Mutual benefit

Neighborhood children take time this summer to serve, and they learn things they don’t teach in school

Story by Christina Hughes Babb | Photos by James Coreas

On a late-May Monday morning in downtown Dallas, it is sunny and pushing 80 degrees. Afternoon temps might hit 90. And real Texas summer hasn’t even started. Over the next few months, Dallas weather will rise from uncomfortable to potentially dangerous, especially for anyone without access to housing, say experts who work closely with Dallas’ homeless. In addition to the heat, those who are homeless are exposed to sun- burns, dehydration and mosquitos, which can spread diseases such as West Nile Virus.

Inside the Stewpot resource center, a building on Young Street where the thermostat is set at 75, people who have nowhere

Small gestures make a big impact

Evenbefore a memberdonated the Stewpot building in the ’70s, the First Presbyterian Church was serving large amounts of food to Dallas’ homeless. For the next 20 years the Stewpot served meals — up to 1,500 a day. When The Bridge, Dallas County’s homeless assistance center, opened five years ago, meal services transferred there, but the Stewpot still provides the food.

Today the foundation also has extended its aid and, in myriad ways, assists some 14,000 people a year.

Downstairs near the Stewpot entrance, clients can access basic services — hygiene supplies, medical and dental care, employment and pre-employment assistance (that might mean acquiring identification or a mailing address, essential to obtaining work).

There are 6,000 homeless people in Dallas, says Stewpot director Bruce Buchanan. Ten percent of those are chronic; the other 90 percent are episodic.

“And there are 6,000 scenarios of how they got there, with some common denominators,” he says.

“The majority of the people who are here are from Dallas, have spent their lives here. There are issues related to choice — drugs, alcohol and untreated illnesses. There also can be domestic violence, aging out of foster care, mental illness or changes in the economy that cause a trickle-down e ect.”

The second floor of the Stewpot features more-advanced programs — Street Zine (a system through which clients can sell and make a small profit selling newspapers), a children-and-youth program, and the Open Art Program, the Stewpot’s most beloved program, representative Amy Desler says, pointing to walls lined with colorful artwork created by the Stewpot clients.

The Stewpot is on the cusp of building a colossal new downtown center complete with an art studio, community garden, recording studio, amphitheater and athletic center.

But it is back at that fundamental level — basic safety and comfort, especially during the summer heat — that the Little Stewpot Stewards come in.