Galveston, Texas City see progress in addressing homelessness

The Daily News
By DOLPH TILLOTSON
November 23, 2023

Thanksgiving week in Galveston County brought rare good news on the homelessness front.

Maybe these signs of progress are small steps, but in this week of family gatherings and plenty, it’s good to see progress. Communities and institutions in our county have stepped up to address the growing problem of people living on the streets.

People in Texas City and in Galveston saw that kind of progress this week.

In Texas City, busloads of homeless, unsheltered and people under financial stress filled the Nessler Center last Thursday for warm food, fresh haircuts, showers, winter clothes, job and housing opportunities and physical exams during Texas City’s first Homeless Navigation Day.

Mayor Dedrick Johnson’s Task Force on Homelessness, created early this year, hosted what the city hopes will become an annual event.

And in Galveston, Our Daily Bread, a downtown organization that helps feed and provide services to the homeless, has made changes to stop people loitering around its neighbors.

Business owners and officials of the First Evangelical Lutheran Church, 2415 Winnie St., which also operates an event venue, The Lyceum of Galveston, said that homeless people posed a problem because of loitering.

Our Daily Bread operators responded last month, rolling out changes that neighbors said have showed progress.

“We’ve met a couple of times with some of the business owners, the assistant chief of police and a member of city council,” said Richard Torres, president of the Christus Foundation for HealthCare. “We wanted to know what we’re doing that we could do differently to help address some of the concerns.”

That focus on the issues of homelessness and working with both clients of Our Daily Bread and its neighbors has led to improvement. Spokesmen for First Lutheran acknowledged progress while noting more needs to be done.

Steven Peña, who is on the church council at First Lutheran and owns the neighboring Kleen Supply Company, 2428 Church St., said the problem appears to have subsided.

“The issues of people congregating after hours or more or less living there after hours, that has absolutely changed,” Peña said. “The problem is still there, though.”

Our Daily Bread has been serving more and more homeless people over the past several years, Torres said.

The nonprofit had about a 25 percent increase in the number of homeless people using its services from 2020 to 2022, Torres said. The kitchen served about 75 people a day before the pandemic, increasing to more than 100 after, Torres said.

Meanwhile, The New York Times this week reported on Houston’s success in dealing with problems of the homeless there. Among America’s major cities, that success is nearly unique.

Homelessness remains a problem in Galveston, in Texas City and elsewhere in southeast Texas. Yet in this week of hope and thanks, it’s good to recognize that those motivated to do good, and to act positively to reach out to those in need, can make a difference.

It’s happening around us now. That spirit of working positively together instead of punishing the unfortunate is something for which we can all be thankful.