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
