Streamlined December 12, 2009

Saturday, December 12, 2009

Written December 2, 2009

Streamlined

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

~~ Matthew 5:42

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

My emotions seem to have become streamlined, too.

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

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

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

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

KS

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

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

What a Night! December 4, 2009

Friday, December 4, 2009

Dallas International Street Church Celebrates It’s Twelfth Anniversary

Last evening, the Dallas International Street Church and Ministries celebrated it’s Twelfth Anniversary, and the event at the church at 2706 Second Avenue was great fun, quite moving and extremely inspiring.  Founder and Senior Pastor Karen Dudley got the ‘call’ twelve years ago to minister to her sisters and brothers who are living on the street — truly out of options — and she has, from then to now, answered that call with a love, persistence and dedication few could emulate.

The music, as always at the DISC, was of the ‘make-you-wanna-get-up,-dance-and-shout-hallelujah’ variety.  You can’t not clap and sing along, and, if you’re not careful, you’ll soon find yourself on your feet, even if it is a formal do, like last night.  My favorite entertainment was the Praise Dance, reminiscent of Martha Graham done with great reverence.

Needless to say, the most moving part of the night was the series of stories and testimonies from the church Discipleship relating how Pastor Karen’s love and faith have helped them to relinquish the darkness in which they were living and to begin walking a clean, clear path of faith and action in Christ.  The stories are stunning.  One of the women began her testimony with the words:  ”My background is in prostitution and crack addiction.”  When she described how Pastor Karen once walked into a local drug house to get her and said, “You’re coming with me,” I doubt there was a dry eye in the room.

City Councilperson Carolyn Davis attended the party, and she seemed moved by what she learned of the Street Ministry.  In her speech, she said, “When I’ve driven by this building in the past, I’ve had no idea of all that was going on here.  I’m committed to helping you in any way I can.  This is what church should be:  helping the poor and needy among us.”

I don’t know how Pastor Karen does it, but she seems to go forward on the rocky and extremely challenging path she’s chosen with a humility and lack of ego that are rare in the nonprofit world.  But, if you ask her, she’ll brush aside the question with the quick answer, “It’s not me doing it.”

The event was organized by Pastor Karen, the church Discipleship, and church Business Manager Judith Sturrock, and they all did a superb job.  We had delicious barbecue dinner and a wonderful time, and, as always when I show up at the DISC, I took away with me a peace and a joy which pass all understanding.

KS

www.kdministries.org

To read about a recent experience Dr. Janet Morrison (Central Dallas Ministries Director of Education) had at the Dallas International Street Church, click here:

http://janetmorrison.blogspot.com/2009/11/whats-in-your-community.html

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

Some Things Don’t Change: Kim Horner & Thackeray May 11, 2009

Sunday, May 10, 2009

 

Some Things Don’t Change

 

If you haven’t yet read Part 2 in Kim Horner’s series in the Dallas Morning News and seen Courtney Perry’s moving photographs about chronic homelessness in Dallas, you’ve missed something vital to understanding the complicated picture of this challenging problem.  Kim’s latest piece blends heart and head in the way in which she excels.  When I finished reading it, I felt both sad and relieved, because it gives context to what I’ve experienced for years but have not fully understood: the human cost of gaps and inadequate services for our people without homes in Dallas.

 

As mental health support wanes, many doomed to homelessness

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/050309dnmethomeless.40533a2.html

 

I’ve had the privilege of getting to know Kim a little bit in the past few months, and I’ve found her to be a kind and trustworthy individual who tells it like it is, ‘gets it’ at many levels, and is able to synthesize complicated information successfully:  facts, analysis, compassion without sensation.  She knows one doesn’t have to engage in hyperbole in reporting on her ‘beat’, because the situation on the streets of Dallas is heartbreaking enough without it.

 

Another person who ‘got it’ — and frequently expressed ‘it’ in scathing terms — was William Makepeace Thackeray, when he was writing the novel Vanity Fair (1847-48).  This literary masterpiece, which has been called by some ‘the greatest novel in English,’ is gaining ground in my affections, alongside Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, as one of my favorite stories of all time.  I first read it in high school and didn’t appreciate it — or understand it — at all. Reading it now, I can only absorb a page or two at a sitting because I find it so dense in meaning and altogether pertinent to modern-day society, and to homelessness in particular.

 

These passages from Vanity Fair speak for themselves:

 

“‘There must be classes — there must be rich and poor,’ Dives says, smacking his claret…  Very true;  but think how mysterious and often unaccountable it is — that lottery of life which gives to this man the purple and fine linen, and sends to the other rags for garments and dogs for comforters….  

The hidden and awful Wisdom which apportions the destinies of mankind is pleased so to humiliate and cast down the tender, good, and wise;  and to set up the selfish, the foolish, or the wicked.  Oh, be humble, my brother, in your prosperity!  Be gentle with those who are less lucky, if not more deserving.  Think, what right have you to be scornful, whose virtue is a deficiency of temptation, whose success may be a chance, whose rank may be an ancestor’s accident, whose prosperity is very likely a satire?”

 

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

 

With No Conditions March 21, 2009

 

Saturday, March 21, 2009

 

I clipped this out of The Angelus, my church’s newsletter, several years ago.  Knowing it’s Lent now rather than Advent, still it can speak to us poignantly.  KS

 

With No Conditions

 

“The day after Thanksgiving the New York Times told [the story] of a 33-year-old local cab driver…  About five years ago, this cabby ‘prayed to God for guidance on how to help the forgotten people of the streets who exist in life’s shadows.’ As he recalls it, God replied:  ’Make eight pounds of spaghetti, throw it in a pot, give it out on 103rd Street and Broadway with no conditions, and people will come.’  He did, they came, and now he goes from door to door giving people food to eat.  

I am not asking you to stuff the Big Apple with spaghetti, but a New York cabby can bring light into your Advent night.  He prayed to a God who was there;  he listened;  he gave the simple gift God asked of him;  he gave ‘with no conditions’;  and people responded.  Here is your Advent: 

 

Make the Christ who has become a reality, a living light, in your life and in some other life.  Give of yourself… to one dark soul… with no conditions.”

               ~~Written by Walter J. Burghardt (from The Angelus, Newsletter of Church of the Incarnation [Episcopal])

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/

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/

The Urgent Importance of Parent Education November 1, 2008

Saturday, November 1, 2008

 

The Urgent Importance of Parent Education

 

When I say I think there’s no social issue that’s more important than parent education, I mean it literally.

 

Have you ever been in a grocery store and seen a parent jerking or smacking around a child?  Have you struggled with how to intervene without making the situation worse?  Have you been the parent who reacts to your child in a way that you’re less than proud of?  WHO HASN’T???

 

Almost always, a few simple skills or ‘tricks of the parenting trade’ can make a dramatic difference in the way we react, or don’t react, to our children and, in turn, in the way they respond to us.  Diffusing a stressful situation rather than reacting with resistance and anger can make all the difference in the outcome.  But it’s difficult or impossible to do this if you don’t know how, and even harder if you ‘don’t know that you don’t know’.  

 

Also, stress and fatigue can play a big role in parenting, so self-care is essential, something it’s taken me way too long to learn.  My friend, David, has told me often, ‘put the oxygen mask on yourself first and on your child second, just like in an airplane emergency.’  I thought this was an oversimplification until I really thought it through and lived it through.  It’s actually quite profound.

 

This relates to homelessness in a very direct way.  So often when I talk with people who are homeless, particularly those who’ve been on the street for a long time, I’ll hear some reference to being ‘knocked around’ as a child.  They are not complaining.  They think that’s the way the world is.  And on some level, they seem to feel they ‘had it coming.’

 

I was impacted by a comment on this blog made by David Scott in response to the post, “Looking For And Finding Good Things”:

“Contrary to popular belief, most homeless did not become so out of choice. Most did not become homeless because they are lazy, stupid, or immoral. Many homeless people are victims of abuse in the form of neglect and abandonment by their parents or other caregivers.  Like many victims of abuse, a lot of them have chemical dependency problems. Their existence is so miserable that they use alcohol or other drugs as an escape.”  [blog:  http://www.FreetheGods.com/phts/]

 

I remember a billboard I saw in my hometown almost a decade ago which read something like:  “Spend money on parenting and education in early childhood, or spend it on prisons later.”  Dramatic and simple but profoundly true.  I look around me and see so many costly social problems that began in early childhood.

 

Recently my older daughter sought and found a book that addressed a particular issue she was having with one of her children.  When she changed her behavior with him, his behavior changed noticeably for the better.  What impressed me most was that she moved, actively, to find a solution, and was willing to examine her own part in the puzzle and make changes in the way she approached her child, which led to changes in him.

 

To be human is to have problems.  To be wise is to move to solve them.  I wish parenting classes were a mandatory part of parenthood, but, alas, there comes the issue of yet another government program.  I heard a report on National Public Radio tonight on an organization called “Roots of Empathy” and the positive impact it is having on reducing bullying among the population it serves.  The report emphasized that the most important aspect of any relationship is empathy.  If we don’t feel the ‘other’ has pain and that their pain matters, we have no problem inflicting suffering on them. [http://www.rootsofempathy.org/]

 

This also made me think of our homeless friends.  So often, we think it’s ‘them’ and ‘us’… until we meet them face to face, and see that they are us.  Empathy.

 

KS

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

 

                                                                                                                      

Pregnant and On the Street August 19, 2008

Current Journal

Tuesday, 8/19/08

 

I had this experience two years ago.  I befriended a young street couple;  the woman was pregnant.  I tried in vain to help them find temporary housing.  The short version of the story was that I spent many hours calling every nonprofit I’d ever heard of on their behalf (they didn’t have access to a telephone), and the couple didn’t fit the criteria for any of the programs I contacted because they weren’t married and wouldn’t separate.  They wanted to marry but couldn’t because the man’s identification documents had been stolen, and there were complications from his background in getting them reissued.   

 

I didn’t know a lot about the different organizations who were helping the homeless at that time, and I could write a book on what I learned from that experience.  Things are much better in Dallas since then, especially with the Bridge providing a central location for services.  One thing that was evident then and still is: there were many groups helping the homeless in their own small and valuable way, few of them knew what the other was doing, and none of them could help my friends.

 

The couple ended up moving from the street into an abandoned building in Deep Ellum, then to underneath a bridge, where she miscarried.  It was maddening, trying to put together a puzzle that actually did involve life and death — with many of the pertinent pieces missing.  I simply couldn’t believe that in a city this size, with wealth this predominant, there wasn’t a housing program that would accommodate them together temporarily until the baby was born.  Guess what?  To my knowledge, there still isn’t.

 

Christian organizations do most of the ‘heavy lifting’ with the homeless and depend on church congregations for financial support.  Since the church does not condone living together without marriage, service providers that are connected to the Christian faith community do not generally allow unmarried couples to be housed together in their programs.

 

I might as well go ahead and appall my fellow feminists here and say that I hold a pro-life stance, so I am going to proceed to call the living being within a woman’s belly a child.  If we are going to address this problem of homeless women staying on the street while they’re pregnant and put the unborn child first — first above our ideas of the morality or immorality of conceiving a child out of wedlock — then we have to revisit housing pregnant street mothers who are unwilling to give up living with their street husbands and consider housing them together.  These couples are often married in their own eyes but not married legally or in the eyes of society.

 

Here’s why:  most of those women that I’ve known won’t separate from the man they are with while they are homeless.  They will stay on the street rather than go into housing alone because, along with the emotional and physical attachment they have to ‘their man’, he has been and is their protection — in fact, often their very survival.  The woman I spoke about in the first paragraph told me that, even when she was with her ‘man’ — and he was big, tough, and strong — other men on the street reached out and grabbed at her body frequently, pregnancy notwithstanding.

 

Another thing:  I’m not a person who generally feels I need to be taken care of, but when I was pregnant, this changed.  I felt particularly vulnerable during this phase of married life.  Many other comfortable, middle-class women I know have said the same thing, and one can imagine the magnification of this if one were homeless.

 

People will say these women should think twice before they get pregnant while homeless.  How about this statistic?  I have been told that at least 25% of socially and legally recognized marriages are ‘shotgun’ weddings, and that’s a conservative number of those that are willing to admit to their situation.  But in ‘polite society’, we can rush up the wedding or hedge the conception date.  Unplanned pregnancies happen in all segments of society, but homeless women can’t hide theirs behind closed doors.  Do I think it’s the world’s greatest plan to conceive a child while one’s living on the street?  Of course not, but it’s happening, and that’s the reality.

 

It is all well and good to carefully screen the individuals we let into our nonprofit programs and then report marvelous numbers and statistics of success about how well we’ve served them.  What about the people who don’t meet our narrow criteria?  What if those people are carrying around a new life within them?  What’s our priority?

 

Many years ago, my cousin, Lyn, whom I deeply admire, founded a pilot program for pregnant teens at an inner-city high school in a poverty-and-crime-ridden area in my hometown.  She and her organization, the Junior League, built a day-care center on the school grounds for the children to be cared for while the parents finished high school, and required both the mothers and fathers to take parenting classes, which the center provided.  The program was tremendously successful.  Many young women graduated from high school who would have dropped out, attended college, raised their children and had successful lives because of Lyn’s program.  It became a national model.  The most important part to me was that much better mothers and fathers were created because of the parenting training, and all kinds of problems were circumvented because of those new skills.  I was utterly amazed to learn later that some people in town complained that Lyn and her program were causing teen pregnancies!

 

I call myself a Christian, and I am a churchgoer at that.  Still, call my viewpoint pragmatism or moral relativism if you will.  But we cannot claim to honor unborn life and then fail to do every single thing in our power to facilitate its well-being because we do not approve of the lifestyle choices of the parents involved.  Housing those parents together, regardless of paperwork, in order to give them some stability, guidance, protection and structure would be a start.

 

KS

 

This article is linked to the following:

http://larryjamesurbandaily.blogspot.com/2008/09/pregnant-and-on-street-reality.html#comments

http://www.everydaycitizen.com/2008/09/pregnant_on_the_street_and_don.html