Mission: “Green Doors’ mission is to prevent and help end homelessness and poverty housing for those working to achive independent living in Central Texas.

Green Doors’ accomplishes this by: creating affordable, safe, quality housing; providing residents with access to supportive services; and education about, and advocating for, individuals and families struggling with homelessness and at-risk for homelessness.”

The Big Picture

Green Doors (formerly known as Community Partnership for the Homeless) was founded in 1990 by a formerly homeless woman. Green Doors’ mission is to prevent and help end homelessness along with poverty housing in Central Texas.  Their main goal is to help achieve independent living and self-sufficiency for residents in Central Texas.

Contact info: Greg Esparza, Volunteer Coordinator, (512)469-9130,  gesparza at greendoors.org

Click read more to learn about programs, services, and needs. Click here to go straight to volunteer opportunities.

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Imagine if you were a homeless teen, where would you go for help? In Austin, one of the only places to turn to is LifeWorks.

The Big Picture

LifeWorks is a non-profit organization that provides a continuum of services to youth and families to help create positive change in their lives. LifeWorks is the product of four agencies (Child and Family Service, Pathways Community Counseling, Teenage Parent Council, and Youth Options) that merged in 1998 when the agencies realized they were referring the same clients to each other. The three main areas that LifeWorks offers services are housing, counseling, and education.

The three main goals of LifeWorks are to:

• Help homeless youth become more self-sufficient and avoid long-term dependency on social services;
• Provide at-risk children and youth with support and skills to help them be successful;
• Support and strenghten families in crisis.

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The Big Picture
In 2003, Posada Esperanza was created as a family program of Casa Marianella to serve as a shelter for immigrant women and children in Austin.  While a majority of the residents at Posada Esperanza are Spanish-speaking immigrants, residents are immigrants and refugees from a variety of countries.

Many women seeking shelter at Posada Esperanza have escaped a domestic violence situation only to become homeless and without resources. Other women have financial difficulties or problems finding affordable housing that causes them to go Posada Esperanza. Situations like these are exacerbated by a lack of family and friends living in Austin to help immigrants and refugees.

Posada Esperanza provides women in these type of situations with not only shelter but a support network of staff, current residents, and former residents who have moved on from the shelter. The programs at Posada Esperanza were created to help women become more self-sufficient, with the main goal being to help them transition into permanent housing.

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October 12

Family Eldercare wins grant [Austin American-Statesman]

October 13

Austin residents, officials focus on city modifications [The Daily Texan]

October 15

For family in Need, house offers fresh beginning [The Daily Texan]

Some call for tougher measures against panhandling [KVUE]

October 17

First-time buyers taking advantage of tax credit [Austin American-Statesman]

Mission: “Trinity Center serves the spiritual, emotional, and physical needs of people experiencing homelessness and poverty in Austin.”

The Big Picture

Trinity Center, founded in 1999, is an independent nonprofit 501©3 organization which emerged out of the initiatives of parishioners of St. David’s Episcopal Church. Their mission is to not only serve the physical needs of the homeless, but also serve their emotional and physical needs. Elisa Olivarez, the Hunger Coordinator, and I interviewed Melanie Behrends, the Program Director, and Laramie Gorbett, the Operations Coordinator, to take a tour of Trinity Center and learn more about their services.

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Photo by Asier Barrio

The Ending Community Homelessness Coalition (ECHO) has released a report entitled “Solutions for Homeless Chronic Alcoholics in Austin”. According to the report, 35-40% of the U.S. homeless population struggles with alcoholism as compared to just 5% of the housed population. The report estimated that out of the 3,451 homeless people in Austin, 1,208 homeless people had some form of alcohol problem and 875 suffered from chronic substance abuse.

At times, the addiction to alcohol is so great that when faced with the choice between sobering up for a shelter or staying on the streets, many alcoholics stay on the streets. Some are so addicted that they are willing to drink harmful substances like mouthwash to supplement their bodies’ need for alcohol. The report also states that 150 homeless people died due to alcohol-related deaths on the streets of Austin last year. Individuals with the most severe forms of alcoholism are the most in danger of dying on the streets and are the most frequent users of resources (i.e. hospitals, police, court systems). Severe alcoholics have a need to drink all day, which causes them to be unable to properly seek food, shelter, or aid.

One of the more surprising findings in the report was that shelters that allow alcohol (aka wet shelters) saved both money and lives. Wet shelters are a part of the “harm reduction” strategy, which aims to meet substance abusers “where they are at” as opposed to immediately imposing sobriety. Although the long-term goal of the strategy is to stop substance abuse, the immediate goal is to improve overall wellness. The ECHO study looked at other cities that have used “harm reduction” methods. One of the programs is based in Ottawa, and the results from a study in the Canadian Medical Association Journal indicate clear benefits for the individuals involved in the program:

· the average daily consumption of alcoholic drinks dropped from 46 to 8;

· most participants indicated they had improved qualities of sleep, personal hygiene, nutrition and health;

· employees reported that 88% of participants complied with their prescription medication requirements;

· problems with the police decreased by 51%; and,

· trips to the emergency department decreased by 36%.

Seattle also implemented a “harm reduction” strategy by creating a program where seventy-five rooms were offered to “individuals placing the greatest financial strain on city resources” as part of their “harm reduction strategy.” The program has been successful in not only reducing alcohol consumption, but has also saved $1.8 million in emergency room visits alone.

To read more about the study’s findings, you can read the ECHO report here or the article in the Austin-American Statesman here.

Mission Statement: “Based on the belief that all people deserve the dignity of a safe place to call home, Front Steps’ mission is to provide a pathway home through shelter, affordable, housing, and community education.”

An Intro to Front Steps

I was lucky to have one of my first interviews with Dawn Perkins of Front Steps , who also gave me a tour and showed me all the services available. Front Steps, housed in the Austin Resource Center for the Homeless (ARCH), offers a continuum of services for the homeless to provide basic needs and to help transition them into housing. Front Steps serves all those who need help, even those with mental illness and drug/alcohol problems.

Front Steps services include:

• Managing the Austin Resource Center for the Homeless (ARCH).
• Transitional and Permanent housing.
• Help with obtaining ID’s and birth certificates for employment.
• Men’s Clothing Closet, through a partner volunteer organization.
• Discretionary funds.
• Case management.
• Life management skills.
• A document bank.
• Streets of Hope, a drug and alcohol recovery group.
• The Central Texas Recuperative Care Program.
• Managing the AmeriCorps Keep Austin Housed Program.

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The Ending Community Homelessness Coalition (ECHO) is a group of non-profits that works to end homelessness in Austin. Every year, ECHO has a one-day homeless count event called “The Count” in Austin and Travis County. ECHO then produces a report through their Continuum of Care Subcommittee that gives statistics about homelessness in Austin. This is used for an annual application for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Continuum of Care Homeless Assistance Grant (“SuperNOFA”). The following statistics come from the 2008 Continuum of Care (CoC) application:

Housing

Emergency Shelter Housing

• Year-round Individual Emergency Shelter Beds- 45
  • 10 beds are reserved for domestic violence victims
• Year-round Family Emergency Shelter Beds- 247
  • 80 beds are reserved for domestic violence victims
• Seasonal beds- 280
• Overflow & Voucher beds- 16
• Cold weather beds (provided by churches)- 245

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Who

Hunger and Homelessness Outreach (more popularly known as H2O) holds the distinction of being one of the only student groups at the University of Texas at Austin that tackles the issue of homelessness. H2O is headed by co-chairs Jimmy Hammond and Christina Mai, and is a part of the Student Volunteer Board (SVB). H2O strives to increase awareness of the issues surrounding homelessness and hunger while inspiring UT students to serve the Austin community. H2O consists of a core group of about five students who volunteer on a weekly basis and many more students who volunteer for one or two events a month. They usually reach up to thirty volunteers each semester. The student group meets on a weekly basis and volunteers each week with one non-profit.

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