Dallas’ popular and trendy West Village, which borders the corner of Lemmon Avenue and US-75, is a hot spot for SMU students. Luxury condominiums overlooking boutiques and restaurants can cost up to $2,700 per month. Less than a quarter of a mile away is Roseland Homes, a public housing project. Roseland is less than 10 minutes – 3.7 miles to be exact – from Southern Methodist University. Rates for these apartments are much lower. Their residents live in poverty.
Many SMU students would imagine a place like Roseland to be filled with stereotypes of jobless, drug-addicted individuals who misuse government money. The reality of poverty, however, is far different. Take Starla Patrick.
“They call this the projects or the ‘hood,” says Patrick, 42, a resident and single mother of three. Patrick grew up in the low-income housing development where the rent is 20 percent of yearly income or $50 per month for the unemployed. She maintains two jobs and works more than 70 hours per week to make ends meet for her family. She considers herself lucky.
“I didn’t have it hard like most people did,” Patrick said. “I always had help [from family], even though I never asked for it.”
Patrick works at Chase Bank and the Roseland Recreation Center where kids play basketball and hang out until 8 p.m. on weekdays. She got her first job at age 14 working with children at a summer program, a job similar to the one she holds at Roseland Recreation.
“I want to give back to kids who don’t have enough attention at home,” Patrick said. “It feels good to me when they give me a hug — it shows they appreciate I’m here.”
The median household income in the United States for 2005 was $46,326, a 1.1 percent increase from the year before. Despite the increase, poverty levels aren’t dropping. A family of four earning less than $19,971 a year is considered to live in poverty.
Roseland Recreation took a group of kids to a basketball tournament in Austin recently. One team couldn’t go, however, because only one child’s parent could afford the $125 fee.
Patrick says she will sacrifice paying some of her bills for that month if she can pay costs for the kids out of her pocket.
According to Amie Sudds, the director of Roseland Recreation,”Even though kids go through certain things at home, we don’t let them feel that.” Sudds said many parents in Roseland Homes are too poor or busy working multiple jobs to make nutritious dinners for their children.
“Some parents don’t have money for dinner, so they send [the kids] here [to the vending machine],” she said.
In a survey conducted by Central Dallas Ministries, a food pantry that serves inner-city residents, only 44 percent of food recipients were on food stamps. Slightly more than a third aren’t on any of the three largest federal assistance programs – food stamps, free or reduced-price lunches or WIC (Women, Infants and Children, a program especially for new mothers).
According to Sudds, people who make $7 an hour and have three kids still don’t get food stamps.
Patrick is glad she was able to earn a business degree through the National Education Center. Her youngest child wants to attend Dallas Can Academy, her middle child attends college and her oldest, who is also a mother, is working to become a registered nurse.
“Tomorrow’s not promised to me,” Patrick said. “Once you gone, you gone…put your mark on this earth while you are here.”
Despite her hardships, Patrick has raised a family and managed to make ends meet. But for the homeless men and women a few miles away on Park Avenue in downtown Dallas, there’s little to look forward to.
On one side of Park Avenue, homeless and hungry men and women wait patiently in a line outside of First Presbyterian Church’s resource center. Across the street people sleep under old blankets and sit slouched over in wheelchairs next to an old, crooked fence. Large pieces of cardboard and trash are scattered around the sidewalk. Pigeons rule the street. It’s lunch time in downtown Dallas.
“You don’t want to be here on these streets,” said Leon Pollard, a 54-year-old husband and father of three. “It’s really getting bad out there.”
Pollard should know. He’s been homeless since he left his wife and home six years ago.
According to a study by the U.S. Census Bureau released in August, the country is getting richer – but the poor are staying the same. More than 10 percent of Americans live below the poverty line, and the number is greater in Dallas. In 2003, 17 percent of Dallas’spopulation was living below the poverty line.
Pollard is a regular at The Stewpot, a resource center of First Presbyterian Church for homeless and at-risk individuals. In addition to feeding about 700 people daily, The Stewpot helps the poor and homeless get identification, medical care, rehabilitation and other services.
“All the stereotypes you hear about the homeless are true…when you look at them as a group, generally they’ve never been far off [the mark],” said Jay Dunn, director of volunteers and business operations at The Stewpot.
Shadows of homeless men passing by can be seen through the frosted glass of Dunn’s small, damp office at the resource center. According to Dunn, there are about 6,000 homeless in Dallas but only 1,600 shelter beds.
“A lot of them elect to stay on the streets anyway. I think it’s fair to say that cost is an obstacle – it costs to stay in most of the shelters,” he said.
Wearing a backward, slightly askew baseball cap, Pollard smiles as he speaks with a toothy grin, showing his crooked and discolored teeth. He says he used to lead an ordinary life, attending church with his family.
“We used to do the whole nine yards, the straight thing,” he said.
But when his marriage didn’t work out, he left his home for the streets and got into drugs and begging for money.
“Hustlin’s natural – you gotta hustle to survive if you’re on the street,” he said.
Dunn said Dallas’ homeless population has grown in recent years, with the exception of last year.
Robert Thompson, a caseworker at The Stewpot, uses the hunt-and-peck method of typing to pull up computer records of his clients. The only bright color in his office, where he helps clients get the assistance they need, is a calendar illustrated by a beach and palm trees.
“As you can imagine, most people don’t like the homeless,” he said.
Thompson is a no-nonsense kind of guy. He casually points out a basket of condoms in his office to help with AIDS problems and says The Stewpot will have a short afternoon because of a memorial service for a client who died that morning.
“They’re totally dependent on us and they’re totally vulnerable, and you don’t take advantage of vulnerability,” Thompson said.
Pollard is no longer at rock bottom and is currently looking for work. He has been to rehab several times and became drug-free several months ago at a Christian rehabilitation program.
It’s “beans and rice and Jesus Christ,” he said. “I made a commitment to get re-established with my family.”
