Hi Loyal Readers:
Three women are starting a hope-building blog at The Bridge, the largest homeless shelter in Dallas (downtown, at 1818 Corsicana). I've blogged about The Bridge before but this is a brand new story.
Club Speakeasy, www.clubspeakeasy.blogspot.com, (sorry, every time I try to insert a link it does not work) will be up and running soon. Club Speakeasy is a place for homeless people to voice opinions and talk about their lives.
Beth Freed, 27, one of the Creative Writing instructors at The Bridge for a class that meets Tuesday from 2 to 4 p.m., said of the blog's name, "Staci (Pettus) and I did a little brainstorming and we kind of came up with a bunch of different things. We wanted it to be a space where people felt free to voice their experience."
The other women spearheading the blog's inception are: Pettus, 40, and Lisa Brooks, 22.
On a recent very hot afternoon many people living at The Bridge were filling out forms so that they could become bloggers. The blog is a first for the homeless shelter.
On the same hot afternoon, while still setting up the blog, Freed, standing in the library, said she wanted to take the blogging adventure "one step at a time."
alice
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Saturday, June 20, 2009
"It Ain't Right": Homeless Man at The Bridge in Dallas
I was at The Bridge (homeless shelter, 1818 Corsicana, in Dallas) yesterday, hoping to talk to someone about giving them some proceeds from my Homeless Magnets (a.k.a. the Magnet Project).
Two guys heard me talking on the phone outside and said that if I was a reporter or if I knew a reporter, they wanted to talk to someone about the conditions at The Bridge (it opened in May '08 downtown). I said that I was not currently a reporter but that I had a Blog. Latwane Thrash, 29, whose picture is below, talked to me the most. He is bipolar and said he stays at The Bridge often.
Thrash, who was very upset although he did smile for the picture, spoke to me a few steps from The Bridge and said he's seen homeless people threatened by employees at The Bridge. "It ain't right," he said of conditions at The Bridge and how he feels homeless people are treated by employees at The Bridge, which is operated by the Metro Dallas Homeless Alliance. "This woman smacked the s*** out of a woman," Thrash said, referring to a female employee hitting a homeless woman. Thrash did not say when this occurred.
Thrash, who was born in Lawton, Oklahoma, said that he feels employees at The Bridge have a "penitentiary mentality," in terms of the way they treat people. Thrash said he has gotten his cell phone stolen before and has gotten his clothes stolen twice while at The Bridge.
Another guy, who said his name was Ted (he was maybe in his early 30s, very pale, with 2 packs of cigarettes in his hand), spoke to me briefly, but when I looked for him again to get more information, he had disappeared. According to Ted, some employees at The Bridge only give sleeping mats to their "favorites" and some companies who pick up homeless people for a day's worth of work pay the workers less than minimum wage (this includes passing out flyers in area neighborhoods).
Thrash said he feels he has gotten low self esteem from staying at The Bridge and said he feels surrounded by negativity when he's there. "A homeless shelter like this, it's crazy."
To hopefully balance this out, I did not speak to anyone from The Bridge about their side of the story. I just felt what Thrash and Ted had to say was important. The Bridge does a lot of good and seems to have helped many people get on their feet.
Alice
xo
Two guys heard me talking on the phone outside and said that if I was a reporter or if I knew a reporter, they wanted to talk to someone about the conditions at The Bridge (it opened in May '08 downtown). I said that I was not currently a reporter but that I had a Blog. Latwane Thrash, 29, whose picture is below, talked to me the most. He is bipolar and said he stays at The Bridge often.
Thrash, who was very upset although he did smile for the picture, spoke to me a few steps from The Bridge and said he's seen homeless people threatened by employees at The Bridge. "It ain't right," he said of conditions at The Bridge and how he feels homeless people are treated by employees at The Bridge, which is operated by the Metro Dallas Homeless Alliance. "This woman smacked the s*** out of a woman," Thrash said, referring to a female employee hitting a homeless woman. Thrash did not say when this occurred.
Thrash, who was born in Lawton, Oklahoma, said that he feels employees at The Bridge have a "penitentiary mentality," in terms of the way they treat people. Thrash said he has gotten his cell phone stolen before and has gotten his clothes stolen twice while at The Bridge.
Another guy, who said his name was Ted (he was maybe in his early 30s, very pale, with 2 packs of cigarettes in his hand), spoke to me briefly, but when I looked for him again to get more information, he had disappeared. According to Ted, some employees at The Bridge only give sleeping mats to their "favorites" and some companies who pick up homeless people for a day's worth of work pay the workers less than minimum wage (this includes passing out flyers in area neighborhoods).
Thrash said he feels he has gotten low self esteem from staying at The Bridge and said he feels surrounded by negativity when he's there. "A homeless shelter like this, it's crazy."
To hopefully balance this out, I did not speak to anyone from The Bridge about their side of the story. I just felt what Thrash and Ted had to say was important. The Bridge does a lot of good and seems to have helped many people get on their feet.
Alice
xo
Saturday, May 2, 2009
AAAAAAH!! ... Swine Flu is on the Prowl
Dear everyone:
Wake up! Swine Flu is not SARS or the Anthrax Scare of 2001.
Do be cautious!!!!!
But I am troubled by the paranoia that I am seeing. People are scared already about so many potential tragedies that we do not need to be overly scared about Swine Flu as well. I'll post more when I can.
Go read Andrea Mitchell's memoir (called Talking Back),
Alice
Wake up! Swine Flu is not SARS or the Anthrax Scare of 2001.
Do be cautious!!!!!
But I am troubled by the paranoia that I am seeing. People are scared already about so many potential tragedies that we do not need to be overly scared about Swine Flu as well. I'll post more when I can.
Go read Andrea Mitchell's memoir (called Talking Back),
Alice
Monday, April 20, 2009
Columbine Craziness and Madness, 10 Years Later.
Anniversary of the Columbine Shootings (April 20, 1999):
I am truly saddened by the anniversary of the Columbine shootings. When I first heard about it I was a college senior and I saw it on the cover of the Detroit Free Press (back when people still read newspapers). I had to put my shock aside and go to class.
I'm not sure what our country had done since then to decrease gun violence and make guns less prevalent. I'm sure that Bill Clinton helped. My dad, Jeff, said, "all they've done since then is lift the ban on assault weapons." By "they" he meant the United STates. He is always saying quotes like that.
The Virginia Tech shootings in 2007 and also the shootings in Germany in Sept. 2008 (when I googled this, 2 school shootings in Germany came up from the past year, showing how common gun violence is) show that more work needs to be done. I feel there are still far too many guns in our society.
Yes, I am a teeny bit sick of the 24-hour news coverage on CNN and some of the other stations. But on the anniversary of the Columbine attacks, I am saddened, angered and thinking about what I remember from April 20, 1999. If you can (or if you pray), pray for the victims and their families. If not, maybe you can memorialize in some other way.
Everyone's entitled to my opinion ( I have this on a small sign in my room!),
Alice
I am truly saddened by the anniversary of the Columbine shootings. When I first heard about it I was a college senior and I saw it on the cover of the Detroit Free Press (back when people still read newspapers). I had to put my shock aside and go to class.
I'm not sure what our country had done since then to decrease gun violence and make guns less prevalent. I'm sure that Bill Clinton helped. My dad, Jeff, said, "all they've done since then is lift the ban on assault weapons." By "they" he meant the United STates. He is always saying quotes like that.
The Virginia Tech shootings in 2007 and also the shootings in Germany in Sept. 2008 (when I googled this, 2 school shootings in Germany came up from the past year, showing how common gun violence is) show that more work needs to be done. I feel there are still far too many guns in our society.
Yes, I am a teeny bit sick of the 24-hour news coverage on CNN and some of the other stations. But on the anniversary of the Columbine attacks, I am saddened, angered and thinking about what I remember from April 20, 1999. If you can (or if you pray), pray for the victims and their families. If not, maybe you can memorialize in some other way.
Everyone's entitled to my opinion ( I have this on a small sign in my room!),
Alice
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
George Bush
I promise to do a post soon. George Bush moved nearby, yuck, he is not welcome here. I do not want to see him when I go to Walgreen's.
Bye,
Alice
Bye,
Alice
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