Housing and Community Services, Inc.

In South Texas, everything seems to be in full bloom including the usual suffocating, high pollen counts, greenery where for at least a couple of months there was none, colorful flowers galore – and, oh yeah, our spring board meetings. When you have around 40 properties, each with its own board, this season sometimes seems to encroach upon the summer solstice what with the enormous amount of preparation and follow-up documentation inherent to these events. While in recent years these board meetings have been regionalized for greater efficiency of facilitation as well as potentially enhanced effectiveness, this still amounts to an awful lot of heavy duty together time. For anyone who’s involved in the active orchestration of boards, the solicitation and training of new members, the maintenance of the relationships with existing members, never mind the time invested in attending the actual meetings, you already know just how much goes on behind the scenes. Since I’m not immediately involved in their form and function beyond the provision of the reports pertinent to my own activities, I thought I’d ask someone about it who deals with the responsibilities and diverse roles that go along with board operations. My boss, whose function as the ‘director of all things board’ (among many other roles), provided a little insight into these apparently very necessary instruments of influence. “Complacency is an ingredient that can be found in virtually any failing business, be it nonprofits or for profits. For organizations such as ours, boards are particularly critical to bringing to the table some fresh ideas and a perspective that comes from being outside the day-to-day operations. In this day and age, when oversight is vital to maintaining the integrity of a company’s mission, I think that board meetings are key to our checks and balances system.” My first thought upon hearing this explanation was quite honestly “really?” Upon further contemplation (and not because I have to think it), what he said does make sense, especially from the standpoint of offering up more objectivity from people who have an interest in what we do but aren’t actively involved in the daily workings of the business. Based on my observations it also seems that boards bring a different kind of professional as well as life experiences to their decision-making processes; our organization includes residents as members on our major as well as individual property boards. This not only broadens the scope of ideas and contributions but also serves to ensure representation by the people we serve and whose voices need to be heard. I know from just watching the machinations of bringing together all these people into rooms from San Antonio to Corpus Christi to Laredo that it takes an incredible amount of detailed effort to pull off these events. Kudos to all of our staff and others like it everywhere who make it all possible – because they still have a ton of meeting minutes ahead of them.

In gathering some information and the latest photos for additions to our social media pages, I couldn’t help but notice a trend – ‘tis the season to host a health fair, at least judging by the efforts reported at many of our South Texas affordable housing properties. Maybe it’s a timing thing, such as the “post-winter holidays and pre-swimsuit/shorts/skin season health fair extravaganza” period. I do know that our Services Managers generally host at least a couple of these helpful events during the year so realistically it makes sense to have one now and then one again in the fall. Judging by the number of attendees in the photos I was sent, now posted at www.facebook.com/hcscorp, it appears that health fairs are typically pretty popular with both our residents as well as nonresidents in the proximate neighborhoods. Numerous agencies and providers clearly use this type of venue to get important information to critical segments of our population who don’t always have ready access to the most up-to-date news about related issues for themselves and their families. For the predominantly low-income members of the population who reside at our properties, these health fairs offer the chance to learn about local wellness programs, receive limited screenings for certain conditions, and also obtain materials for referrals to community providers and other resources. And so, with health fair-itis a hot topic right now, it was somewhat timely that I happened to catch the segment on this past Sunday’s 60 Minutes (7 pm ET, CBS) revealing the results of a decade-long study about the dangers of sugar and its evil, chemically comparable twin, high fructose corn syrup. According to the researchers, our dependency on sweeteners borders on, well, almost a dependency of the narcotic kind – hard to believe but apparently we’d be hard-pressed to kick the sugary stuff as if it was a street drug or other addictive substance. The links to disease are also made patently clear in this study and several others around the country, citing increased risk for heart disease, stroke and certain cancers to name just a few of the health disorders attributed to excessive intake of sugar. With this type of irrefutable (at least for the moment) evidence in mind, it seems even more important that we continue to promote the availability of community health fairs, hosted at not only our properties but in any setting that allows the general public to become more educated and better informed about issues that affect their well-being. Bearing that in mind, I thoughtfully (sort of) emailed my boss the link to the 60 Minutes piece who, while he abstains from regular sodas in favor of the diet kind, has been known on occasion to enjoy one or two (or ten) pieces of chocolate. Shortly after I sent the story I received the unhappy missive “you just killed my sugar buzz”, thereby verifying the portion of the study regarding the habit-forming aspect of the sweet stuff -- and that contrary to what we might have believed, sugar is not always everything nice. Happy Health Fair season to all.

When many of us reflect upon their summers spent when they were kids or about their own children’s plans for this historically long school break, it may include attending camp of some kind. This could be a camp of a more lengthy duration (several weeks), a day camp over the course of all or part of the summer or any variation on the theme. I always assumed, albeit incorrectly, that the reason my brother and I didn’t attend what we called sleep-away camp for the then prerequisite six weeks was because our parents couldn’t bear for us to be gone that long. As it turns out, the reason was hardly sentimental and purely economic: my father just couldn’t afford it. We were however able to attend day camp and ride to what I recall was a pretty nice facility for, as you’d expect, the entire day. Even in hindsight, always more vividly accurate, it was a good experience and we were fortunate that given my father’s self-employed status that we could do this. Nowadays, there are many more options available for varying lengths of stay (or enforced sentences depending on the perspective of the kids who are going), ostensibly allowing more youngsters to enjoy some time spent away from home, the television or computer, and cage fighting with their siblings to take in the advantages of the great outdoors (or even a great indoors program).

The American Camp Association (www.acacamps.org) reports that more than ten million kids will attend a camp of some sort this year. Of the 42% of children who live in low-income families in this country, I have to wonder how many of these youth will be part of the camp experience? Fortunately, there are numerous organizations out there who try to make it possible for families of limited or modest means to send their children to camp even if it’s just for a few days. Going on our seventh year now, we have taken a group of anywhere from about 25 to nearly 50 youth to a not-too-distant but very refreshing lake or riverside campground. In conjunction with the available water sports, hiking and other recreation the staff has also facilitated some great character-building instruction (our Services Managers (SM) are incredibly savvy about doing this in such a creative manner that the kids don’t catch on to the fact they’re being educated until it’s too late and they’ve already acquired a new skill. Our SM’s are REALLY good!). You can check out a photo album now on Facebook at www.facebook.com/hcscorp with pics from our last three camps. When I was going through the multitude of photos to find a few to upload I was struck by not only how much fun the kids seemed to be having but also by the engagement of the adults, staff and volunteers alike. It certainly seemed like a good time was had by all – and one that all kids really should be able to do.

It’s easy to help us take even more kids to camp this year at beautiful Canyon Lake, TX - just click on any ‘Donate’ button on our web site and thanks very much for your support!

I caught an interesting exchange this past Saturday morning in the second hour of Up w/Chris Hayes, (weekends @ 8 am ET, MSNBC) which typically features lively discussions about current headlines, events, and various issues in and out of the mainstream. This particular conversation included amongst the attending panelists playwright Katori Hall whose dramatic work entitled Hurt Village recently opened on Broadway in NYC. Hall's new production focuses on the last days of a family's life in one of Memphis' now famous projects* as the city prepares to demolish their home and community in an effort to improve the area and relocate residents to what officials determined was a ‘better’ locale. After the city's receipt of a government grant enabling it to raze the original structures, the real Hurt Village is now known as Uptown and is the site of lovely apartments, popular restaurants and hip boutiques – in other words, it's a neighborhood that erased rather than rehabilitated and preserved anything remotely resembling what we call affordable housing. Hurt Village was originally constructed to attract what can only be interpreted as more affluent ethnic groups to the northern sector of Memphis. However, in the wake of racial tensions inherent to the late '60s most of these families as well as the businesses and industries moved out, leaving behind what was until its demolition began in 2000 an area rife with crime, derelict buildings, and overriding poverty. What caught and kept my attention was the program's discussion about the culture of poverty and its effect on the people we like many community providers are committed to serving – the lowest income members of our population. As this new play attempts to impart, so often there is a sense of attachment to a home even one that is in a truly terrible state of disrepair that seems to take precedence over any sense of hope or improved possibilities. The reality of Hurt Village, which could be the scene of any number of similar events taking place all over this country, is that affordable housing isn’t necessarily the only thing disappearing from our landscape. The businesses and services supported by displaced residents also go by the wayside or close their doors even before then due to declines in the area’s economic capacities. It’s probably a combination of both factors but the results are the same: too many people without the financial resources to make their own choices often have little or no choice as to where they live. Of course, that presumes their neighborhood is situated in an area favored by residential and/or commercial developers. If not, then places like Hurt Village aren’t demolished or eradicated. They’re just left behind to potentially decay further, overlooked and forgotten on the way to changing another (more desirable) location and inadvertently contributing to a cycle of poverty that isn’t to anyone’s advantage. I know our organization and others like it are in the business of preserving and rehabbing as much as that’s possible the properties we acquire and ideally contributing to the improvement of the proximate areas. We acknowledge not only the physical needs for a quality living environment but also the human need to be able to draw upon a sense of family that exists among the members of communities like Hurt Village, and our own properties too, where people rely upon each other for a variety of things not necessarily visible or tangible. However there’s another message in Hall’s reenactment of these events: that too often people get mired down by circumstance so that even when the opportunity presents itself to redirect the course of their lives they don’t always seize the chance. Perhaps that's what playgoers and really the rest of us too should take away with them. That we can’t just expect a change of environment albeit for what we may think is for the better to positively impact the destiny of the people we try to help. To paraphrase several of the already well-quoted lines in the play, even if given an escape or another place to live, there are those who without other means won't make their way out. Our nonprofit has always known this. Hopefully Hall's portrayal of a family at the crossroads of their future will further bring to light the burgeoning need to address and work toward resolving the many issues aligned with concentrated poverty. It's a big job...but everyone has to do it.

* Hurt Village was in part the subject of the 2009 film, The Blind Side.

The word ‘change’ according to merriam-webster.com has numerous meanings and uses as both a noun and a verb but suffice to say the basic ‘to make different in some way’ pretty much sums it up. Technically, the word isn’t supposed to evoke either a good (cheering) or bad (crying) response although most people in our office the last couple of weeks are probably inclined to favor the latter. You see, we recently took a fairly functional software application and imbued it with new but temperamental qualities that rendered it not very friendly or at least not immediately so. In other words, we UPGRADED (yikes!) our email program. Made a change that should be for the better and I’m sure once we’ve all gotten used to it, we’ll think it is. But anyone who’s gone through an upgrade to their computer system unless they’re technologically facile will usually have some period of adjustment/depression dealing with the myriad of nuances and quirks that accompany the new and improved version. I think in this case, ‘improved’ is somewhat subjective – I'm not a huge fan of our particular email program regardless of the year of its release and I was doing just fine with the old one (sort of). To me, an ‘improvement’ should be something as self-evident as the rehabs we’ve recently finished or are currently in the works at several of our properties. When we’re done with a renovation the property is truly improved on a variety of levels. Many of these are obvious including the overall appearance and structural conditions while others are not necessarily as visible but just as significant, such as improved efficiency in operations. Of course these types of changes don't come without their own set of challenges – for example, relocating entire communities of residents during the rehab process to other housing is a fairly substantial undertaking. It's a period of ongoing change that doesn't just end even temporarily once people are situated because our commitment and responsibilities stay with them until we move everyone back to our property. As complex and perhaps even imposing as this may be, it's a change for which we actively pursue the funding to facilitate, attend to the details at every turn, and basically keep on trucking until the project is complete. It's part of the preservation aspect of what we do and a 'change' perhaps on a much larger scale than upgrading our internal email app would seem. Although if you ask our incredibly savvy support services staff who dedicated a large amount of time including some weekend hours for the convenience of the rest of us to not only installing and then dealing with the aftermath of the 'improvements', they might argue pretty convincingly that approaching this task required equally impressive skills. They'd be right. Because we all know that our email 'rehab' will undoubtedly impose a similar commitment to its completion (is that even possible??), continued technical proficiency, and maybe even greater nerves of steel. The last time I called one of these professionals to “please come help me! (again)” that even though they didn't pick up their extension, I'm sure I could hear them baaaa-rreee-llly breathing and probably wishing I'd just go away. So as a comparatively small measure of gratitude to these fine technicians for their patience and talents, I did. For now. Thanks, guys...from all of us.

*Henry David Thoreau