Yesterday’s homeless news… not so true

If you didn’t get my skeptcism in yesterday’s post, you might have overlooked this clue: It started with the phrase, “According to the Bush administration.” The  New York Times had reported that chronic homelessness in the United States had gone down 30% between 2005 and 2007.
Thirty percent is a lot. And it’s really a lot in just [...]

Aug 1: Celebrate Catalyst 8

I love it when organizations break out of how things are supposed to be done and just do it however they want. It can be a hard sell at the board meeting when this kind of thing comes up. You sit there with a group of people, brainstorming ideas for an event, when all of [...]

Is the Austin chronic-homeless count down?

According to the Bush administration, the number of chronically homeless people has dropped 30 percent from 2005 to 2007. Remember that a chronically homeless person is a little different; they are defined as a homeless person with a disabling condition who has been homeless for a year or more or has had frequent episodes of [...]

ILHIGH campaign starts asking questions

That’s the “in the know” acronym for the I Live Here, I Give Here campaign.
Looks like the RGK Center has begun conducting surveys and compiling data on how effective the campaign is so far. I received an email today from Dr. Sarah Jane Rehnborg “and The RGK Center Research Team” with a Survey Monkey link, [...]

Austin drops down volunteering rankings

The Corporation for National and Community Service (the Americorps people) released new 2007 rankings on the rate of volunteerism in big cities across the country, and Austin dropped from the number-three spot to number five.
From what I understand, the U.S. Census conducts monthly surveys to keep its data fresh, and in September 2006, the survey asked [...]

Saturday 7/26: Free Ballet Folklorico Lessons!

My mother would die.
My mother used to do this kind of dancing when she was younger. We have lots of photos of her in these beautiful dresses, swinging the flaired skirt around and whipping her castanets in the air. When my two sisters and I were about 10, she tried to teach us how to [...]

Shop Macy’s and Give! (them more money)

An ad in the Statesman on Sunday:
Kinda made me feel yucky. Why? It says they did this last year and raised almost $10 million for charity. That’s good, right?
Macy’s has an ad in the paper every day. Wait. That’s an understatement. Macy’s co-owns the Statesman with Dillard’s. They runs ads listing their shopping “events” and [...]

Incoherent thoughts on what I’m supposed to be doing

Some nice stories in the paper today (…you know the one. We only have one. I remember growing up in San Antonio, we had two, and that when the San Antonio Light closed down in 1992, the entire city’s shoulders slumped. My uncle worked there as a photographer for decades, and now he’s a San Antonio Express-News [...]

How to help food banks right now

When the going gets tough, the poor are hit first, as reported by this week’s Statesman story and last November’s NYT story. From the Statesman:
“The Capital Area Food Bank, which distributes food to some 350 partner agencies in 21 counties in Central Texas, has seen a 15 to 20 percent increase in demand since January. Bob [...]

Every dog will have its day… thanks to Leona!

This from the New York Times today: In her will Leona Helmsley bequeathed almost her entire fortune to dogs. Well, originally she had said “people and dogs” but apparently she scratched out “people” in a revision.
The entire forture is somewhere between $5 and $8 billion. Billion. That is almost 10 times as much as [...]