to, since we didn’t have salad for dinner.”  Her eyes widened with tremendous excitement after a lifetime of being told she absolutely could not eat plants she picked up in her nature studies!  We were washing dirt off lettuce sprouts and popping them in our mouths for the next half hour.

 

And what of my rather fatal tendency to research seed catalogs in the dead of winter, make detailed lists, shop for seeds, plan, diagram, plant, and chart a garden fervently in late winter / early spring, set up elaborate systems of hose hookups for watering…  then get busy with other things and skip the rather vital part of actually doing the watering for several days at a time in a climate where three days without water is a death knell to many plants?  Hallelujah!  My grand kids as almost-first-graders are responsible enough now to head straight out to the garden, grab the hose, and give things a good soaking themselves.

 

When my girls were small, Steve, their dad (an expert gardener who puts me in the shade) kept a really marvelous and large organic garden.  We literally had three or four varieties of fresh vegetables for dinner most nights during peak season.  One mild winter day, my daughters and I went out to sit in the garden plot and ‘watch nature.’  All the vegetables from the previous fall had long been harvested and consumed.  Then one of us noticed some carroty-looking sprouts coming out of the ground and pulled them up.  There were several sweet, cold carrots that had managed to winter over!  We wiped the dirt off and ate them on the spot.  My girls are twenty-eight and thirty-one now, and we still talk about that day and how good those carrots tasted.

 

These days, as soon in the afternoon as I get a chance, I head out to the garden.  It is such a tonic.  There is something healing about being there that helps me leave everything behind — something that goes beyond words.  

 

Recently, while I was out there deadheading winter growth off of some perennials, I began to think of the healing effects of being in the garden, ‘watching the lettuce grow,’ and I thought how great it would be for people in homeless shelters to be able to plant and manage a community garden, while they are in the process of transitioning from the street into housing.  My fantasy spun off into all the elements required to grow strong plants:  getting the proper soil balance and consistency, providing the right combination of water and sun to help a particular plant thrive, finding a healthy harmony between management and ‘letting things be’ — just like the right balance of elements for a happy and successful human life.  Gardening seems to be art as well as science.

 

I thought of the sheer magic of sticking a seed into the ground and seeing it transform itself into a flower, herb or vegetable that can be enjoyed for its beauty or brought to the dinner table (or eaten on the spot, like my girls and their carrots, and mine and my granddaughter’s lettuce sprouts!)  I thought of how people in shelter settings could learn to work together — and of how the healing power of being in a garden would facilitate that. 

 

Then I pictured a stall at the Farmer’s Market in downtown, where the good people of Dallas were lined up to support formerly homeless individuals who had grown prize-winning organic produce and were offering it for sale.  All of the things that had gotten them to that point with a garden would be part and parcel of a skill set that could help them toward self-sufficiency in their lives:  cooperation, organization, planning and executing a project, seeing it through to completion, a bit of ‘prayer and magic’ for an auspicious result, and earning some cash off it all to boot.

 

The idea is something that’s beyond my purview to organize and pull off right now.  But I wish someone would steal it and run with it — maybe someone at the Bridge or other shelter facility or non-profit agency downtown.  If it happens, I’ll come and help with the weeding, and I’ll be the first in line at the Farmer’s Market stall, cash in hand!

 

KS

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

 

The Bible and the Birth Certificate March 13, 2009

 

Friday, March 13, 2009

 

The Bible and the Birth Certificate

a night this week,

rain pours down from the freeway overpass above,

onto cardboard-box houses that are almost empty.

as the water splashes onto my head, 

i think vaguely that it has been under car tires

and must be very dirty.

 

a man from India,

whose face shines near me in the dark 

as he stands inside his empty box-house, says to me,

“what you all are doing makes all the difference.”

 

i battle back the tears 

so as not to embarrass him

or myself.

i will choke on those tears for days,

as the sorrow i see and feel this night makes me ill,

sending me to bed with bronchitis.

 

it is the sorrow that does it,

not the cold.

 

i’ve seen this place for years, 

this camp outside of dallas 

erected in desperation by people who have no place else to go – 

seen it in various states and stages – 

with occupants numbering a hundred, 

and with a population of five.

maybe this time is harder

because it is so tragically 

just exactly the same.

 

somewhere downtown in a brightly-lit building, 

someone pulls a lever, 

and the gears begin to turn.  

wheels roll through the streets of dallas, 

devouring all in their wake, 

and move on down into the trenches, 

where people wait, huddled under cardboard.

 

how many times have the dozers and dump trucks

come to this little town?

almost six years i’ve been seeing the aftermath,

yet i’m just a newcomer.

 

is this truly the best we can do?

 

this week, this night,

four friends of the camp’s people

stand helplessly on the sidewalk, 

trying to know how to tell the story, 

and trying to keep the people alive –

in body and in spirit –

in bitter rain,

and wind which cuts with a vicious bite

through the space 

under the freeway overpass.

 

i walk back and forth

in front of the few cardboard houses,

up and down the sidewalk in the blackness, 

one new pair of socks left in my pocket.

 

these few box-houses, 

back from the dead of last friday’s raid,

won’t last long

against the dump trucks and dozers

which are sure to come again soon.

 

a woman comes towards me in the dark, face hidden in a hood.  “he’d just gotten a copy of his birth certificate,” she tells me of her husband.  “it was in his Bible.  last friday, he was downtown, clearing out his warrants.  i tried to get them to let me back into our house to get his papers before they tore it down and took it away, but they said no.”  

 

her husband was taking the steps he had to take to get off the street.  back to zero.

 

“wait, wait,” i tell her, and i put my arm around her and walk her back down the sidewalk toward the friends who’ve come with me, wanting her to tell another witness, wanting the words to be hers, not mine.  words coming out of a sad face, a cold face, a numb face — a face that can barely hold any more sorrow, but that endures, and one that seems to be past anger, because it has no recourse.  as we walk, she asks me, ‘do you have any clothes?  they took everything.’  ‘i’ll bring you some,’ i promise.

 

a bureaucrat gives an order, 

and the trucks roar to life.  

workers wield their rakes, 

clearing the residue of human lives.  

‘you can take your id’s.  nothing else,’

they tell these people regarding their own possessions – 

clothing, bedding, everything is gone.

 

so the man from India 

stands in his empty cardboard house

on this near-freezing night 

with two thin blankets

and says to me, without anger or self-pity, 

‘feel these blankets.  they are wet.’ 

he is well-spoken, clearly educated.

i touch the blankets.  

 

‘they are wet,’ i agree. ‘i’m so sorry.’  

we have no blankets with us to give him, 

but what matters to him is that someone sees, 

that someone cares.  

 

if there is love and caring,

the wet and cold can be more easily endured.

it feels so bitterly cold under that bridge,

though, near the people, it is warm.

 

trying to rise from the muck, 

the woman frantically grasps at the costly sheet of paper,

tucked there within the Good Book, 

but both are sucked up into Heaven, 

just out of reach of her hands.

the machine of bureaucracy

is grinding up and spitting out human beings, 

along with their hopes, dreams and belongings.

 

no recourse

 

a group of theorists finds the people, counts them, takes in money on their behalf, and spends it as they see fit.  a group of bureaucrats collects sizable pay checks in the name of aiding the people, returning to fine houses at day’s end, yet the people themselves are forbidden their cardboard-box homes, even though they have nowhere else to go.

 

then, somewhere in the past, present and future, a tall, robust man stands at a podium looking radiant and nods graciously to thunderous applause from like-minded supporters.  crystal sparkles.  luscious food has been presented, nibbled at, pushed away, and removed.  by candlelight, wine is sniffed, sipped, and perhaps sloshed onto starched white linen tablecloths.

 

the remnants of the food end up in the landfill, 

and mingle there with a Bible and a birth certificate.

 

“i’m happy to report that we’ve solved the problem of homelessness in dallas,” the man says, smiling an appealing and congenial smile.  and, once again, the audience roars to life.

 

as if the magic of machinery can make people disappear.

 

KS

 

 

Links:  

Larry James Urban Daily Blog:

http://larryjamesurbandaily.blogspot.com/2009/03/bible-and-birth-certificate.html#comments

Janet Morrison’s Community Dialogue:

http://janetmorrison.blogspot.com/2009/03/maybe-its-better-not-to-know.html

Pegasus News:  

http://www.pegasusnews.com/news/2009/mar/09/it-time-tent-city-dallas/?refscroll=10411#comments

Dallas Homeless Network Blog:

https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=7626581935246500287&postID=5736747935276336993

Conscience & Clarity Blog:

http://conscienceclarity.blogspot.com/

Trust March 9, 2009

 

Monday, March 9, 2009

Trust

 

When we have solved the problem of homelessness in Dallas, we will know it.  We will not need to ticket, arrest and harass homeless people for being on the streets of our town in order to get them out of sight.  They won’t need to be on the street, because they will have access to housing, social programs, and jobs which pay a living wage.  

 

Our programs serving the homeless will not be averse to criticism, because they will be good, fair, evenhanded and effective.  They will work, and, if they do not work, we will listen to those who ‘know how to,’ and we will change them. Therefore, they will be funded.  

 

Take the example of the Stewpot.  When the Stewpot puts out an appeal, people generously respond.  Why?  Because this is an organization which has credibility, viability, integrity and staying power.  Rules are rules, and the homeless clients they serve know this;  the rules are for everyone, and they don’t change every day.  A client may or may not believe that a rule is fair; nonetheless, trust is built with the organization because those living in the perilous and shifting sands that street life offers know what to expect at the Stewpot, day in and day out.  Donors have the confidence that their donations, in-kind and monetary, will be directed efficiently to the targeted population.  There is a strong, trusted, and experienced leader at the Stewpot [Rev. Bruce Buchanan], and there is accountability among the staff to him. 

 

Clarity.  Consistency.  Transparency.

 

Here is a conversation I had with an intelligent and well-educated ‘chronically homeless’ individual recently in response to my question, “Do you use the [homeless assistance center and shelter system]?”

 

“I tried it for a while, but I gave up.  If I want craziness, I can get it out here [on the street].  I don’t have to go there to get it.  They want me to give up whatever drugs I might want to use, but then they want to put me on their [prescription] drugs in order to sedate me into being a person who can fit into their way of doing things and be compliant.”

 

I am not an advocate of ‘recreational’ drugs — don’t use them or champion their legalization.  I think they are almost wholly destructive.  But this point of view makes sense from a certain perspective.

 

What is the element that is missing between this homeless individual and the organizations built to facilitate her or his getting off the street?  Trust.  I’m not sure I would trust the system much either if I were in his or her position, and I understand the viewpoint even from the privileged perspective of being a property owner and a taxpayer [although, as we are seeing, even these privileges are quite tenuous in uncertain times.] 

 

But when one is utterly powerless and living on the street, it is not likely that one will give up the little power and comfort one has in order to put oneself in the hands of authorities which are perceived to be unreliable, unpredictable and whimsical in their exercise of power, at best.  Not one of us would choose that, would we?  Is it a character flaw to choose independent living, rough as it is, over the perception of a dangerous surrender?  We have squandered an opportunity to win the trust of some chronically homeless individuals in recent months, and I hope it can be rebuilt.

 

“If I want craziness, I can get it out here.  I don’t have to go there to get it.”  A concise and eloquent statement.

 

When we have solved the problem of homelessness in Dallas, we will know it.  There won’t be hundreds to thousands of homeless individuals living in the woods, hiding from Dallas authorities.  We won’t have to dissemble, harass, prosecute, and hound people into shelters and treatment.  Our programs will be open to constructive criticism, and our responses to the same will be forthcoming, measured and rational.

 

As my friend, David Timothy, says of his organization, the SoupMobile:  “I don’t want us to just look good.  I want us to be good.”

 

That is a goal worth striving for, and it is the only one that will succeed.

 

http://www.thestewpot.org/

http://www.soupmobile.org/

 

Karen Shafer

 

Link on Pegasus News:  

http://www.pegasusnews.com/news/2009/mar/10/dallas-homeless-organization-need-develop-trust/

Link on Dallas Homeless Network:

http://dallashomelessnetwork.blogspot.com/

Homeward Bound March 3, 2009

 

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

 

Homeward Bound

 

I just got back a couple of hours ago from going with my friend, Soupman (David Timothy), to visit our good friend, Samuel, who lives in a cardboard house.  Tonight, Samuel seemed discouraged.  The police come by every Thursday or Friday and ticket him for ‘sleeping in public’ or ‘littering’, even though there’s no trash around his house whatsoever –  he takes pride in keeping it tidy.  He can work the tickets off in community service, go to Community Court, but the bigger question here is “What is the point of the ticketing?”  Samuel and those in his situation have nowhere to go.

 

People are trying to survive, to work, to live, to get themselves out of the hole they’re in.  Is there any possible way in which constantly being ticketed and warranted and sometimes arrested furthers their efforts to lift themselves up?

 

We are a long, long way from having affordable housing for the 6000 + homeless people in Dallas (a conservative estimate — many think it’s almost double that number.)  We’re also a long way from having enough shelter beds for everyone, or from fulfilling the promise publically made when the Bridge was in the planning stages that it would accommodate the ‘shelter-resistant’ homeless by providing a safe place for them to camp within the homeless assistance center campus.

 

After visiting Samuel, we moved on to visit some other friends who live outdoors.  “How many people are hiding out around here?” I asked James.  “Around 2000,” he responded.  “What??”  I said, incredulous.  “That’s a conservative estimate,” he replied, and his neighbors around us agreed.  James is extremely intelligent:  college educated, ex-military, well-spoken.  I love talking to him.  He’s also reliable in the street sense, and I trust the information he gives me.

 

Earlier, I had sat on the bumper of the truck near Samuel’s house, and he’d knelt by my knee.  We talked for a long time while David did all the heavy lifting of giving out coats and blankets to people who showed up.  “I know I’ve been saying this for a long time,” he told me, “but I’m sick of this.  I want to get out of here.  One of these days you’re going to come down here to get me and say to me, ‘Samuel, let’s go,’ and I’ll just leave.’”  We looked at each other steadily through the darkness, as I scanned my mind for ‘housing first’ initiatives for which he would qualify and came up short.  “Where would we be going?”  I asked him.  I was really hoping he had an answer, because I don’t.  We just kept looking at each other for a long time, saying nothing.

 

Both Samuel and James would be good candidates for ‘housing first,’ as both are independent and have a strong work ethic but have lost faith with the current system in place to help them.

 

Samuel, David and I put our arms around each other before we left, and I felt honored to be chosen to say a prayer. As David and I climbed aboard the van, Samuel said something about heaven, and then he said something I’ll always remember:  “We’re not homeless;  we’re homeward bound.”

 

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

Thank You, Carlos January 30, 2009

Friday, January 30, 2009

 

I have received an email from my friend, Carlos, who is shocked and outraged that the city seizes the private property of homeless citizens and destroys their dwellings during police sweeps and arrests.  Here is what he said in part:

“I read what you wrote about the police destroying the homeless people dwellings and taking away their things.  Why are the police being so cruel to the homeless?

The city is telling them to harm the homeless! oh no ! we’ve got to do some thing about this. I will be looking for the link on your blog for the city of dallas. 

You know I understand that it does not look good to have all these homeless people hanging around businesses, but it is part of the city’s fault for not making it a priority to give them a place to go to. I  think the city should do more in fixing this problem instead of spending money on new hotels and other things like that, they should do more for the homeless. what the city does not realize is that it is going to get worse.  if there are (and I am guessing) 10,000 homeless just in Dallas this year, in 5 years it will be 30,000 may be 50,000, and then it will be too late, so something needs to be done. get them jobs and traning in something.”

Carlos has requested information on how to contact the mayor and city council about this.  Here’s how to do it.  It probably makes the biggest impact of all for ordinary citizens to speak to their city government directly about something that seems to them to be an abuse.  They are used to hearing from advocates and service providers!  It can make a difference.

Thank you, Carlos, for suggesting this:

 

Go to this link:

 

http://www.dallascityhall.com/contact.html

 

In the blue menu at left, click on:

 

“Mayor and City Council E-Mail”.

 

Click on this option at the top of the page:

 

“Email the Mayor and ALL the Councilmembers at one time.”

 

The form pops up for sending a group email to Mayor Leppert and City Council.

New Blog In Town January 8, 2009

Thursday, January 8, 2008

 

New Blog In Town

 

There’s a new blog covering the latest news on homelessness in Dallas which I highly recommend.  Here’s the link:

 

http://dallashomelessnetwork.blogspot.com/

The blogger seems to be making an effort to be non-polemical while still representing an advocacy point of view.  This is much needed in Dallas, as is a frequent update on the latest news on homelessness here.  I wish them a widespread readership and impact.

 

KS

We Built It, They Came, Now What? December 15, 2008

Monday, December 15, 2008

 

We Built It, They Came, Now What?

 

Here I sit in the same cafe where I sat exactly 5 years ago, thinking the exact thoughts I had the first time I went out with HungerBusters Mobile Soup Kitchen to feed the homeless on the streets of Dallas in 2003.  How are the people around me going about their daily lives (and how am I?) while homeless individuals in the hundreds are starving and freezing on the streets of our city?

 

This time, though, the public will has been mobilized, the $21 million has been spent building the Bridge Homeless Assistance Center in downtown Dallas, the ‘promise’ has been fulfilled, hopes have been raised for homeless and housed alike, and much good has been accomplished, only to have it come crashing down now that bitterly cold weather is upon us. It Has Been Built, and They Have Come.  And now They are locked out by the hundreds.

 

What a grim, and, for me, unexpected lesson in failed bureaucracy.  People who know much more than I do may have seen it coming.  I didn’t.

 

There is much rumor and hyperbole around the disastrous new policy implemented at the Bridge since December 1, so I am going to focus first on what I know for sure.

 

What I Know For Sure

 

~~People who do not have a Bridge ID cannot get into the campus for meals.  The numbers of meals served at the Second Chance Cafe by the Stewpot of First Presbyterian Church has dropped to around 1300 per day from around 2150.  That means that, currently, 850 times a day someone is being denied a meal that has been provided since May, 2008, and that Second Chance Cafe is committed to serving.  This meal service was promised in national and local media by Bridge management when the center opened.

 

A friend who was licensed to feed on the streets, but is now prohibited from feeding the homeless downtown by a city ordinance which does not allow feeding outside the Bridge, told me a story of a man coming up to his car on the street outside the Bridge asking for food and crying because he was so hungry several days ago.  Such stories are just the tip of the iceberg.

 

~~The Bridge ID application procedures have been unwieldy and frustrating, if not non-navigable, for the homeless, to say the least.  As of  the end of last week, the process for getting an ID required standing in 3 different lines for up to 3-4 hours, and sometimes still coming away with no ID.  Add to that that to get a Bridge ID, preexisting identification is required, and many chronically homeless people don’t have that, or have had their ID’s stolen, and you see the potential frustration inherent in the process.  Throw in the percentage of this group that are mentally ill and have poor coping skills to begin with.  Add to that the number of homeless people who have to be at work 6 AM, when the Bridge ID lines opened at 9 AM, and you start to see the complications of a solution that on its face sounds simple and reasonable.  There have been promises of streamlined procedures from Bridge management, and hopefully they will/ have come through.

 

People who were issued temporary ID’s as early as Thanksgiving still don’t have their permanent ID’s.  Sometimes they are admitted to the Bridge with a letter from their Bridge caseworker, and sometimes not, depending upon who is on duty at the gate.

 

~~ As to the Bridge sending its overflow guests to other shelters, I was out among the homeless during the subfreezing weather a week ago and learned that the shelters were requiring payment and identification, two things they are often without.  But, more importantly, I learned that on those cold nights the shelters were full.  Even if you discount the ‘shelter-resistant’ population — and you cannot in good conscience do that — I personally saw and spoke with many people sleeping outside shelters on those nights who told me they had tried to get in and were turned away for lack of space.  And, if you can’t get into a shelter, you obviously can’t eat your meals there.

 

Additionally, the working homeless are still at work at the time most shelters require occupants to be inside, around 4 PM, so they are essentially penalized for having jobs.

 

Just this afternoon I spoke on the phone with a friend who is currently sleeping under a freeway overpass  and offered to let him sleep on my couch.  He said overflow procedures are in practice at the shelters due to subfreezing temperatures tonight, but, at Dallas Life Foundation, for example, you have five free nights until you have to pay, and he’s saving his money until he really needs it (! the current temperature is around 30 degrees!) because all the homeless are having to buy their food now since the Second Chance Cafe is unable to serve them meals due to lack of access to the Bridge campus.

 

When you add to that reports of theft and other problems within some of the shelters and you understand why there are, once again, hundreds of people hiding wherever they can and sleeping outdoors.

 

~~  The primary population this policy change has impacted negatively is the “chronically homeless,” the exact population the Bridge was to target when it opened.

~~  A homeless man was seriously burned last week trying to stay warm in a parking garage stairwell in downtown Dallas.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/stories/121308dnmetgarage.561b9995.html

 

~~  When I was at the Bridge campus on November 30, the last night that sleeping was allowed on the courtyard, and I spoke with a number of women sleeping there about where they’d sleep the next night.  ”We have no idea,” they told me.  All of these women were on their own, without the protection of male partners.  I don’t know whether you know what women alone face living on the street, but it is not a pretty picture.    

 

~~  I personally know one pregnant woman who is on the street in this weather, and I would surmise from past experience that there are more.

 

What I Believe to be the Case

~~While the stated reason the Bridge has closed its gates to those without Bridge Identification because of issues with the Fire Marshall, it has been shown to be the case in the past that temporary compromises on these sorts of issues can be reached within the city for the greater good of the affected population, where there is a constructive plan and the public and political will to do so.  

 

~~ While rumors persist among and from my homeless friends that two people have died sleeping outdoors in this weather, there has been no confirmation of this.  However, what is being predicted by homeless people and service providers alike is that, before winter is out, there will be casualties of this current situation.  We have to do all in our power to prevent this happening.

 

What Can Be Done

 

I am certain this problem can be solved quickly, and it must be.   Here are some suggestions for what can be done.  I welcome others in the comments section.  It is not an exaggeration to say that people’s lives are at stake.

 

For this winter, I respectfully request that we:

~~Effective immediately, reopen the Bridge campus during meal hours to anyone who needs a meal.  This has been the practice since the opening in May.

~~ Reopen the Bridge campus for sleeping for anyone who is nonviolent, and especially for women, and use the police manpower that is currently being used for sweeps of the homeless to keep order there if necessary.  This way, people can at least be safe. Those who have previously been banned for violent or predatory behavior should remain so.

~~  For warmth, large outdoor heaters could be set up and a large tent with side flaps for temporary protection could be provided — infinitely better than sleeping in the open on the concrete.

~~  The Fire Marshall could be asked to make special provision for the winter for an expanded number of people to be allowed at the Bridge until Spring 2009.  The city or the Bridge should provide funding for a Fire Marshall to be on duty at all times to insure public safety for the numbers of individuals that need to be sheltered for the winter.

~~  These policies should be in place every day until a date to be determined in the Spring, 2009, not just for subfreezing weather.

~~  Even with the cost of extra policing and fire prevention, the costs to the city are likely to be considerably less that the current cost of police sweeps of the homeless downtown and of providing for them through emergency services, (ambulances, hospitals, jails, emergency mental health services, crisis intervention, policing), as we are now back to doing, statistically proven to be by far THE MOST EXPENSIVE way to deal with homelessness, humanitarian concerns aside.

~~  Alternatively, or in addition, we could consider using one of the abandoned buildings downtown as temporary shelter, complete with Porta-Potties, and use Downtown Safety Patrol or Dallas Police to keep order there.  Guests there could eat and use other services (bathrooms, laundry, storage) at the Bridge, as they were doing before December 1.

~~  Being a ‘Can-Do’ city, I know that we can come up with the Code and Zoning permits we need to make these solutions possible if we feel they would be successful and effective.

 

In Conclusion

 

With the publicity around the Dallas International Street Church regarding its becoming a refuge for the homeless when they were turned away from the Bridge and other shelters  (See “Miracle on Second Avenue”)  I don’t have to tell you that there is unhappy irony in a tiny, poor, South-Dallas church trumping a $21 million state-of the art homeless assistance center in its care of the homeless population.

http://www.wfaa.com/video/?z=y&nvid=312288

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/121308dnmetchurchfix.38b6e7d.html

 

The homeless population is the responsibility of the Bridge now, and the staff there are being paid well, in a state-of-the-art facility, to handle these issues.  It is failing to live up to that responsibility at this time.  With our tax dollars supporting the Bridge, we as taxpayers are entitled to transparency and accountability, not just an effective public relations campaign.

 

It would be tragic if the promising start made by the Bridge towards a compassionate and successful resolution to the homeless problem in Dallas up until now were at this point seriously derailed by a policy that is harming in a critical way the population it is supposed to be helping.

 

KS

Link:  http://www.pegasusnews.com/news/2008/dec/16/bridge-we-built-it-they-came-now-what/

Bitter December 5, 2008

Thursday, December 4, 2008

 

Bitter

 

Last night, armed with a carload of heavy coats and blankets given to us by an Anonymous Angel, I went out on a mission into the heart of downtown Dallas with a good friend.  We went  in search of the city’s homeless people who have been banned from sleeping in the Bridge courtyard as of December 1 and are now back to ‘sleeping rough.’

 

After an hour of driving around, we couldn’t find anyone out on the street, but we knew they were there — just in hiding.  It we could have found them, though, so could have the Dallas Police, who had been issuing written warnings and citations to them for the past two days.  We talked to the very few homeless individuals who were walking on the downtown streets.  “Where is everyone sleeping tonight?” we asked them.  “They’ve scattered,” a woman told us.  “The police have really been after us and came this morning at 6 A.M. to the freeway fence where people were sleeping and started ticketing them.  Media crews showed up about that, and it saved some.”

 

My friend and I knew the obvious places where homeless people used to sleep before the Bridge opened, and we drove there.  Not a soul could be seen at any of these locations.  After that, we checked out the places we knew of that are farther out from the central district downtown.  No one in sight, no heaps of blankets on the concrete containing sleeping human beings.

 

We guessed where to look even farther afield, and we guessed correctly.  When we found them, we stopped our car and got out.  They knew us, trusted us, and began to come out of hiding, one or two at a time, in the dark, in the cold, to talk to us.  Near where we parked, one person had found a single piece of wood about 2 inches wide and 3 feet long, had been able to light it and was huddled over it, trying to stay warm.  Some people were sleeping under cardboard, some just blankets, most well out of sight.  One man said, “I’d been sleeping at the Bridge until they shut us out on Monday.”

 

It had been a Godsend that our ‘angel’ had showed up that afternoon and given us enough coats and blankets to give away.  I stood at the rear of the vehicle and handed people blankets one by one.  “Can I have one for my wife?” someone asked.  “She’s sleeping right over there around the corner.”  At our vehicle’s side door, my friend fitted people with warm jackets.  We also had some socks, hats and gloves.  We stood around and talked.  Word spread that we were there, and more people showed up.  Everyone hugged us, thanked us, hugged us again.  At the end, they wanted to pray with us, so we put our arms around each other’s shoulders in a circle, and one of the men spoke a prayer of thanks and offered requests for our well-being.  The Miracle of the Coats and Blankets was that, when we were finished at the end of the night, we had exactly one blanket left.

 

Of course, even though people are now hungry — because some are no longer allowed on the Bridge campus at all due to the new identification procedure and some only have day passes which keep them off the Bridge campus after 5 P.M., so they either miss all meals or the evening meal — it is illegal for us to feed them.  All feeding of the homeless outside the Bridge (except on private property) is now officially banned by the city.  So there are currently many people who can at this point neither eat at the Bridge, nor can they be offered food outside it.  I had heard already since December 1 the dinner numbers at the Stewpot’s Second Chance Cafe (the Bridge dining hall) are down to the mid-200’s from the steady number of 750-900 per meal since the homeless assistance center opened in May of this year.

 

Last night, we left our homeless friends and drove around some more downtown.  A number of people were sleeping on the sidewalk next to one of the shelters, which was full.  These people were clearly not shelter-resistant:  we spoke with some of them, and they had tried to get in.

 

Once again, the poorest of the poor are being criminalized and driven underground.  The ‘fringe’ people are being forced back to the fringes and beyond.  It is a tragic turn of events.

 

Designed to serve in particular the ‘chronically homeless,’ the Bridge is not effectively doing that for large numbers of them at this time.  For a few days this week, these people were back out on the street.  For a couple of days after that, they were persistently ticketed by police at the orders of undetermined entities at City Hall.  Now, they are in hiding:  in the open, on the ground, cold, hungry.  Tonight, I heard a weather report that a ‘bitter’ freeze is on its way to the Dallas area.  Imagine how that will feel sleeping outdoors without even the shelter of a building to lie close to.

 

We can do better.  We have done better for the past few short months.  And we must do so again immediately, before people begin to die from the cold.

 

We must deliver on the emergency shelter that has been promised.  At the very least, we must allow the shelter-resistant homeless or those the shelters can’t accommodate — especially women — to sleep back on the Bridge campus away from predators and violent offenders.  As the Bridge management sorts through who is ‘qualified and unqualified’ to receive shelter there, we must follow through on the the commitment that the Bridge has clearly and emphatically put forward to the public through the media since it opened in May and even before:  to provide safe refuge and access to the meals that the Stewpot is offering to all those who need it.  

 

For heaven’s sake and for our own as well, it is time to stop playing politics with people’s lives.

 

KS

The Bridge Closing Its Courtyard for Sleeping December 1, 2008

Monday, December 1, 2008

The Bridge Closes Its Courtyard For Sleeping:  The Rest of the Story

 

I have been a consistent and vocal supporter of the Bridge homeless assistance center since its opening in May, 2008, and have believed that, even with the glitches and challenges in getting it up and running that have been widely reported, it has had an extremely positive impact on the Dallas community, both homeless and housed.  However, I have serious questions about the current decision to ‘clear the Bridge courtyard’ for cold weather and deny overnight access for safe sleeping there to homeless individuals who are not able to go into shelters for a variety of reasons.

[http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/city/dallas/stories/DN-thebridge_10met.ART.State.Edition2.4a7f026.html]

 

Where is the impetus coming from to relocate homeless people who have, until December 1, been sleeping in the Bridge courtyard, now that the coldest part of the year is upon us?  On the face of it, relocation to shelters seems a compassionate response to colder weather.  However, what will be the result?  History and experience tell us that there will be some people who will not, for one reason or another, be able to go into shelters, even with the adaptations made to their usual guidelines by the shelter directors in order to accommodate them at the request of Bridge management.  People who know this vulnerable population realize this.

 

A friend of mine who is homeless says this forced relocation off the courtyard will simply lead to many more people being back on the street, and people I’ve talked with who are directly involved in homeless services tend to agree with him.  Already, one finds an increasing number of people sleeping in doorways and on sidewalks in the area surrounding the Bridge.  It seems we may be inviting some of our old dilemmas back into the picture.  Certain people will have nowhere to go;  yet everyone has to be somewhere.

 

I can only imagine, and have tried to comprehend, the myriad pressures on Bridge management.  From what I understand, in this case, pressure is coming from the City of Dallas via the Fire Marshall around the issue of code compliance.  The permit for a larger than expected population at the Bridge was temporary.  The decision ‘up there somewhere’ has been made that the numbers need to be reduced.  Why now?  We have had overcrowding at the Bridge since its opening in May.

 

Just as it makes sense to ban people from the Bridge who are consistently violent, there are also good arguments for tracking more closely than was originally thought necessary those who use the services at the Bridge.  Hence, there is now a requirement for Bridge guests to have ID cards.  But Friday evening I talked to a homeless friend at dinner at the Second Chance Cafe (the Bridge dining hall run by the Stewpot) who said he had stood in line that day for 4 hours and then been unable to get one.  Then he found out he’d also been directed to the wrong line!

 

Friday night, when I left the Second Chance Cafe at the Bridge after helping serve dinner, I walked around the darkened courtyard where most people were already bedded down against the cold.  I did a very approximate count, and there seemed to be at least 150 people sleeping outdoors there.  Many of them were women.  Once courtyard sleeping closes, where will they go?  It seems counterproductive, to say the very least, for them to go back out on the street and seems reminiscent of the not-so-good old days.

 

I went back to the Bridge Sunday night, November 30, and spoke with several people who were sleeping on the sidewalk inside the gates, three out of four of whom were women, about where they’d sleep after that night.  ”We have no idea,” they told me.  

 

When I left to drive home, I saw that, in the blocks surrounding the Bridge campus, people were sleeping in doorways, on the sidewalk, up against the freeway fence, huddled under a floodlight for safety:  the EXACT conditions that the Bridge was built to eliminate.  A very vulnerable community, once again in extreme disarray.

 

Although people sleeping in the cold may truly be the concern of staff and the city, it’s still preferable to sleep ‘cold and safe’ rather than ‘cold and in danger’ — that is, to at least be able to sleep within the confines of the Bridge fences.  So, while there may be a legitimate and compassionate impetus for people to be moved into shelters, booting them off the courtyard doesn’t meet the criterion of making things better for them.  

 

As things always are for the homeless community, I’m guessing the ‘full story’ is very complicated.  Someone in authority has made a decision profoundly affecting people’s lives, and probably for reasons other than the ones which have been stated.  But then that decision has to be explained in ways that will try to please everyone and that will seem as if it has at its basis the highest well-being of those it impacts.  To what extent well-being as a motive is the reality is impossible to tell.  But, if the good of the homeless is the intent, it is surely not panning out that way in practice.  It would be nice every now and then just to be told the truth about it from the very start.

 

It is clear to me how rapidly and successfully the Dallas community is able and willing to take effective action by the way we solved our temporary housing problems for the homeless last winter, once the political will and a plan to do so were in place.  We are a ‘Can-Do’ city.  The new policy of banning Bridge courtyard sleeping may be well-intentioned but is, in my view, misdirected.

 

My hope is that we will change course right away and make a commitment to do what is necessary to allow nonviolent homeless individuals, and, in particular women, to sleep within the confines of the Bridge campus through the winter as we continue to sort through maze of who is ‘qualified and unqualified’ to receive shelter.  This is not the time to jump ship on the commitment that has been clearly and emphatically put out there since before the Bridge opened.

 

KS

Displacement and Community November 28, 2008

 

Friday, November 28, 2008

Reflecting upon the sense of community I often feel at the Bridge homeless assistance center in the Second Chance Cafe, I came across the following.  There can scarcely be a more displaced group than the homeless community, and yet so often it feels like family to me, even when, like this evening, there are so many new, unfamiliar faces which come through the food line.  KS

 

Displacement

“The word community generally expresses a certain supportive and nurturing way of living and working together….  If we want to reflect on community in the context of compassion, we must go far beyond these spontaneous associations [of sentimentalism, romanticism, and even melancholy].  Community can never be the place where God’s obedient servanthood reveals itself if community is understood principally as something warm, soft, homey, comfortable, or protective.  When we form community primarily to heal personal wounds, it cannot become the place where we effectively realize solidarity with other people’s pains….

The call to community as we hear it from our Lord is the call to move away from the ordinary and proper places….  The Gospels confront us with this persistent voice inviting us to move away from where it is comfortable, from where we want to stay, from where we feel at home….

Why is this so central?  It is central because in voluntary displacement, we cast off the illusion of ‘having it together’ and thus begin to experience our true condition, which is that we, like everyone else, are pilgrims on the way, sinners in need of grace.  [Thus] we counteract the tendency to become settled in false comfort and to forget the fundamentally unsettled position that we share with all people….  [which] leads us to the existential recognition of our inner brokenness and thus brings us to a deeper solidarity with the brokenness of our fellow human beings….  The Greek word for church, ekklesia — from ek = out, and kaleo = call — indicates that as a Christian community we are people who together are called out of our familiar places to unknown territories, out of our ordinary and proper places to the places where people hurt and where we can experience with them our common human brokenness and our common need for healing.”

            ~~Compassion, A Reflection on the Christian Life, by Henri J.M. Nouwen, Donald P. McNeill, and Douglas A. Morrison

Economic Reality at Wilkinson Center Food Pantry’s Doorstep November 20, 2008

 

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Brian Burton, Executive Director of the Wilkinson Center in East Dallas, writes a mean fund-raising letter. Even after totaling up my credit card debt this week and nearly falling off the chair, I read this and found myself writing out a [pitifully small] check.  Brian’s also one of the nicest people around, which makes one glad to help, and the Wilkinson Center does a super job at all that it does.  I reprint his letter with permission.  KS

The Wilkinson Center

               “Do all you can for everyone who needs your help.  Don’t tell your neighbor to come back tomorrow, if you can help today.”  ~~ Proverbs 3: 27-28

November 14, 2008

Dear Friend of the Wilkinson Center:

 

Yesterday, I got a heavy dose of the new economic reality.  As I made my way through the Center, I observed in the Food Pantry service area every seat taken — and, there were families standing along the walls waiting.  The reality of our economy is at the Wilkinson Center’s doorstep.

As you plan for your charitable giving this Thanksgiving season, I respectfully ask that you, once again, consider the Wilkinson Center deserving of your support.  Because of a generous matching gift from local foundations, every dollar you give will be matched up to $250,000! [by the Harold Simmons Foundation and the Ginger Murchison Foundation]  …We will always strive to be good stewards of your investment in our shared mission to help those less fortunate.

 

If you’d like to see your gift at work please contact me for a tour.  Thank you for being a member of our Wilkinson Center family.

 

Faithfully yours, in service,

Brian Burton, Executive Director

 

http://www.wilkinsoncenter.org, P.O. Box 720248, Dallas, TX 75372, 5200 Bryan St., Dallas, TX 75206, 214-821-6380

Another ‘S.T.E.P.’ in the Right Direction November 14, 2008

 

Friday, November 14, 2008

Here is a recent good-news email from Jean Jones, Director of Volunteers at the Stewpot:

 

Nov. 11, 2008, 4:31 PM

Dear Stew Pot Volunteers:

A story of success and hope we want to share…

 

Last Friday, during the lunch meal service, a big six foot, 40-something guest named Mike literally skipped into the dining hall, his feet barely touching the ground and a huge smile on his face. “I have to tell you – I got it!  I got a JOB!!”, he cried joyfully.  We all cheered and congratulated him and asked “how?” and “where?”. “Right here”, he replied, pointing proudly to his ball cap, emblazoned with the logo of a new Cajun restaurant chain. “I got it off the Stewpot Jobs Hotline.  I’m a cook, fulltime, forty hours a week. I got me a room. I’m going to save my money and move on up!”

 

Do you remember the first time you said those words?…”I got a job”… the feeling of pride, the sense of accomplishment. Most everyone wants a job, including our homeless friends – to work, make money, care for themselves and build a future. In these economic times the job market is tough, even more so for them.

 

The Stewpot Transitional Employment Program (STEP)  focuses on preparing persons who are experiencing homelessness with job-readiness skills leading to employment. We need partners in the business world that will consider giving these folks a chance once they complete the three month STEP program.

 

Attached is a flyer outlining the STEP program. Please consider it, pass it along to your employer and to anyone that might be able to assist with this program. You are all on the “front line” serving the homeless with the basic need of a hot meal. Let’s work together to take them a step further…to a job and independence… out of homelessness.

 

As always, Thank you to everyone for all you do to serve “the least of these”, our friends in need.

 

Jean Jones,  Director of Volunteers,  The Stewpot      

 214-746-2785, ext. 320                                                                                  

Jean.jones@thestewpot.org

 

About the S.T.E.P. Program:

 

The  S.T.E.P. Program

Stewpot Transitional Employment Program

Your company’s regular volunteer work at The Bridge on behalf of the Stewpot is just part of the work The Stewpot and other volunteers do to help those experiencing homelessness make it through the day and try to get a better life. 

Our S.T.E.P. (Stewpot Transitional Employment Program) program focuses on preparing persons who are experiencing homelessness with job-readiness skills, leading to employment. We need partners in the business world that will consider giving these clients a chance once they graduate from our 3 month program. We have clients wanting work in customer service, warehouse, data entry, security, janitorial/maintenance, restaurant and IT work and most are looking at entry level positions.  

Please talk to your company’s decision maker and try to get me an appointment. I would love to discuss this program and what we are doing to help our clients become tax paying citizens who are happy about what they are doing and once employed can lock a door behind them at night for the very first time in a long time. 

With the assistance of a vocational rehabilitative consultant we designed a 90-day program to address the issues that were causing Stewpot clients to lose their jobs. The curriculum is designed for behavioral modification through inter/intra personal growth. We have learned that the # 1 reason persons have lost jobs was related to confrontations with superiors and co-workers. Our classes focus on how to turn that around – how to resolve conflicts. Persons who have fallen between the cracks, to the extent that they have become chronically homeless, are all the more benefited by this approach to emotional stability and pursuit of employment. This makes S.T.E.P. very unique in the employment assistance field. The subjects covered are:

Rational Beliefs: 10 Common Irrational Beliefs

Thinking Errors: 10 Ways to Untwist Your Thinking

Common Self-Defeating Behaviors:   Self-Talk Correction

Using “I” Statements Correctly:  Dealing With Difficult People

5 Secrets of Effective Communication:  Developing Your Skills Language

Using Your Transferable Skills:  Job Interview Tips

Communication is Key to Working With Supervisors

Surviving On Your New Job

You’ve heard it said, 

“The homeless wouldn’t be homeless if they just got a job”

Here is your chance to help them get a job so they can help themselves!

Please contact Larry Sykes

Director Community Voice Mail & STEP Jobs Coordinator

214-746-2785, ext. 248, larrys@thestewpot.org

Looking for, and Finding, Good Things October 20, 2008

Monday, October 20, 2008

 

Looking For, and Finding, Good Things

 

As he came through the food line at the Bridge last week, Max (not his real name) leaned in to whisper in my ear when I handed him his plate, “I need to talk to you outside after dinner.”  “Sure,” I said, “Meet you out there.”

 

The service in the Second Chance Cafe was flawless as always.  We had three acapella singers with excellent voices serenade us in succession as over 700 people filed through to eat, then Pops arrived to play piano.  A few times during the meal, Edward St. John, Operations Director for the Stewpot meal services at the Bridge, came on the sound system and gave a weather forecast for the upcoming days.  “So prepare yourselves to stay warm if you’re sleeping outside,” he said with concern, “It’s going to be 52 degrees tomorrow night.”

 

After the meal, I stayed around to talk to Edward for a few minutes — we hadn’t worked the same meal shift for a couple of months.  When we’d gotten caught up on the news, he said, “We are really enjoying this [referring to fulfilling the meal service contract for the Bridge.]  It’s a big challenge, but we love it.”  I was glad to hear it, because the numbers of guests have been much higher at the Bridge than anyone predicted since it opened in May of this year, and the Stewpot has stepped up magnificently to the challenge of feeding them.  “It’s all about the [homeless] people,” he continued.  “Some good things are happening here at the Bridge.”  “The love shows in the way all of you are doing things,” I told him.  I had watched him greet people warmly all night when they came through the door.  I could tell our homeless friends were ‘under his skin,’ that his heart was genuinely open to them.

 

As I started to leave the cafe, I saw Max motioning to me through the glass door.  He pointed to a small courtyard off the dining room, mouthing “Meet me there.”  “I’m on my way,” I said.

 

I exited into the courtyard and walked slowly along the curving sidewalk, waiting for Max.  I was also looking for another friend who has been in the Residents’ Program inside the Bridge.  He was happy that he was about to ‘graduate’ and move into permanent supportive housing, having been steadily employed through the Bridge’s job placement program for many weeks.  I wanted to hear his story, but couldn’t find him in the clusters of homeless guests talking outside.  I noticed how quiet, clean and organized things were in the small courtyard where I was walking.  The activity there seemed purposeful.  It was just after sunset, and some of the women I know were already bedded down under the dining hall eaves, protecting themselves from the chill of the night air.  

 

I had noticed during the food service that many people had come through the line with blankets wrapped around them, and the rest were wearing coats.  The thing that was different from autumns past with the homeless in Dallas was that everyone was protected from the elements by some kind of covering, and the blankets and coats they had on were clean.  With the Bridge providing washers and dryers that the guests can sign up for, and twelve showers each for men and women, it’s now possible for people to clean up.  It’s quite a noticeable change. 

 

Every winter (since 2003) that I’ve seen our friends on the street, there have always been a number of people who had no protection from the weather whatsoever, neither blanket nor coat:  perhaps they had just become homeless in the past few days and had been unable to bring possessions with them, or perhaps their belongings had been stolen.  There may have been people without coats or blankets among the 700+ people we saw that night, but, if so, I didn’t see them.  This amounts to a revolution in my experience.  Yes, Edward is right, some good things are happening at the Bridge.

 

I looked up to see Max working his way towards me through a crowd of people in the courtyard who were waiting to enter a meeting room.  He gave me a bear hug and kiss on the cheek, as he always does.  “Hi, Mama,” he said, using the nickname he’s given me.

 

“Hey, what’s going on?” I asked him.  He leaned in close and whispered in my ear, “I’ve been off ______ [a street drug] for ______ weeks!”  Truth be told, I hadn’t known he was addicted, but I hugged him back and offered him congratulations.  “Are you going to meetings [twelve step]?  This is fantastic.  You look great, so clear and calm.”  “I feel great.  It’s because of this man,” and he introduced me to his mentor at the Bridge.  We three talked for a few more minutes, and I exited the courtyard and went to my car, feeling as if I were walking on air.  

 

I looked back at the beautiful facility that the voters of Dallas, with their compassionate hearts, provided for the homeless through a $23 million bond a few years back.  Warm light bathed the courtyard of the complex and poured from the windows.  It had been an unexpected joy to see Max doing well, on his path, waiting for a place in a rehabilitation center, but already into his sobriety.

 

Maybe you have to know first hand exactly how rocky things were in winters past to fully understand the radical change that has taken place in our city for our homeless friends, but, yes indeed, some very good things are happening at the Bridge.  We have to keep supporting the cooperative vision of Mike Faenza, Mike Rawlings, Bruce Buchanan, Joe Clifford, Mayor Tom Leppert and many others who, through thick and sometimes very thin, are making this happen.  Thank you, Dallas.

 

KS

Reggie’s Story October 6, 2008

Monday, October 6, 2008

       Reggie Crawford, with whom I’m privileged to work when I volunteer at The Bridge homeless assistance center,  is one of the most inspiring and compassionate individuals I’ve met in a while.  I appreciate that Reggie and Street Zine have given me permission to reprint his story here.  KS

 

STEP Transformed Plan A & B Into G For Me

By Reggie Crawford

 

Like most people, I just wanted to live a normal life expecting nothing flashy, extravagant or extraordinary. 

 

My life started out very simple; I guess you could call me a military brat. My father was in the military for over thirty years, and my mother taught high school and did most of the kid raising of myself and six siblings. My mom was a very determined and strong woman who I think was my greatest influence because she always believed in me.

 

I went to college majoring in music education and business marketing. Upon graduation I quickly found a job as a music teacher which I hated. I was not mentally prepared for this work and I had no patience which is something you really need when you teach middle school kids. The bad notes were killing me! 

 

I quickly found that I needed another plan so I resorted to plan B, which was to join the military. There have been times in my life when I made some brilliant decisions and this was one of them.  While in college, I was in ROTC and already had a four year commitment. At that time, the Army had a one year delay entry program and I looked forward to and could not wait to enter the military.

 

I loved the Army, as a brand new second lieutenant; I was on my way up. Both of my parents were very proud; I had a new car, new house, lots of new friends, and a new attitude that spelled super arrogant. Some called it cocky, conceited, or even egotistic; but I will call it for what it really was, bone head.  In my mind, I really thought I was an icon, my family thought I was crazy, which was not far from the truth. 

 

My drive helped me get promotions and medals but after several years in the service I decided to give civilian life another try.  You have to remember that up to this point all I had known was military life. I was scared to death, but I still had plan B so if things did not work out in civilian life I could always return back to military life.

 

I went to work as a sales representative with a major company and continued to move up to a management position. After several years in sales I changed careers again and went to work as a loan manager at a major bank. I loved my civilian jobs and I loved my life. I guess you could say that I had the American dream; married with two great kids, a nice house and a dog named Human who I suspected hated me. 

 

I remember an unknown author who said “the only sure thing we know about life is that change will happen, be it good or bad.” Needless to say my change was really, really bad. My eighteen year marriage fell apart, I had several bad investments, and finally a job lay off.

 

The good life as I had known it was gone and I had helped the process by abusing drugs and alcohol which pretty much guarantees a meltdown in life. Here I was, without a wife, kids and job which presented me with the abnormal life of homelessness.  The self-centered, smug, and stuck up self was replaced by shame, embarrassment and guilt. Here I was sleeping on the streets, standing in line for meals, and hoping I could get myself out of this situation before I got myself killed.  Oh yeah, remember plan B? Now, I am too old to return to the military.

 

After one year and five months of living a homeless life, I realized that I really needed help. I’ll call it a ‘lifeline’ because I was drowning mentally and spiritually.  I decided to enter a program at The Stewpot called STEP (Stewpot Transitional Employment Program). This program was God sent for me; the people actually cared about my well being. Some of the people I met while in the STEP program have become true friends.  It is also while participating in this program that I learned about another plan.  I will call it plan G, God’s plan. 

 

Plan G is the reason I decided to write my story. I truly believe that God orchestrated this path for me, not because I am a bad person, but because I needed to be humbled.  I now understand that life is full of ups and downs, twist and turns and things that don’t always go as planned, but through God’s grace and faith nothing is too big to overcome. This journey has been the best thing that has ever happened to me.

 

Today, I am working as the dining room coordinator at the Second Chance Café, located at The Bridge. This gives me the opportunity to work with some of the best volunteers in the City of Dallas. My job is to make sure that the dining room runs smoothly while the meals are being served to the homeless population accessing services at The Bridge.

 

I thank everyone who has helped me along the way, but first and foremost, I thank God for his/her grace and understanding.

 

Reprinted from the October 2008 issue of Street Zine [http://thestewpot.org/streetzine.asp].

Sleeping On the Hard Streets of Dallas September 9, 2008

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

 

Sleeping Among the Homeless on the Hard Streets of Dallas

by David Timothy (AKA SoupMan)

 

In 2003, on a wing and a prayer (s) I started a nonprofit charity called the SoupMobile. We are a ‘mobile’ soup kitchen that feeds the homeless in the Dallas area. In those five years we have progressed from serving 5,000 meals per year to serving over 125,000 meals per year. The SoupMobile has changed from a virtual one-man operation to an organization that has an army of volunteers, donors, supporters and prayer warriors.

 

During this past five years I have worked the homeless streets of Dallas on almost a daily basis. And while my given name is David Timothy, on the streets of Dallas the homeless call me the SoupMan. During that time I have been privileged to meet and come to know thousands upon thousands of homeless men and women. I have fed them, bandaged their cuts and wounds, become friends with them, laughed with them, cried with them, visited them in jail, sat with them in the large cardboard boxes they call home, watched them fail miserably, and at times watched them succeed beyond anyone’s wildest dreams.  Yet there was one thing I hadn’t done. I had never slept overnight on the streets among the homeless.

 

In the winter of 2007 I decided I would forgo my cushy bed and peaceful nights behind locked doors and venture out onto the hard streets of Dallas. I decided to do this for two reasons. One was to show solidarity and support for my homeless friends, and the second was to find out ‘up close and personal’ what it was like to sleep on the streets just like the homeless do every night.  I did not tell anyone of my plans.  I knew if I did they would try to talk me out of it.  I was committed and determined to follow through. So during the winter of 2007, I slept out on the streets overnight with the homeless on two separate occasions. 

 

I carried a backpack loaded with a thin blanket, a bottled water, a sandwich and a granola bar. I carried $2.00 in my pocket. I had made it a point not to eat any food that day. I wanted to hit the streets feeling the same hunger the homeless did.  I did not take my car, but put on my backpack and hiked to the location where I would be sleeping outside with the homeless. That first night out on the streets was not a fun night. It wasn’t like sleeping in the backyard of my house in a tent when I was a kid. In fact it was cold, dark and windy. I’m not embarrassed to admit that it was a little scary. There were no locked doors, no police protection, and I had to fall asleep trusting that none of the hundreds of people sleeping around me would do me wrong.   

 

Here are some of my impressions of that first night. As I lay upon a slab of blacktop and was huddled under my thin blanket, I noticed how incredibly cold it was. It seemed the blacktop just radiated the cold right up into my bones. Of course there was no thermostat to turn up the heat, and I couldn’t go into my closet to get an extra blanket. And just like the hundreds of other homeless people out there, I was on my own.  I carefully hoarded the small amount of food that I brought with me. I knew once it was gone, that was it. No midnight visits to the fridge and no late night trips to the 7/11 store.

 

One of the moments I will never forget was about midnight when I was finally able to start to drift off to sleep.  In those final minutes as my breathing slowed and my eyelids started to droop, I realized I was going to be sleeping and had absolutely no protection against anyone doing me harm. No locked doors, no police protection, and no recourse if trouble started. For me those last few minutes before I fell to sleep were the diciest moments of the entire affair.

 

Finally sleep came, and then all too suddenly I heard voices shouting. Okay, ‘time to get up, get a move on’.  It was 5:30 AM, pitch black, and some security guy was moving us off the blacktop parking lot where we had bedded down for the night.  We all scurried about gathering up our things and getting ready to hit the road. No morning cup of coffee, no hot breakfast, no reading the morning paper, and no early morning conversations with your fellow nighttime blacktop bunk mates. 

 

The first thing I noticed as I was gathering up my belongings was that it was even more incredibly cold, and I had absolutely no way to get warm. After a night of sleeping on the blacktop my bones were stiff and my hands seemed frozen. And I was hungry. The night before I had decided to save my granola bar. Oh, was I glad I did!  I greedily opened up the wrapping and carefully ate every bit of the bar, even the crumbs. I even licked the wrapper when I was finished. So with breakfast over I finished packing up.  Security kept pushing us to get going. In those next few moments hundreds of homeless people started moving out in different directions and vanishing into the pitch black morning that seemed as if it was still night. 

 

As I moved out with stiff limbs and cramped cold feet, I knew where I was heading. I was hiking it back to my place. But that hike back wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be. Here I was hiking through deserted dark streets with a backpack on my back and $2.00 in my pocket. I felt like a marked man. I was alone and had absolutely no one else to rely on if trouble materialized. What if some unscrupulous guys decided I was an easy mark? What could I give them if I was stopped? My two dollars? Somehow I didn’t think they would be satisfied with that. 

 

I also felt like a marked man in another way. What if the police saw me hiking through the darkened streets at 6:00 AM in the morning with a backpack on? Would they think I was up to no good? Would they ask what the heck I was doing out there? What would I tell them?  Hey officers, its okay, I’m the SoupMan, and I just wanted to spend a night out with my homeless friends to show them support. Oh yeah, I’m sure that would have been totally convincing.

 

Fortunately I made it home safely that first night without any trouble from the bad guys or the police. So having survived that first night sleeping with the homeless, I decided I needed to do it one more time just to be sure that the first time out had been the real thing.  A few weeks later I ventured out again and slept on that same blacktop parking lot with hundreds of homeless people. Guess what. It was almost an identical repeat of the first time. Still no fun, still dark, still cold, still hungry and I still felt like a marked man as I hiked back home in the dark the next morning.

 

So what did this whole experience do for me? Well, it gave me an empathy for the homeless that went beyond anything I had ever known. I had already built up an incredible compassion for the homeless as I had fed them the last five years, but now it went even deeper. In those two nights I got to experience what they have to go through every night. All the uncertainty, all the fear, all the hunger and the feeling of being a marked man.

 

It also gave me a renewed thankfulness to the Lord for what I do have. Whenever I get the urge to complain or grumble about my circumstances, I just think back to those two nights on the streets, and I quickly look upward and thank the Lord for what I do have.  I am truly a blessed man!

 

David Timothy is the founder and Executive Director of the SoupMobile.  The preceding story will be included in his upcoming book on his experiences.  Stay tuned!

In the Midst of Them August 27, 2008

Regarding people who are homeless in Dallas…

 

“We are called to serve them. They are the least of these in our community, and Jesus has taken up residence with them, according to the gospel, and he is to be found in their midst. We exist to serve Christ, and according to Matthew 25, that’s where Christ is, so we serve them.”

 

                                                    ~~Dr. Joe Clifford, Senior Pastor                                                                                                                             First Presbyterian Church, Dallas, Texas                                                                                                             Dallas Observer, December 13, 2007

 

                                                                                                                      

Guest Commentary by Pat Spradley August 15, 2008

Thursday, August 14, 2008

 

America, The Land of Unequal Opportunity

by Pat Spradley

 

Homeless people are not all the same.

Homeless people are not all the same. There are some who for some reason, no matter what you do, will never break out of the homeless trap they are in. That might be due to mental illness, drug use, alcohol addiction, disability or a multitude of reasons, many of them cumulative. These are the individuals who require assisted housing with social service support, or they will just return to the streets. In some cases, they will return to the streets even with supportive services, and there is nothing we can do about it. Fortunately, this is a minority among homeless individuals, and most often these are the ones you will encounter during your day-to-day activities on the street. Unfortunately, too many of us keep that perception of homeless people in our minds, unwittingly thinking it is representative of all of the homeless population.

 

What about the majority?

The majority of homeless individuals and families are down on their luck. They may be suffering from the consequences of poor decisions, abuse, and loss of work, injury or other unfortunate circumstances.  In these cases, a little help and encouragement can go a long way. These are individuals who are seeking a chance to start over or just need a little help to get them back on their feet.  Many are individuals who just need someone to have faith in them, offer encouragement and give them a hand when assistance is needed. In many cases, with proper help and guidance early on, these individuals will escape homelessness never to return. Unfortunately, it is this population that often has the most difficulty getting the help they need and may find themselves caught in a downward spiral with no hope.

 

Why is this happening?

The squeaky wheel approach is being taken, and those who are seen and wanted out of sight are getting the focus. In the process, there is no safety net, or giant holes are created in the small net that is there, for those who could be saved from chronic homelessness early on. They are left with very little help, especially single men who are childless. It does not take long for the social stigma and predicament to take a toll on these individuals, and our opportunity to help with minimal assistance is lost. They are trapped in no man’s land and left to flounder on their own. They are in survival mode, and a whole new psyche evolves. Depression overwhelms them; many develop drug or alcohol habits just to cope. They aren’t bad people, they just give up hope or learn to survive in a different world than the housed.

 

Prevent homelessness with opportunity.

Everyone in this great country deserves an opportunity for meaningful work and a roof over their head to compensate for that work.  Job skills differ, and we are not all learning abled in the same way.  We know that jobs at all levels need to be performed to keep a healthy economy.  We must recognize that the need for affordable housing in ALL areas is needed to support ALL workers, including those who may be differently abled or performing in the lower-paying jobs.  That should include being able to live in the neighborhood where you work.  More affordable housing is needed in all areas and needed now.

Our one-size-fits-all method of education must change.  It is time, once again, to start teaching trades and skills in schools that prepare youths who are not college material how to make a meaningful living and life for themselves. Not everyone is college material, and we must stop selling the fallacy that no degree equals failure.  We need people with trade skills and always will.  Create and encourage job training programs in our schools which will create opportunity. This will prevent homelessness for many and offer an escape from homelessness for others.

Every homeless person has a story, and we must remember that their story is as unique and different as each individual we encounter.  In a democracy, you will never find a level playing field for all, but there is more we can do to help those who desire to succeed. It may be a different degree or level of success than our own but no less important.

 

Pat Spradley is the Editor of Street Zine, a newspaper which provides self-help for people living in poverty.

Desiree July 27, 2008

Friday, July 25, 2008

 

I have long since learned that I can’t save people, or so I tell myself.  So I go to the Bridge to help serve dinner on Friday nights to listen to the people there who are homeless and catch up on their news, to express my love for them and, most of all, to strive to understand them, the situations around them, and the solutions to their dilemmas.  Inherent in the process is a perplexing conundrum:  the more I learn, the less I seem to know.

 

I also go to be part of a community made up of  homeless friends and strangers, and of like-minded friends of the homeless who are doing what I do… a community that is more changeable than most, more transient than most, but one that now has a central and generally safe place, the Bridge, to manifest itself.

 

Tonight, good news continued to pour in through the door of the dining hall there, the Second Chance Cafe, run by the Stewpot of First Presbyterian Church:  this couple and that individual were moving into apartments;  a significant number of new, blue-badged Residents came through, and, when asked how it was going, the news was all positive;  C., a friend who is pregnant and has been on the street for years, has moved in with her sister and is reuniting with her family at Christmas;  G. and his partner are moving in with his brother in Missouri;  Tony is starting work and school;  a young woman who had begun her G.E.D. a long time ago at Martin Luther King Center, then let it lag, completed it this week.  (It is not a stretch to guess that having an address at the Bridge, a place to shower and stow her belongings, to eat regular meals, to sleep in safety — that being able to devote her energy to studying rather than to raw survival — had reenergized an educational process that had previously stalled out.)  One sad observation:  an increasing number of people that I see there look as if they just walked straight out of the suburbs.

 

There were at least four birthdays tonight:  one girl turned nineteen, another, twenty-one.  A man named Pops played piano beautifully during dinner, while another man sang.  At one point, a diner walked up to the glass partition of the cafeteria line and, spreading his arms out to the sides in a gesture of magnanimity, said to the row of volunteers facing him who were filling plates with food, “When we see your faces there… it just truly, truly blesses us!”  The love flowed from this man, the love that I see in most people’s eyes but which is hard for some of them to express.  There was visible emotion in the faces of the volunteers after his declaration.

 

As people entered the dining hall, ate dinner and exited by the hundreds, there came through the line a friend of mine, a woman I haven’t seen since a rainy night in May, 2007.  I am fond of this woman — let’s call her Desiree — have asked about her often since that time, and know she’s had some good times and some really bad ones in the interim.  Tonight when I saw her she was much thinner, and she was a slim woman to begin with.

 

The last time I saw her happened to coincide with an evening when then-mayoral candidate (now mayor) Tom Leppert and his son, Ryan, visited the Day Resource Center and helped feed dinner to hundreds of people in the pouring rain.  Desiree had entered the Day Resource Center parking lot that evening bruised and battered.  When she came through the food line, I took her around behind the table where Mr. Leppert was dishing up and handing out plates of hot casserole, and I said to him, “This is Desiree.  She’s been beaten up twice today.”  “Desiree,” he said, “Stand right here beside me and talk to me.”  (That was the moment he got my vote.)  And she did, conversing with him for a long time.

 

Desiree’s the sort of person who is so intelligent, well-spoken and personable that you feel she should be running a company somewhere.  She’s someone you want to choose to be the representative of something — a person who knows how to sum things up and speak about them clearly.  And she’s someone from whom you can get the straight scoop.  I was so glad to see her tonight, hugged her tight, and asked if she could catch me up on herself after the meal.

 

After dinner, when I had left the dining room and was sitting talking with some friends and other volunteers at a table on the Bridge campus, she found me there.  She had changed clothes and put on makeup — looked beautiful — and was going out to meet a friend.

 

She questioned me about knee surgery I’d had, wanting to know how it was healing.  “And what about you?” I asked.  She said to me point blank, “I am exactly the same as when you saw me before, no different.”  This meant to me that she felt she’d made no progress, was battling her old demons, was still up and down and struggling.  “I lived with my family for a while.  Then it didn’t work out.  Now I’m… you know, back out here… just the same.”  She shrugged.  We continued talking.  “Have you thought about the possibility of becoming a resident here?” I asked  “I’m hoping to get in as a resident soon.  I’m on the list and am going to as many of the [educational] meetings they want me to attend as I can.  Might as well.  I’ve got nothing but time.”  “Please don’t give up on yourself, Desiree,” I told her,  “You have what it takes.  I hope you believe that.”  I certainly believe it.  She is one of the people I’ve always known would make it because of her capabilities.  

 

But after she left, after I stayed and talked to people for a while, then began the drive home, the thought came to me — accompanied by a fear that gripped my stomach — what if she didn’t make it?  It’s a crazy thing.  Sometimes the people you think wouldn’t have the slimmest chance of getting their lives together — just do it.  And sometimes those whose success you believe you could take to the bank — struggle much harder.  Before tonight, I had never thought of her as one of the latter, or thought that her success and recovery were not a given.  With some people you can let it go.  With others, it’s a bigger challenge, who knows why?  She’s one of those.  

 

I am hoping and praying that Desiree gets into the Bridge Residents’ program.  And I am hoping that she will soon be one of the miracles walking through the door of the dining hall there at the Bridge, the Second Chance Cafe, telling us her good news. 

 

KS

Successes at the Bridge July 15, 2008

Friday, 7/11/08

 

I was walking around the dining room tonight, serving water during the last part of dinner at the Bridge.  When I sat down by J., a woman I know who has been on the street for many years, to ask her how things were going, I guess I was unconsciously expecting her to say, ‘Oh, fine, fine,’ because that’s what she always says.  J. is a perennially upbeat individual who never asks for anything except vitamins.  She is someone who would be designated as ‘chronically homeless,’ although I hate that label.  And she did say, “Oh, fine, fine.”  I was also expecting the ‘rest of the story’ to be the same as usual — that she was still struggling, still on the street.  But I asked anyway:  “Are you getting to sleep inside here at the Bridge sometimes?”  Was she choosing to stay inside the gates of the Bridge campus at night, I wondered?

 

“I’m a resident!” she informed me proudly, which meant she had qualified for one of the 100 private sleeping cubicles inside the Bridge.  I was delighted to hear this.  “You are?  Congratulations!  What do you have to do to qualify to stay there?” I asked.  “Take my medication regularly, and participate in all their programs, everything they have through MHMR (Mental Health and Mental Retardation.)”  She was happy with how things are going, and we talked for a while longer.  Then she confided to me, “What I do is just avoid everybody I knew before [meaning people that could get her into trouble.]  I stay in my room and read my book.  The room is really nice.  I’m moving into an apartment this month!  Pray for me that I’ll keep doing well.”  “Believe me, I will,” I promised her.  I thought to myself that the Bridge is doing exactly what it was designed to do.  Getting people off the street, getting them stabilized, then moving them into permanent supportive housing.

 

J. and I exchanged hugs, and I moved on around the dining room with my water pitcher.  After a while I stopped to talk with a friendly man I’d never met.  “So how’s it going?”  “Fine.  I start a new job on Monday as a courier.”  “Terrific, did you get the job through the placement program here?”  “Yes,” he said, “I’m a resident, and I’ve gone through all the programs here.  I’ve qualified for an apartment, and I move in this week.”  Two for two!!!  I couldn’t believe it.  I hadn’t started the night looking for success stories, but they were finding me.  

 

I sat down with him, learned his name is Tony.  He had become homeless after a divorce.  His elderly parents are in assisted living and couldn’t take him in when things fell apart.  But now he was quite pleased that he would be in a position to help them since he was getting back on his feet.  I congratulated him and moved on, as dinner was coming to an end.

 

I left the dining hall with my friend, David Timothy of SoupMobile, who was also volunteering that night.  When we passed through the gates of the Bridge to the sidewalk beyond, a man approached us.  This individual, someone David knew from his years of being a licensed mobile feeder of the homeless in Dallas, had recently been badly beaten up.  David examined the man’s right eye and the side of his face, blue and very swollen, and took note of the drying blood, cuts and scratches all over his face and arms.  He then went off to his car to get the man a bottle of cold water, and, by the time he returned, a Dallas Police officer had pulled on blue medical gloves and was talking to the beating victim.  Within a matter of seconds, an ambulance pulled up, and the man was helped into the back of the ambulance where EMT’s began treating him on the spot.

 

I don’t know if I can express how rare it is in my experience to see street people get instantaneous medical care (unless they are working with a non-profit.)  Unfortunately, it’s tragically commonplace for them to be injured because of the rough life on the street.  I remember a night when a beating victim, someone I knew named G., sat on the sidewalk in front of the the Day Resource Center, and many of us felt extremely grateful that there happened to be a young doctor volunteering with the church group feeding people that night who had a first aid kit in his car, so that he could kneel in front of G. (who, in addition to having been beaten, had been burned with cigarettes) and patch him up before G. went on his way into the night.

 

While the beating victim was getting settled into the ambulance in front of the Bridge, I talked to another friend, D., who has also been on the street for many years.  Turns out, she appears to be Success Story #3 for the night, as she is now a Resident at the Bridge and is working on getting her state I.D. in order to complete her job search and get hired.  D. raised her t-shirt a few inches to show me her tummy that stuck out from her ribs about 1/4 inch.  “I’m even gaining weight!”  she said proudly.  “Yeah, well, wish I had your problem,” I said, and we had a good laugh.

 

I know there are setbacks at the Bridge, and maybe I’m just focusing on the upside.  But to see people getting off the street, into apartments, into jobs, into mental health treatment, into rehabilitation where needed makes me tremendously optimistic.

 

The Bridge staff clearly has its hand full dealing with homeless / business / downtown resident / police relations.  Also, the leadership is struggling to find a balance between the need for rules and an ‘open-door’ policy.  But frankly, these bumps in the road are to be expected with such a vulnerable population as people who are homeless.  Running the Bridge is not a task for the faint of heart, to be sure.  And this is not to say great things haven’t been done over the years at places like the Stewpot.  But the numbers simply overwhelm the private sector.  Having seen how things have been for so many years here in Dallas, and having felt so often discouraged by what the future might hold, I am truly very heartened by what I see happening now in the lives of individual homeless people and the homeless population as a whole.  Miracles abound.  

 

Tony (Success Story #2) said this to me at dinner:  “For those who want to get help, everything they need is here,” and he pointed to the main buildings of the Bridge.  That’s a recommendation from someone for whom it’s not just theoretical.  

 

The fact that the Bridge is actually delivering on its promise to get people off the street amidst a ‘tidal wave’ of need and numbers that are much greater than anticipated says to me, once again:  a majority of Dallas citizens voted for that blessed $23 million bond package a few years back, despite well-funded opposition to its passage.  Enlightened leadership has put together a state-of-the-art facility.  Week after week, in spite of setbacks, construction delays and critics, it actually seems to be working.  Go, Dallas!

 

KS

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

‘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

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

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

 

 

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