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

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

Sunday, August 16, 2009

 

The Soloist:  Friendship and Freedom of Choice

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

“Force him…”

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

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

 

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

 

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

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

 

Karen Shafer

 

The 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

 

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

Arrested & Jailed: Sherry Parker, Poet January 28, 2009

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

 

Arrested & Jailed

 

Three days after the Bridge closed its courtyard for sleeping and the subsequent police sweeps began, Sherry Parker and her boyfriend, Sarge, were arrested for ‘criminal trespass’, which in this case meant sleeping in public on private property, and spent ten days in jail.  I had heard about this through the ‘grapevine’ when I went looking for them in early December and couldn’t find them.

 

The police report of their arrest says they were ‘warned.’  They say not.  Sherry had a clean record;  Sarge had just worked off some tickets through community service.  They were told by the arresting officer that this offense would put a Class B Misdemeanor on their records.

 

Both Sherry and Sarge work full time, but their hours prevent them getting into shelters to sleep, including the Bridge, as they often work evenings. 

 

Sherry, like many women on the street I’ve spoken with, used to sometimes seek shelter and safety on the Bridge campus.

 

I ran into them in late December and sat with them on some steps to get caught up, at which time Sherry handed me the following new poem from her journal.  It was cold on the concrete steps, and they had just been robbed.  As luck would have it, an Anonymous Angel had just filled my car with coats and blankets.

 

Does adding a Class B Misdemeanor to people’s records help them get out of homelessness?  What do you think?

 

KS

 

Always Returning

Always returning

     to some lost place

Where the winds moan softly –

Surrounding me in the emptiness…

Always returning

     in the same swift race

Speeding up gradually;

Enjoying the chase –

Always returning

     to some promised light – 

That beacons out brightly –

Saving souls in the darkness –

Always returning –

     Eternal — to me –

A lost soul —  seeking solace –

Thoughts left bound in their brightness.

copyright Sherry Parker, 12/28/09

 

You may see some of Sherry’s other poetry by clicking on the category “Street Voices” at right.

… ‘And Now We’re In the Woods’ January 15, 2009

Thursday, January 15, 2009

 

I’ve known Scott for years, and, sometimes when I see him, he doesn’t feel like talking.  Sometimes when he talks, his words are so big and he is so erudite that I have to seek out a dictionary in order to understand him. Today, though, his words were simple and to the point.

 

“Where did they all go?” Scott asked me.  Although he himself is homeless, he was referring to the scores of people who used to sleep on the Bridge courtyard at night and have been unable to find shelter elsewhere.  

 

“I think they’re hiding in the woods,” I told him.

 

“This city has a horrible gut in it, and it digests people,” he said.  ”And now we’re in the woods.”

 

KS

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/

Miracle on Second Avenue December 12, 2008

Thursday, December 11, 2008

 

Miracle on Second Avenue

 

Sometimes, through a benevolent combination of circumstances, you get the privilege of walking straight into the heart of Love, and tonight, at the invitation of my friend David Timothy, AKA SoupMan, I got to do that.

 

For months David had been inviting me to visit the Dallas International Street Church with him, but I hadn’t gotten around to it.  Then the story broke today about this tiny, poor, South-Dallas church sheltering homeless people in the hundreds who had been unable to get into the Bridge and other shelters in downtown Dallas.  When I had dropped by the SoupMobile this afternoon to pick up some brochures and chat with David and had learned he was going to the Street Church tonight to deliver some crates of canned food, I jumped at the chance to go with him.

 

All day rumors had been flying about the status of people being allowed to sleep inside the Street Church for tonight (Thursday).  The previous night the Fire Marshall had shut them down for code violations — the church is housed in a very old building south of Fair Park — and for having too many people inside sleeping on the pews, on the floor, anywhere there was a square inch, so that they would not have to sleep outdoors in the subfreezing weather.  The Dallas International Street Church had become the last refuge of many of the Dallas homeless population now that the Bridge had found it necessary to revise its open-door policy to coincide, unfortunately, with cold weather.  The timing of the implementation of this policy change with the advent of subfreezing weather was abysmal, and was resulting in extremely difficult circumstances whose lives are already quite challenging.

 

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

First we’d heard the Fire Department would have a representative stay in the church tonight to keep an eye on things and allow the homeless to shelter there.  Then we’d heard that was a no-go, and that a large open-sided tent the congregation owns — complete with a with an outdoor heater — was to be set up to shelter the homeless behind the church  — not exactly snugly warm, but better than sleeping in the open or on the concrete.

 

We pulled up into the church’s parking lot in the SoupMobile van to unload the food, and I noticed an official City of Dallas vehicle parked outside.  “I think the Fire Marshall is here,” I told David.  In the next moment, a woman came running up to us waving her arms and either laughing or crying — I couldn’t tell which.  It was ‘Queen,’ the de facto shelter director, and she was calling out, “Oh, thank God you’re here.  Did you bring any food?  You’re not going to believe what’s happened!”  The city had relented, it turned out, and was going to allow the homeless to sleep inside after all, with a Fire Marshall present all night to oversee things.  “Look, look, there they come!”  She pointed to a group of people walking along the sidewalk toward the door of the church.  “They’ve walked all the way from downtown!  We were not allowed to go downtown and pick them up in busses [which had been happening earlier in the week], but, if they can walk to here, they can come inside.  We made the rounds of the shelters earlier.  People have to have money and ID’s to get in, but, anyway, the shelters were all full.”

 

Several men came out of the church to unload the van, and we all went inside.  A church service was in progress, loud, spirited, with a gospel band.  Queen took me by the hand and led me through the pews of people, introducing me as we went along.  We sat down in the second row, and, suddenly, both of us began to cry.  She put her arm around me, this sister that I’d never met before tonight, and I leaned my head against her shoulder.  The frustration, the anger, the bewilderment, the stress that this week had brought to everyone who loves and works with Dallas’ homeless people — it poured out of us both to the sound of the searing gospel music as we searched our pockets for Kleenex and looked at each other without the necessity of explaining anything.

 

The sermon, given by a young, dynamic preacher, was pure, was strong, was speaking truth to power without condemning anyone.  “Seven months ago,” he said, “I was an addict, was homeless, hadn’t had a bath, was walking up and down Second Avenue, right out here.”  He pointed toward the front of the church.  Speaking eloquently about letting yourself be willing to shine, he said, “The changes that have happened to me in the past few months should by all rights have taken years.”

 

As the service continued, David took me for a tour of the building.  To say that Pastor Karen Dudley operates the International Street Church on a shoestring is a mild understatement [http://www.kdministries.org/staff.php].  When dinner was served in the kitchen, the plates of the first shift of ten or so people had to be washed before the next round could be fed!   Looking on, David said to me, “Seems just a little bit like the stretching required in the feeding of the loaves and fishes, doesn’t it?”  We laughed.  “Hey,” he commented, “this is a pretty good-looking meal they’re serving tonight, mashed potatoes and meat.  Often they don’t have hot food here at night.  Louis,” he asked the cook, “where did this food come from?”  “From you, SoupMan!” Louis said, “You brought it yesterday, and it’s been in the freezer since then.”  David had forgotten he’d ‘paid it forward’ with some food sent to the SoupMobile by Bakers Ribs!  It was pretty funny.

 

Near us in the kitchen, I noticed a quiet, unobtrusive young man sitting by the wall, observing, and saw that he wore a badge.  I walked over and introduced myself, asking, “Are you with the City?”  “Yes,” he said cordially, “My name is Anthony _____.  I’m the Fire Marshall.”  We expressed our gratitude to him for being there and our happiness that a compromise had been worked out with the city.  He was polite and kind, with a low-key demeanor and good people skills in evidence.

 

Twenty-six code violations were found the previous night when the city had shut the shelter down, and we looked at some of them.  It’s a very old building, and some fix up is in order, to be sure.  The contractor who had graciously volunteered his services to make the repairs and get the building up to code after the story of the shutdown aired on WFAA, Channel 8, is due to arrive at 9 A.M. tomorrow morning (Friday) to get started.

 

We went outside to talk to some people, and Queen came out.  “Guess what?  You’ll never believe it.  That was the Dallas Morning News on the phone just now.  Two people have called in and are going to pay for hotel rooms for a few dozen people tonight!  We’re signing them up right now!”  There were ‘woohoos’ and high-fives all around.  When a [shelter] door closes, sometimes more than one window miraculously opens.

 

By this time, the church service had ended.  We went back in the building for one last look around and noticed a clean-cut, white-shirted man standing across the room with Anthony.  When we approached him, we could read “K. Sipes, Fire Chief” embroidered on his shirt.  It was now 9:40 P.M., and, long day notwithstanding, Deputy Fire Chief Kevin Sipes himself was on the premises to check out how things were going.  We met him, talked to him for a while.  “This compromise seems like a win-win for the homeless and the city,” David said.  “We don’t want people to be out in the cold in this weather,” the Chief told us.

 

After a dispiriting week, it was a very uplifting couple of hours, amid the people who are the poorest of the poor, the most outcast of the outcast.  The gratitude, the love, the truth, the peace that is in that place and among those people does indeed pass all understanding.

 

KS

 

P.S.  Much appreciation to the good people at Channel 8 News, WFAA, for their coverage of this issue.

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

Conversation With the DPD: A Good Man Just Doing His Job December 3, 2008

 

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

 

Conversation With a Dallas Police Officer:  A Good Man ‘Just Doing His Job’

 

Last night at 10:35 P.M. I drove downtown to see for myself what was going on with the homeless people who’d been banned from sleeping in the courtyard of the Bridge and were once again sleeping on the street.  I had heard a rumor that authorities were going to start ticketing homeless people tonight.  I drove down Corsicana Street and turned right onto Park Lane.  Just ahead of me were a small group of homeless individuals sitting or lying on the steps of a ramshackle building across the street from the Bridge and few Dallas Police officers standing in front of them on the sidewalk and street.  There were a couple of police bicycles pulled up there, a scooter of some sort, and, as I sat there, a police cruiser arrived.

 

I stopped my car beside one of the officers and rolled down my window, asking him respectfully, “What’s going on?  Are you ticketing people tonight?”  His face was familiar, and he was polite and forthcoming.  “Right now we’re issuing warnings.  Tomorrow, a list will be drawn up and we’ll go from there.”  I asked for more details:  were there to be warrants and arrests?  “I don’t know.  I just get my orders piece by piece.”  I questioned him further about where the orders were coming from.  City Hall was all he knew, but no specifics.  “I know this must be hard on you guys, too,” I told him.  “No, I’m just doing my job,” he said emphatically.  “Thank you for the information,” I told him.  I made eye contact with a homeless man who was sitting on the sidewalk waiting for his citation from another policeman.  “I wish it could be different,” I said to all concerned.  

 

I used to see the police department differently in these situations.  Around this same time last year, I would have thought of the ticketing officers as enemies of my homeless friends.  Then I sat in a church service at First Presbyterian Church downtown and listened to a sermon by Dr. Joe Clifford around the time 150 to 200 homeless people were taking refuge at night from police arrest by sleeping on that church’s parking lot.  At the end of his moving sermon, Dr. Clifford said a prayer that surprised me:  he prayed with sympathy and with unity for the homeless, for the church, for the city, for the Dallas Police — ALL of whom, he said, were doing the best they could in a difficult situation.  In that moment, my thinking changed from ‘us’ — the homeless and those who advocate for them — and ‘them’ — city officials and police who make and enforce laws that I believe unfairly target the homeless — to ‘all of us, doing the best we know how at this point in time.’

 

Nonetheless, as I drove away and pulled up to a stop light near the Farmer’s Market last evening, I felt devastated by this turn of events.  For the second night in a row, I sat by the Farmer’s Market in my car and wept.  This is what we were putting behind us when the Bridge opened, wasn’t it?  Weren’t the days of huddled and miserable human beings sleeping on the cold concrete of our city streets being roused from their brief rest by uniformed men, ‘just doing their jobs’, issuing them citations for ‘sleeping in public,’ ‘obstructing the sidewalk,’ and any number of other ordinances designed to specifically get the homeless out of public view… weren’t those days now going to be behind us for good?

 

I pulled over into a driveway and ‘phoned a friend’ who knows the situation.  He, too, was stunned by this turn of events.  Neither of us could believe that, a year later, after all that has come to pass, we are back to this.  God help us all, then and now.

 

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

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].

The Poorest of the Poor and Forgiveness September 24, 2008

Journal Archives

Friday, 2/24/06                                                                                                                                        

Blogger’s Note:  This incident took place in 2006.  The situation for homeless people in Dallas has improved considerably since then, particularly with the advent of our new homeless assistance center, the Bridge, in May, 2008. Also, I believe that the current city administration is sensitive to and proactive in finding solutions to the issues surrounding homelessness.  KS

 

The Poorest of the Poor and Forgiveness

“…to love Him in the distressing disguise of the poorest of the poor.” 

                                                                                                             ~~Mother Teresa

 

On Wednesday, I went out with David Timothy of SoupMobile and another volunteer to feed several hundred people at the Day Resource Center, currently the City of Dallas’s only designated site for groups feeding the homeless.  (The other volunteer was a columnist from the Dallas Observer researching an article on the homeless encampments.)

 

The feeding went smoothly, and people were able to come through the line several times times before we ran out of hot dogs — a hugely popular item:  they’re meat, and they’re hot food.  Most of the people appeared to be ‘chronically homeless’, in pretty rough condition, and are no doubt the ones who were spending the night inside the Day Resource Center prior to the new ruling forbidding sleeping there.

 

Next we went to the I-45 bridge homeless encampment, where about one hundred people have formed a stable community under the freeway bridge, so the reporter could interview an individual who lives in the camp and is its de facto leader, helping to maintain order there.  We pulled up to the chainlink fence surrounding the camp on a dirt road next to a motel.  The interviewee works at the motel, and the three of us waited in the van for him to get off work.

 

People kept stopping by the van to say hi to David and to see if we had food to give out.  The street people seem to love and even revere him.  He told them we weren’t allowed to feed there anymore — if we did we could incur a $2000-per-incident fine.  Soon a nice-looking man named Slim stopped to talk to us;  he doesn’t live at the camp but comes around daily and is friends with many of the residents.

 

While the reporter went into the heart of the camp to conduct his interview, David and I talked to Slim.  The subjects came up of the new strict enforcement of regulations on groups feeding the homeless and the closing of the Day Resource Center as a night shelter.  A prominent public official was mentioned, and I said I was having a hard time not being quite angry with her for her part in the way homeless citizens in Dallas are being treated.  I said that a couple who live in a homeless camp in the woods near my home said that before this woman was elected, she used to routinely give money to panhandlers, courting the homeless vote, then turned the tables on them once she was in office.

 

Right away, Slim began to talk in Biblical terms about love, forgiveness, and turning the other cheek.  What he said was profound and learned, but even more important, he hit upon truths that I had been missing.  I have a tendency to ‘hate the haters,’ often expressing my outrage at injustice in terms of anger, and he said in a loving and understanding way:  “Satan has thrown a veil over [this politician’s] eyes, so that she doesn’t see the harm she’s doing, but is deluded by her power and that of those she’s trying to please.”  This good man, who stays among the homeless and is their friend, was preaching love and forgiveness towards those who persecute them!

 

I hear this sort of faithfulness all the time when I’m with the homeless population.  The men and women I’ve met on the street are the most spiritual people I’ve ever known, and here was another example of that faithfulness, embodied in Slim, now teaching me, the middle-class advocate, the true meaning of Christian love, which should be so evident to me, but which I find so easy to forget:  LOVE YOUR ENEMIES.  How hard is this to do????  But here was a man who, along with his friends, is constantly persecuted by city and state officials, and he is reminding me about the heart of Christian love.

 

“Slim, this is unbelievable,” I said to him.  “This is just what I needed to hear!  I am so focused on the problems in Dallas right now  [ie, what you resist persists!], and your message of love and compassion for those in power, even in their misguided actions, is something I’d totally missed.  Thank you.”

 

It was a powerful message.  I feel Slim was ‘sent’ to gently remind me that, even if I can’t love a particular politician at the moment, to focus all my attention on my frustration with what’s going on with the city and the homeless may be missing the point.  While I don’t have to ignore injustice, perhaps this represents a call for me to go deeper within myself with this work, and to be as good as the street people I want to stand alongside.  I can focus more on the solutions and less on the problems, if for no other reason than that focusing on the problems dissipates my energy, taking it away from loving, helping and serving and into the ‘combat zone.’  I have to continue to fight injustice, yes, but maybe in a different way than letting it anger and frustrate me so much.  The battle is within myself, and it is there that I need to look:  for guidance, for love towards all sides.  Perhaps that’s how healing will come.  I don’t have to agree, and I can still speak out about the actions of people who I feel are persecuting the homeless, but I am called at the same time to embrace them with love.  Not an easy thing.  The more deeply I go into this work, the more it challenges me to grow — in unexpected ways.

 

KS

Progress, Not Perfection: Working Together August 6, 2008

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

 

Advocating for Mutual Respect and Communication in Solving Homelessness in Dallas

 

At a recent nonprofit event, during a conversation with someone affiliated with the sponsoring organization, that individual began to speak negatively — and not quietly — about the performance of an agency partnering with her own on a large project.  Attacking the same problem, the two agencies are using somewhat differing philosophies.  One seems to be effective with a certain segment of the targeted population, but not all.  The other, using a variant approach, seems to be having some success with a slightly different group.  I listened to her perspective, and, when I nodded reflectively but didn’t immediately and fully agree, she seemed a little offended.  I found the whole conversation very dispiriting.  Can social service really be an unhappy competition among approaches and still succeed?

 

When we implement within our own organization an approach to ending homelessness and poverty that seems to work, it’s easy to think:  this is the answer.  The concomitant of that is:  we found it, through our own experience, and it represents the only valid point of view.  But, in truth, there is not ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach that’s a panacea to these overarching issues.  Different approaches are necessary, combined into a mosaic of complementarity.   As those who know homeless people are aware:  the solutions to homelessness are as as complex as the number of individuals who are homeless.  All solutions, even brilliant ones, are “One size fits some.”

 

Last week I was having coffee with a group of friends.  One is a longtime South Dallas civil rights activist, and another a politician.  The politician, someone who has not been closely involved with the homeless community, said to me:  “Listen to this idea for ending homelessness.  A co-op where homeless people live for a year.  No money is exchanged.  They work for credits and learn life skills and how to run a business, and in exchange are provided for during that time.  At the end, they know how to live in society and have earned enough credits to get a job and an apartment.  Don’t you think that would work to end homelessness?”  “It’s a good idea,” I said, “I think it would work for a certain number of people.’  Still, he was convinced this was The Solution — in theory, it sounded so logical.  The problem though, as I see it, is that it does not take into account the ‘psychology of the individual,’ to steal a phrase from my favorite writer, humorist P.G. Wodehouse.  

 

My friend the civil rights’ leader, on the other hand, has taken it upon himself to go out many times in the past with mobile feeders of the homeless, meeting and interacting with people who live on the street.  He immediately ‘got’ that a good theory and a workable solution are two entirely different creatures.

 

Suppose we develop an approach that works for our own organization in attacking a social problem, and we find that we have an impact on the problem at hand.  Does that mean the philosophy we develop along the way is the only viable one?  

 

One agency learns that having volunteers from prosperous parts of town come to the low-income community where they operate in order to ‘get a hit of poverty’ is demeaning to the community and does not work with their vision of what they want to achieve and are accomplishing.  Does that mean that all occasional volunteering is bad?  No.  

 

Right down the street will be an agency which could not survive without groups of volunteers who come, work and sometimes never return.  The mission of each group is different.  Each attacks a portion of a big problem, say inner city poverty and/ or homelessness, with an approach that works for them.  Each is good.  Each has grown from the ground up an organization with an effective approach IN THEIR ARENA.

 

The food service program at the Bridge, for example, could not run without a strong, vibrant and often-changing volunteer base, because serving over 2600 meals a day is a tremendous task, and the same volunteer force could not show up three times a day to do it.  So the Stewpot, which runs it, has recruited and funneled over 3000 people into the Meal Services program at the Bridge since it opened at the end of May.  And if that volunteer base did not consist of church groups, some from out of town, which might or might not ever come again, the work would not get done.  

 

Who knows the impact that one visit, one encounter with poverty or homelessness may have on an individual volunteer?  Because we never see them again in that setting does not mean their experience ended there.  Perhaps they reflected on their experience and are blazing trails elsewhere in the city, or in the world.

 

Contrast that to an inner city after-school program which clearly benefits more from a limited number of committed workers, who might preferably come from the community in which the program is based, in order to form lasting and mentoring relationships with the children participating in the program.  Random volunteers coming and going there is not a desirable remedy to the man and woman-power need.

 

Both approaches are good, both approaches fill the need-sized gap.  The problem comes when we think that our way is the only way and don’t respect the differing approach of the other.  

 

There is an ‘establishment’ of homeless services in Dallas — the agencies that have been around for many years and have served beautifully and successfully a number of homeless individuals.  And there is an approach somewhat new to Dallas, based upon ‘best practices’ research from other cities, that is being tried at the Bridge.  The new is far from perfect, as has been widely reported.  But if we already had all the answers to getting people off the streets and housed, we wouldn’t be having the discussion we’re having in Dallas right now about the approaches being tried at the Bridge, and we wouldn’t, in fact, need the Bridge itself.

 

Certain issues and problems that are occurring there now were predicted ahead of time by people advocating for the homeless.  For example, planning for the facility was flawed in the number of beds allotted.  Is this a surprise to anyone?  It was widely talked about by homeless advocates before the Bridge opened.  Why didn’t the ‘heads’ at the bridge realize that with between 6000 and 10,000 homeless people in  Dallas county, 400 beds wouldn’t be enough?  Or if they did, plan differently?  I don’t know.

 

What about rules and regulations at the Bridge?  Because a complete open-door policy has required some serious adjustment due to the predators who surround the homeless (again, a given with this population), does that mean we need to go back to the stringent requirements and limits of the previously-existing shelters, to paying for a bed, to turning people away when the quota for the night is filled, to booting them and their belongings out before dawn to spend the day on the street or at work?  If we do that, we’re right back where we started.

 

I also agree with others who say that it is problematic that those running the Bridge have not, for the most part, served on the front lines in other homeless services, although they have certainly been involved long-term in homeless advocacy.  There’s no question that management there is in a learning curve, and this too was expected by most people close to the homeless community.

 

To me, the most serious error being made by management at the Bridge doesn’t lie in their non-threatening, non-punitive approach to homeless individuals (those preying on the homeless are another matter entirely), but rather the difficulty for most people outside the Bridge to contact them.  I know several people who have tried often and to no avail to get in touch with them in order to offer help.  When the mayor was coming to visit recently, those of us making the arrangements, including the mayor’s own staff, had to go through the subcontractor for meal services, the Stewpot, in order to ever reach landfall with Bridge management!  I think that’s a big problem, because as a wise person close to the situation said, when there’s a void of information and accessibility, it’s entirely likely that it will be filled with negatives.

 

[Inviting Mayor Leppert to the Bridge, by the way, initiated by homeless advocates outside Bridge management, was not done in order to do a snow job on politicians, but rather the opposite -- to give the mayor direct access to the homeless themselves --  and that is exactly what happened.  He spent the evening talking to them on his own, without management around him.  He is smart enough to come to his own conclusions about how things are going, and I’m sure he will.]

 

I see no way to go back to limiting the number of people inside the Bridge gates without going back to arresting those who are outside, which is like going back to the dark ages.  Sleeping on the lawn inside the campus on a mat is better than sleeping on the sidewalk, and it is safer, no matter what critics say.  That is why people are doing it in such numbers.  However, careful screening of those coming into the campus in order to make sure they are not predatory to the homeless population is essential and is apparently being done.  Ditto whatever makes the campus safer.

 

But we should never forget what things were like in the past.  The agencies that have existed in Dallas for years to help the homeless were doing fantastic work.  And 6000 people still didn’t have a bed at night.  Sorry, folks, but I in no way look back nostalgically at that situation.  As is said in twelve-step programs, “Progress, Not Perfection.”  I stick by my appraisal that we are making progress in Dallas:  not perfect, fraught with setbacks, but progress nonetheless.

 

I have not been homeless, and that limits my perspective.  What I have done, consistently for five years, is talk to homeless people themselves, ask them about their lives and their opinions about things.  I have also sought the advice of people who work directly with them and have studied to some extent the ‘best practices’ in other cities. I have purposely not been a ‘joiner’ of organizations, with the exception of sitting on one advisory board.  I want to keep the perspective of an outsider.

 

I propose something radical.  Why don’t we talk to each other, listen to each other, be available to each other, as individuals and as organizations?  Communicate.  Listen to people who know, who have done the work before.  Ask everyone involved, then make our best decision.

 

That’s what I was trying to do with the individual at the nonprofit meeting.  I wanted to hear her perspective, and it was an important one which contained information that I did not have.  But it was also biased… in favor of her own group, with no quarter given to any other.  If we can take off our earmuffs and listen what others have to say, maybe we will get finally somewhere.

 

We are where we are with the Bridge, and the problems are significant.  But to equate it and its challenges in any way to the Day Resource Center is simply ludicrous.  It’s a mixed bag, but it’s still light years ahead of where we’ve been.  And, for the most part, homeless people themselves will tell you that, if you ask them in a spirit of genuine inquiry.

 

We need to support the Bridge, while continuing to help it improve.  And the Bridge management needs to let us.

 

KS

This article reprinted at:

http://www.pegasusnews.com/news/2008/aug/08/advocating-mutual-respect-and-communication-among-/

For other perspectives:

http://www.pegasusnews.com/news/2008/jul/18/dallas-homeless-shelter-bridge-still-facing-challe/

http://www.pegasusnews.com/news/2008/aug/03/where-does-bridge-lead/

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

Mayor Tom Leppert Volunteers at the Bridge July 22, 2008

 

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Last Friday evening, July 18, 2008, Mayor Tom Leppert joined a group of volunteers and Stewpot staff to serve dinner to over 700 homeless people at the Bridge, Dallas’ new homeless assistance center.  Typical of the mayor, he was ‘hands on’ with his service, working behind the line filling plates, then moving out into the dining room to work in other positions.

Standing in front of the cafeteria-style serving line, Mr. Leppert handed plates of food to homeless individuals coming through the line, greeting and shaking hands with each personally.  One of my daughters, who was working near him, was touched by his manner with these often-overlooked Dallas citizens, saying, “He looked each person in the eyes, giving them his full attention.  He is such an humble man, so kind and caring.”  Having spent two evenings with Mr. Leppert and the homeless in the past, beginning with a visit he made to the Day Resource Center during the mayoral election, I definitely agree.

After working at the front of the serving line for some time, the mayor moved out into the dining room.  There he went from table to table among homeless citizens, patting them on the back and talking to them for as long as they wished.  He asked them how they were doing and listened to their struggles, their concerns and their successes.  

Several times during the evening, I said to one or the other of my homeless friends, “Come on over here and meet the mayor.”  A number of them said, “I know him already!” and one, Chris, said, “Oh, I’ve met him before.  He’s with us!”  I wonder how many prominent public officials would have the homeless population of their city speak of them in this way.  I said to him during the evening:  ”Pretty impressive.  A public official who shows up both before AND after the election!”

I have to praise the mayor for his kindness and caring of this often-maligned and very vulnerable population.  Although many homeless people vote, there is not tremendous political capital in meeting with them in this manner.  My experience of Tom Leppert is that he genuinely wants to be the mayor for every one in Dallas.  He could easily show up for a photo-op (no press were present at this event), he could stay behind the glass counter, he could come and go quickly and say he’d made ‘a stop.’  He doesn’t.  For the third time since I’ve known him, he’s come out among the homeless, touched them, talked to them at length one to one, spent time with them as though he did not have pressing time concerns.  (After he left us at 7:45 PM, he donned a business suit and went on to another event.)

 

Special thanks to Stewpot staff Edward St. John (Director of Operations), Reggie Crawford (Dining Room Coordinator), Brenda Roberts (Food Services Director), Jean Jones (Volunteer Coordinator) and Bruce Buchanan (Executive Director) for graciously hosting the mayor and his staff.  As it always is at the Bridge when I’ve been there, dinner service served by the Stewpot staff and volunteers was virtually flawless:  very efficient, immaculately clean, delicious and nutritious.

And very special thanks to Renee and Paula in the mayor’s office at city hall for making this visit happen.  It was a real treat for all concerned.

KS

Wednesday, July 23, 3008                                                                                                                     ADDITIONAL NOTE:

I received this in an email today from Edward St. John, Director of Operations for Meal Services at the Bridge through the Stewpot, and I want to share it with readers:

“The Dallas Police provided a lot of support that Friday night without any fanfare or pressure on me or my staff…  They deserve a ’stroke’ for being a positive influence without negating the good stuff that the Downtown Dallas Safety Patrol earns every minute of every day at the Bridge.  The Dallas Police Department presence ‘guaranteed’ a quiet evening, but for the most part, the Meal Service and DDSP have built that environment day by day, meal by meal, since May 20th.  We are proud of that….”

I couldn’t agree more.  Thank you, Edward, for calling attention to the DPD’s important role that evening.

KS

This article linked to:

http://www.pegasusnews.com/news/2008/jul/24/dallas-mayor-tom-leppert-regular-visitor-bridge/

http://dallasprogress.blogspot.com/2008/07/mayor-leppert-and-homeless-under-radar.html

http://cityhallblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2008/07/dallas-city-hall-monitor-july-9.html

http://outside.in/places/bridge-homeless-shelter-dallas

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

Street Voices: Sherry Parker, Poet June 27, 2008

Friday, June 27, 2008                                                                                                                                

Tonight at the Bridge while helping out with dinner, I was handed a privilege I never expected.  Poet Sherry Parker (see post on this blog April 4) put her poetry journal in my hands as she came through the food line, let me bring it home, and told me I could publish anything I wish from it.

The book she loaned me is a beautiful, red leather-bound journal given to her by Reagan, who has worked with Our Calling Ministries at the Day Resource Center for years and who befriended Sherry and discovered her talent. So, once again, the honor of putting Sherry’s words on this blog…

 

Between Blisters and Falling Stars                                                                                               

by Sherry Parker

 

Between blisters — and falling stars –

     I will outlast the rain:

Another calling

     from somewhere far –

I’m not playing,

     yet, again…

 

Sunrises do come –

     Promises disclosed…

A brand new day –

    All is silent.

A beautiful picture

     transposed…

 

The blister will heal;

     The rain will end.

The sun will rise again.

 

Still, there will be silence.

 

[copyright Sherry Parker, 2008]

Unity, Harmony and Constructive Dissent June 5, 2008

Thursday, June 4, 2008

Unity, Harmony and Constructive Dissent

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We need not unity, but harmony.

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

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

KS

 

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

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