AUSTIN STREET CENTER

The deliberate and targeted exploitation of homeless people at Austin Street Center is afforded by donations solicited from the community under the pretense to aid the homeless in their plight to attain self-sufficiency.

Soliciting $1,500,000 each year from individuals, businesses and foundations, the money received by Austin Street Center is used as the board of directors and the executive director see fit.

For example, in 2012 a substantial grant was used to refurbish the shelter dormitories. Beds were bought, new mattresses, pillows, sheets and blankets to replace bedbug infested bedding and furniture. Six months later the dormitories were converted into a luggage area. What happened to the furniture and comforters is only known to the executive staff. One is left to wonder if it is legal to sell these items attained from grant money designating to purchase items for the shelter to be used by homeless clients.

Money given and restricted to purchase and install a new front door for the shelter building was also used to replace looks on office doors and install a security look on the administrative building, the term “door maintenance” was created.

Money donated to help the mentally ill was used to buy portable radios and headphones to “silence the voices in their head”. Who was to buy the batteries since the shelter did not provide for those?

For almost a year now Austin Street Center paid salary and benefits to a thrift store manager, yet during that time the shelter had no thrift store. However, in-kind donations have been ravaged for a year now and are being stored in a room where the mentally ill once conducted their daily classes. The warehouse around the corner is also filled to the brim with in-kind donations in anticipation of eventually having a store. Keith Price, the current executive director, hopes that the thrift store, once it opens, will pull him out of the financial fiasco he created for the organization.

Less than $100,000 actually reaches the homeless in direct financial aid in the form of buying medication, paying for transportation or food. Let us work with 400 people a day the shelter claims it services, that makes 146,000 a year, comes down to $0.69 in financial aid per person. Let’s say the shelter provides 300 people with financial aid in a year, that makes $33.33 a person, not even a monthly bus pass.

It is not know how many people Austin Street Center actively helped to get back on their feet. If a person made it back into mainstream society they did it on their own while the shelter offered a cot, food and a shower. Supportive services only exists on paper, wild claims to solicit funds from the community. Pathway House has been empty for almost six months, and the “Club House” for people with mental and emotional challenges has not held classes for almost a year. But both programs are being claimed as fully integrated services by Austin Street Center.

The shelter does not house 400 people. Since the shelter does not screen for sex-offenders, very few children stay at Austin Street Center. If one child stays at the shelter for a year, the shelter will claim 365 children, one child each night. Statistic accountability is not set up to provide unique data on individual clients. With claiming to provide for 400 people each day, Austin Street Center provides for 146,000 people annually, even though the 400 might be the same each day.

Austin Street Center does not purchase meals for the clients. All meals are paid for and prepared off site and brought in and served by myriads of kindhearted volunteers each day.

Austin Street Center does not provide medical care. Twice a week mobile units from the HOMES program, a combined effort between Parkland Health & Hospital System and the City of Dallas, pull up in front of the shelter so homeless people have convenient access. The HOMES program services all major shelters in Dallas.

How Austin Street Center categorizes the homeless:

Clients – the people who have to leave at 6am until admission time. Clients are not enrolled in any programs. Once admitted to the shelter, clients are not permitted to leave, let’s say to go for a job interview, or they will be barred. Clients will be assigned a different cot every day, may request personal hygiene items, such as a comb or toothbrush, during specific times of the day. Clients may take a shower, can fill out a clothing voucher to request clean clothes to be issued from in-kind donations to the shelter but will only receive those items on days designated by staff. Laundry services are not provided to this group. If food volunteer bring in sandwiches or a hot meal, clients may have a meal in the evening. The majority of people at Austin Street Center belong to this group.

Day program participants – clients, like mothers with children, the sick and elderly, that have stay in privileges given “at will” by any member of the executive staff. There is no uniform selection procedure. Day program participants can come and leave the shelter with special permission and have to be back by 10pm. Day program participants are offered breakfast, lunch and dinner can get “at will” permission from members of the executive staff to access services, such as an occasional bus ticket or help with the purchase of medication. Again, there is no standardized selection process on if and what services will be made available. Laundry services are not provided. This group must, if physically able participate in the daily clean-up in the mornings or they will be removed from the shelter.

Work-program participants – clients that are in the work-program provide operational support to the shelter in return for a bi-weekly stipend are considered staff although they are not employees. However, they do have limited decision making power, such as refusing to admit clients, remove clients from the shelter and ban them, supervise other work-program participants, answer phones, assign duties to shelter volunteers, enforce shelter rules, interact with visitors to the shelter, hand out basic OTC medication such as pain pills, cold medications and allergy remedies.
 

Austin Street Center has work-program participants clean all the bathrooms and showers, work in the kitchen, provide maintenance on campus, clean cots and mats, provide accounting services, manage and work in the warehouse, perform supervisory tasks at the intake desk, manage the clothing room, provide security by searching clients during intake, perform landscaping services, provide laundry services for selected people, supervise clients during shower time, clean offices, receive and sort through in-kind donations, wash and dry shelter laundry such as towels and kitchen material, manage the clients luggage storage area, and many, many more duties.
 

Members of this group can come and leave at will as long as their work schedules permit, although an overnight pass must be requested to stay out all night. Work-program participants are assigned a permanent cot, which remains empty even if they are out on an overnight pass, have kitchen privileges including being permitted to buy and store food, have access to in-kind donations more readily than clients.

Many work-program enrollees have been in their position for years, a fact that debunks Austin Street Center’s claim this to be a training program. It is exploitation.

Laundry services are not provided. This group must participate in the daily clean-up in the mornings or they will be removed from the shelter.

Shelter employees – are clients or former clients that are employed by Austin Street Center, mostly part time. Most shelter employees live at Austin Street Center, only a very few chose to move into an apartment. Salaries paid to these people are base minimum, many have to work extra hours without being paid, as well as being part time and not having benefits. The shelter is not consistent in trying to help these employees to attain independence, it can’t afford to take the chance, that once these people move out they will look for better paying jobs. A few shelter employees have been moved into “Pathway House”, the transitional living dormitory and have been there for years. Members of this group have the same privileges as work-program participants. Imagine you mention not being paid overtime, you will lose your job and the place you live.

Outside employees – these are employees that are strictly hired from the outside community. All are full time, enjoy benefits, free flowing work schedules, high end titles and pretty nice salaries. These employees are carried by the work-program participants and the shelter employees who do all the work. Outside employees however are quick to claim credit for the work accomplished by work-program participants and shelter employees.