In the shadow of downtown Fort Worth’s glass-sheathed skyscrapers, exclusive condos, and winding Interstates, lives a subpopulation that few have seen, and even fewer understand.
It’s a group that often does not access shelters and services and is as diverse as they come. Single men and women, married couples, children, families, old, young, Hispanic, black, white, all make up a part of it. It numbers about 200 strong, according to the latest count from the Tarrant County Homeless Coalition, but that number is very likely underestimated.
They’re the unsheltered homeless population of Fort Worth, and these poorest of the poor (often all they have are the backpacks on their backs) are coming off the streets thanks to a small team with a big vision.
Formed in January of this year, the Street Outreach Services team (SOS), a Catholic Charities program, has provided the unsheltered population with basic outreach services (hygiene kits, water, bus passes) and a helping hand back to stable housing. The team was formed specifically to take services to those individuals living in places unfit for human habitation: cars, abandoned buildings, under bridges, in homeless encampments, streets, and alleyways.
Led by Father Luke Robertson, TOR, the four-person team is achieving incredible results, already surpassing the requirements written into its grant paid by federal stimulus money and the state’s Homeless Housing and Services Program (HHSP). In only eight months, the team has already surpassed the 12-month goal of making contact with 150 unduplicated homeless clients, by identifying and serving well over 400 clients. The team is also on track to meet the yearly goal of 36 case-managed clients. The results are making them a welcome addition to the City of Fort Worth’s Directions Home program, a 10-year plan aiming at reducing homelessness and making it short-term and non-recurring.
But it’s about more than numbers.
It’s about people, and making a difference.
“I really believe in the theological quality of righteous indignation, in the sense of ‘there are things that are not right and that need to be changed,’” Fr. Robertson said. “And I believe that God put us on earth to make those changes as best we can.”
Fr. Robertson himself was touched by the realities the homeless face when he was working with the disaster response program at Catholic Charities. He was shadowing another employee for the day, and they went down to the Day Resource Center on Lancaster Avenue.
“I stood there looking around and seeing what was going on, and I remember vividly in my mind saying ‘this is what I want to do. This is where I want to be,’” Fr. Robertson said. “But there was no SOS then, nor was there a plan for one,” so he went into Catholic Charities’ HOMES 1 program helping homeless folks get into housing. When the grant appeared for a street outreach team late last year, he was there.
The Purple Team
The Rev. Ed Mahan, an ordained Baptist minister and the director of Catholic Charities’ homeless programs knew Fr. Robertson well. “I kind of had my eye on Fr. Luke back when he was working with a different program, and he and I had some conversations about justice. Fr. Luke probably has the keenest sense of justice of anybody at Catholic Charities,” Mahan said.
He also had an impressive background, being a Franciscan priest, a social worker for 25 years, a former counselor, and even the former CEO of a small Catholic Charities organization in Pennsylvania.
And so Fr. Robertson became the leader of a talented team made up of Rosa Dominguez, a bilingual veteran social worker who’s not afraid to speak up (once, she stood up for a homeless man who was being humiliated by a librarian at a public library), Kim Trickett, an energetic case manager with an uncanny ability to connect with folks and a laugh that travels through walls and doors, and Don Jones, the cool-headed, street-savvy peer mentor who with his firsthand knowledge of homelessness smoothly guides the team through the shelters, streets, and camps. They’re joined one day a week by Pam Karnes, a straight-shooting licensed chemical dependency counselor for Recovery Resource Council, who has such a knack for counseling, she’s clearly “in her element,” as RRC development officer Cynthia Cuellar puts it. They’re an eccentric team, with varying professional and cultural backgrounds, but they jell since they’re committed to the same cause: serving the poor.
“I think all of us really, not one of us, make the program,” Dominguez said. “You can’t say it’s because of one. It’s all of us because all of us have different [experiences] and I’m talking like different. Not one of us has the same experience.”
But they do have the same purple shirts. And though they’re the new guys in town, the SOS team is already known fondly by many names: the Purple Team, the Purple People Eaters, and the Purple Shirts. But why purple?
Mahan explains they wanted a unique, recognizable color that would not seem threatening. Catholic Charities at first suggested blue and white, but Mahan said no, “that’s police colors.” So he recommended TCU purple to Catholic Charities CEO Heather Reynolds, a TCU alumna. “Heather was ‘Yeah, yeah, I like that,’” and the entire board agreed, Mahan said with a smile. “That purple has just been a great marketing tool for us as an identity.”
He’s right. Almost everywhere the team goes, the homeless recognize them, and they’ve been welcomed into almost 70 encampments, big and small, throughout Fort Worth, from the East Lancaster and East Belknap corridors to the North Side. That they’re well known and held in high esteem around the homeless community is saying something. Mahan explained that one survey on the unsheltered homeless stated on average it would take 99 days or 22 visits to gain the trust of a homeless individual. With the outgoing and respectful nature of the team, Mahan knew the trust would develop more quickly, but then he and Fr. Robertson brought SOS an instant dose of credibility by bringing Don Jones on as peer mentor.
Mahan said the team believed Jones’ presence would cut that time down to a great extent, and it has. “It takes maybe three visits to an unsheltered individual before they feel comfortable,” says Mahan.
A New Start
Before Jones became an invaluable member of the team, he was a client of Catholic Charities. He became homeless at 18, but the stage for his landing on the streets was set when he started experimenting with drugs and rebuking authority at 14. He ended up going to prison several times and being on the streets even more.
Peer mentor Don Jones, once homeless himself, walks through a homeless camp that was recently abandoned.
“In between 1972 and 2008, I’ve been either in penitentiary or homeless, one of the two,” he says. “It should be over 30 years easy.”
Exhausted by life without shelter, he prayed to God for help. And he got it. Jones was at Union Gospel Mission waiting to eat lunch last year when he met Fr. Robertson, who was then with the HOMES program.
“I didn’t even know he was a priest until two months into our relationship,” Jones says with a laugh. “Because it’s just how smooth, how good a guy he is. He doesn’t stress, ‘I’m a priest, this here and that there. I’m just a regular person.’ And I came out of that initial meeting feeling pretty good.”
Fr. Robertson became his case manager, and soon Jones was in housing. But that presented another set of difficulties. Jones had never kept his own place and didn’t know about many essential responsibilities.
“My perspective on life was really, really small,” he says. “I didn’t know about bills. You know I didn’t know how to sign a lease? I didn’t even know what to look for on a lease. I’m serious. I had never had ID, never had insurance; you know what I am saying? Medical insurance. I never had any of that.”
Catholic Charities and Fr. Robertson guided him through it though. And Jones, to show his gratitude and because of his desire to be involved in something good, went to Mahan and asked how he could volunteer. He began helping HOMES program clients move into housing on Thursdays. He never missed a Thursday, Mahan said.
Now, he’s closer to his family and kids, coaches little league baseball, and keeps his apartment looking like it belongs in Better Homes & Gardens Magazine. He said he wakes up every weekday more than ready for his job with SOS.
“I am truly blessed,” he says with a smile.
He’s also a big reason for the success SOS is enjoying. He knows the resources available and has a demeanor that would put anyone at ease (one co-worker said he is able to walk into an elevator stuffed with people and start a conversation with them). But he also knows where to find the unsheltered. He knows the protocols and norms; he knows what to say and what not to say. He helps build up the trust level more quickly too, because he can relate, and after many years in the streets, is a familiar face. Trust is big for the homeless too, since some of them have been burned in the past or promised something by someone who didn’t carry it out. But seeing a walking, breathing testimony to the effectiveness of Catholic Charities’ homeless programs changes minds and inspires.
“Don, when he walks into a camp, he’s usually recognized right away,” Mahan explained. “And they’ll say, ‘Don, I haven’t seen you. Where you been?’ ‘Man, I ain’t homeless anymore I got an apartment. I got a bank account. I got insurance, I pay child support.’ And they say ‘How’s all that happening?’ ‘Listen to these guys. They know. You can be there too.’ And so it’s really kind of opened a lot of doors.”
‘These are angels’
Those doors flew open for James Allen who was at one of the lowest points of his life when SOS found him.
Just a few months ago, Allen was suffering from intense pain as he lay under a bridge just a couple of blocks from downtown Fort Worth. He was contemplating killing himself — the pain was so great.
He didn’t know it at the time, but he had terminal cancer of the liver, colon, and gallbladder. He had no way to know. For homeless individuals like Allen, who had spent 20 years with the streets as the only home he knew, healthcare is out of the question, and medical attention oftentimes only comes through emergency room visits. In the searing summer heat and with enough energy to only walk a couple of blocks, he called on God to help.
“I asked God one day, ‘Lord send some help,’” Allen said. “And sure enough, this is my help. These are angels. He sent them too, and I know this.”
SOS case manager Rosa Dominguez found him, and Allen put his trust in her and explained his situation. Dominguez got to work on providing Allen identification (a crucial possession for getting services), medical attention, and basic needs. SOS stood by him during every step of the process, often providing transportation as well. When Allen was released from the hospital while awaiting chemotherapy, Dominguez went so far as to get him out of a shelter and into the cleaner and healthier environment of a nursing home.
“These folks never asked me more than my name and Social Security number, and then they asked me what I needed — what kind of way they could help me,” Allen said, confirming one of SOS’s strengths: treating clients like human beings and advocating for them — not asking them to jump through hoops in order to get something done. “They were there like clockwork,” he added.
Now Allen is at Wellington Oaks Retirement home, enjoying every day of his few months to live and receiving chemotherapy at the treatment center two blocks away. He looks forward to spending time with his son and ex-wife and seeing the birth of his first grandbaby soon. He’s no longer case-managed by SOS since he’s in housing, but Dominguez still comes by to visit him and bring him mail.
After a week at his new home, Allen relaxes in the shaded outside area when he looks up and sees the familiar purple shirt of Dominguez. “Heeeeyy!” he says excitedly and then hugs her.
“They just brighten my day every time I see them,” Allen said. “They’re like a ray of sunshine every morning. It goes with the earth, it makes things happen.”
And that’s what the SOS team aims to do: provide a hand up (not just a handout) for the homeless men and women who want it.
A Different Approach
In just eight months, SOS is already becoming known for its approach to helping its clients. People at other organizations and churches that help the homeless have noticed it.
“They’re able to operate in a very non-threatening way,” said Dan Freemyer, Buckner/Broadway director of community ministries at Broadway Baptist Church. “Sometimes folks that are out in the street, especially those that stay in the camps and don’t access the shelter system, are very wary, mistrusting, reserved when it comes to case managers or other helping professionals. It seems like the SOS team has been able to kind of cut through that and make connections with folks that other established programs have had a more difficult time connecting with.”
Don Jones chats with Patrick Murphy, who remained homeless for about 30 years until Rosa Dominguez (left) helped him get housing.
Freemyer, who has seen SOS work with clients at Broadway every Tuesday, attributes it to the team’s ability to understand and develop relationships with the homeless. Freemyer explained how for years he tried to help one homeless man who came to Broadway for sack lunches and had gotten nowhere with him. Then the man came in contact with SOS, developed a relationship with them, and finally got off the streets and into housing through the HOMES program. It’s a visible example of how SOS often cooperates with community churches and organizations to help a client, but it also illustrates how difficult it is to gain a homeless person’s trust and how intimidating the process of applying for housing or other services can be.
“They weren’t willing to go through that process until they had a friend and an advocate from the SOS team,” Freemyer said. “There’s no special magic they have in getting folks to that point, I think it’s just being willing to meet people where they are and not putting conditions upon them.”
Not only that, SOS literally meets them where they are. They’ve developed close relationships with First Street Methodist Mission, Broadway Baptist, and the Central Library in downtown Fort Worth and set up regular meeting times at those locations so the numerous homeless that go there can talk to them or meet with them for services.
SOS also practices something called the “strength-based approach,” which Mahan says flows from Catholic Charities’ faith-based nature. Indeed, the approach is embraced in all of Catholic Charities’ homelessness programs.
“What that means is most homeless people have been told for a very long time that they’re failures,” Mahan said, “that they’re no good; they’re lazy; they’re dirty; they don’t want to help themselves. All these negative things. We take the opposite approach…. Well, all you’re doing is showing a regard and respect for that person, and they’ve not seen that for a long time.”
The approach focuses on the unique strengths a person possesses to help them get through the often long and tedious processes of receiving housing, benefits, treatment for addictions or disabilities, and eventually becoming contributing members of society. Take an alcoholic for instance, with other approaches, such as the more traditional “disease model,” the client would be defined by the problem of alcoholism. A strength-based model doesn’t ignore the alcoholism, Fr. Robertson explained, but it also recognizes the strengths of the person and uses them to help the person work from the positive, not the negative.
“We’re going to say, what do you do well?” Fr. Robertson said. “What are your strengths? If you can live on the streets for nine years and survive, you can fight an alcohol problem. You can do this. And we can help you do that. We can give you the tools to help you do that.”
And this different approach has worked for both Catholic Charities and SOS. Last year, one of Catholic Charities’ homeless programs helped a man who was homeless for years get off the streets and into an apartment. He now has a part-time job, is clean and sober, and got married earlier this year in a special ceremony celebrated at the Catholic Charities Fischer Campus chapel.
It’s simply about recognizing the homeless as children of God, giving them hope, dignity, and respect, and then building relationships with them, Fr. Robertson explains.
“Those are all Gospel values,” Fr. Robertson says. “I’m not comparing myself or any of us with Jesus, but I like to think that’s what Jesus did; He offered people hope and dignity and respect…. Everything gets built like that. It’s like an inverse pyramid, and what’s at the bottom of the pyramid is hope and dignity and respect, and everything kind of goes up from there.”
A Bit of Hope, A World of Difference
That Gospel-based method made a crucial difference in the case of “Daniel,” a homeless man on the verge of suicide. Daniel was lying on a sidewalk by JPS Hospital when Dominguez came across him and offered him some water. He smelled of alcohol.
“He goes, ‘Rosa, I want to die,’” Dominguez recalls. She was planning to take him to JPS when she saw his wristband. Daniel explained he had been sitting six hours in the waiting room to get treatment, and hadn’t been attended, so he went back out to the street and just lay there. Dominguez called interventionist Pam Karnes, but while they waited for Karnes, Daniel asked Dominguez a question.
“Rosa, are you Hispanic?”
“Yes sir.”
“And you’re helping me?”
“Yes, I’m here.”
“You know, I’m so wrong. I’ve been so wrong.”
That exchange touched Dominguez — it was obvious the man had probably never had a good experience with a Hispanic. And that perspective was changing right there, and moreover he opened up to her, because of a few kind actions.
“I had this moment that I never had before,” Dominguez explained. “I’d had people try to commit suicide before, but this man, he allowed me to help” even though he didn’t like her because, “I was Hispanic.”
Dominguez and Daniel sat there for two hours, waiting and talking about family, God, forgiveness, and how everyone makes mistakes. Moved by their conversation, Daniel used Dominguez’s phone to call his family.
“Well, he made up with his father and his uncle,” Dominguez said. “He used my phone and said… ‘I want to apologize… I just want to tell you I love you.’”
Daniel received the help he needed and will begin working soon.
“I saw him again,” Dominguez said. “He is doing well… he is off of alcohol and drugs and he has also made up with his family…It wasn’t just me, because whenever they came, it was Kim, Don, and Pam. And they’re like ‘Oh there you are Rosa, picking up people.’” As any SOS member would say, “it’s just part of the job.”
Copyright © 2010 by North Texas Catholic