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Page lO/The Battalion/Friday, September 30, 1988
Dallas’s ‘Ruff House’ shelters
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DALLAS (AP) — People live at
Ruff House because they’re out of
money, out of work or out of op
tions.
They come to the eight little
frame buildings on rural Langdon
Road in Dallas to get back on their
feet. Or to dry out. Or to grow up.
Or because nobody else wants them.
Often, it’s a combination.
Ruff House is a place for people
who don’t belong in the hospital or
in jail or in a mental facility — peo
ple who don’t fall under the jurisdic
tion of other helping agencies.
“We take anyone who needs a
home for any reason,” George Ruff
said.
It is this
that sets Rufl Mouse apan
need in a city where homelessness is
a constant problem, especially dur
ing very hot or very cold weather.
This summer, with its oppressive
heat, was a busy one for George and
Alice Ruff.
“Police take a lot of people there,
and Parkland sends people there
when they’re not sick enough to stay
in the hospital but uot well enough
to be out on the streets,” said Dan
Alaniz, a manager in the Dallas De
partment of Health and Human
Services.
“It’s not a real slick operation. It’s
not real pretty. But they tend not to
turn anybody away. I have so much
respect for the work they do.”
On a recent day the Ruffs said was
average, there were 94 people at
Ruff House.That is considered a ca
pacity crowd, but as many as 150
have stayed there at times, some
sleeping on the floor of the small
chapel.
“Our primary objective is to offer
shelter and food for the mentally,
physically and emotionally hand
icapped,” Jim Bidelhausen, a former
management consultant, said.
Bidelhausen came to Ruff House
several years ago to recuperate from
heart surgery and stayed to help the
Ruffs handle public relations and
manage the home.
There is nothing lavish about the
accommodations at Ruff House.
Used, donated furniture sits on lino
leum or worn carpeting inside the
tiny buildings, connected by tar-pa
per walkways in need of repair.
Small window units provide scant
air conditioning in some of the
buildings; fans battle the heat in oth
ers.
Dallas is funneling $72,776 in fed
eral money into Ruff House this
year for renovations to help it com
ply with city codes, Alaniz said.
Bidelhausen said the home’s an
nual operating expenses are about
$300,000, all of which comes from
individual and church donations.
Ruff House gets food from the
North Texas Food Bank, and indi
viduals and groups donate clothing,
furniture and cars.
A question about staff draws a
shrug from the Ruffs.
“Staff?” asked Alice Ruff. “There
is no staff.’’There are only the resi
dents of Ruff House, who are ex
pected to contribute to the house
hold by cooking, cleaning or doing
other assigned chores.
George Ruff, wheelchair-bound
by childhood polio, said he began
helping people in Kansas, where he
grew up.
“People have helped me,” he said,
“so I help others in return.” He and
Alice Ruff married on July 28, 1967.
She had a license to care for abused
children, and Ruff House Ministries
grew out of that.
The couple moved to Dallas 13
years ago because of Alice Ruff’s
asthma.
They bought a small house on
Langdon Road in Dallas, south of
Interstate 635.
“We started expanding,” Ruff
said, “and we’re still expanding.”
There are no neighbors to com
plain. State officials consider Ruff
House a shelter rather than a care
home, so they don’t press the Ruffs
to get an institutional license.
The Ruffs have adopted or ob
tained legal guardianship of five re
tarded or handicapped residents.
One is Vincent, 33, who has lived
with the Ruffs since 1970.
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AUSTIN (AP) — Republicans
and Democrats both claimed Thurs
day that Texas Hispanics will help
put their presidential candidates
over the top on Nov. 8.
Gov. Bill Clements and a new His
panic Republican group predicted
that Vice President Bush will receive
the 35 percent of the Texas Hispanic
vote they believe he needs to win the
state.
“Unquestioablly, the Hispanic
vote is going to be critical to this elec
tion. I don’t think this election can
be won in the state of Texas without
the Hispanic vote,” said Ernesto An-
cira of San Antonio, co-chairman of
the newly formed Hispanics for
Bush organization.
Clements said President Reagan
received between 37 percent and 38
percent of the Hispanic vote in 1984,
and he said 35 percent was a good
target this year.
“I think that our goal of 35 per
cent is realistic and that we’ll achieve
it,” Clements said.
But state Sen. Carlos Truan, D-
Corpus Christi, in a staement distrib
uted by Gov. Michael Dukakis’ cam
paign, said Texas Hispanics increas
ingly are supporting the Democrat.
“Eight years of Republicanism has
blocked entry to the middle class for
large numbers of Hispanics and
made it increasingly difficult to
maintain a middle-class family life
style,” Truan said.
Truan said Census Bureau fig
ures indicate that 353,000 Hispanics
fell below the poverty line between
1986 and 1987. He said the number
of Hispanic students entering col
lege is falling and that Labor Depart
ment statistics show an increase in
Hispanic unemployment over that
of the general population.
“The drive to enter the American
middle class mainstream has faltered
because of the Republican adminis
tration’s total lack of concern for the
bread and butter interests of the vast
majority of Americans,” Truan said.
Clements, co-chairman of Bush’s
Texas campaign, took a swipe at Du
kakis’ ability to speak Spanish as he
argued that Texas Hispanics share
the vice president’s beliefs.
“On issue after issue — from tra
ditional family values to tough anti
crime measures — the vice president
shares the views held by the majority
of the people of this country and, es
pecially, the people in our state of
Texas,” Clements said. “He knows it
takes more than speaking Spanish to
understand the needs of our His
panic citizens.”
But Truan saw it differently.
“Both Dukakis and (Sen. Lloyd)
Bentsen speak our language — on
education, on health care, on jobs,
on child care, on expanding the
rights of all Americans,” he said.
“On top of all this, one half of the
Republican ticket, Sen. Dan Quayle,
voted to abolish the bilingual provi
sion of the Voting Rights Act, even
though it was publicly supported by
President Reagan.”
In other political developments:
— Judge Paul Pressler of the
Houston-based 14th Court of Ap
peals said he was switching from the
Democratic to Republican parties.
Pressler, 58, also is a member of the
executive committee of the Southern
Baptist Convention and served in
the Texas Legislature from 1957 to
1959.
“Judge Pressler, like many people
searching for the true conservative
party, is welcome in the GOP,” said
state Republican Chairman Fred
Meyer. “This sends a clear signal
that the Democrat Party is out of
touch with the people of this state.”
Democratic Party executive direc
tor Ed Martin said Pressler’s declara
tion Thursday was no surprise.
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Ruff House to escape an abusive
relationship.
He now works for Lancaster Resi
dential Center for the retarded.
He recently got a raise, and last
month the couple had a baby.
Diane Atkinson has no physical
problems when she arrived at Ruff
House in 1976.
Her handicaps were emotional.
“I was going through some per
sonal problems and had contem
plated suicide,” she said. “I got laid
off from my job.”
She’s living on her own now and
working as a security guard, hut she
frequently conies back to visit
“Mamma and Pappa,” which is what
everyone at Ruff House calls the
Ruffs.
Darlys Sager left Ruff House, had
problems and returned.
Before she first came two years
ago, she was living in the hack of a
pickup at Lake Ray Hubbard.
“My kids’ daddy abandoned us at
the Salvation Army and I went into
premature labor,” Sager said.
After she h >rt the baby, Parkland
officials called the Ruffs, whogai
her a home.
“Every time I’ve tried toleavej'i
fallen flat on my face,” she said.
To end that cycle, the Ruffs sen
her to a Dallas County Commui®
College job training program.
“1 am now qualified totakeanen
try-level accounting position,” slj
said proudly, adding that she
several job interviews lined up in t*
coming weeks.
Generally, the Ruffs said, they,
low' people to stay with them |j
about four months, if necessary
But residents are expectedtofcl
low certain basic rules — no a
no drugs, keep your living spu
clean and he considerate of ofe
residents.
The Ruff s acknowledge thatdei
ing with dozens of physically jj)
emotionally troubled people isdH
cult.
“But it was given to usasanh
sion,” Alice Ruff says. “And wl*
God gives you something, you
give it away.”
Texas legislature
discusses possible
state income taxes
ei
“His mother brought him to me,”
Alice Ruff says. “He was deaf, blind
and retarded. He was 15 and he was
a complete infant at that time. They
(doctors) told us he would never
function at all. They told us he was a
‘blob.’ Now, he functions fine.”
Vincent still has speech problems
but is an ebullient member of the
Ruff House community wdio loves to
strum guitars and play records. His
hearing has improved without sur
gery; the Ruffs chalk it up to faith.
Robert Stewart is a recent Ruff
House graduate. He came to the
Ruffs in January 1987, after he lost
his job. They paid his tuition at El
Centro College, where he trained in
health care. He married Lynn, an
other resident, who had come to
AUS I IN (AP) — Some Texas leg
islators are so fearf ul of discussing
even the possibility of a state income
tax that they refer to it as the
“I’’word.
Other Texans say that when it
comes to an income tax, the perti
nent “I” word is “inevitable,” given
the need to pay for critical state serv
ices.
One thing they agree on is that
the idea of taxing corporate and per
sonal income — a move that would
raise billions of dollars for a state
that has struggled in recent years to
fund public services — stirs unusu
ally strong emotions.
“For the most part, the people
who have come before our commit
tee say the income tax is a godsend,
or they say it’s a beast from hell,”
Billy Hamilton, executive director of
the Select Committee on Fax Equity,
said. The panel w'as created last year
by the Legislature to make recom
mendations about the state tax sys
tem.
“It’s kind of like in the olden
days,” Hamilton, former chief reve
nue estimator at the state comptrol
ler’s office and former research di
rector for the Texas Association of
Taxpayers, said. “People thought to
matoes were poisonous until some
body bit one and found out they
weren’t. Right now, we haven’t got to
the tomato stage on this.”
Gary E. Wood, president of the
Texas Research League, said,
“There is just a visceral aversion to
the word ‘income tax’ in Texas, and
a lot of people feel that there’s some
sort of mystical reason not to have
one.”
But economist Bernard
Weinstein, director of the Center for
Enterprising at Southern Methodist
University, said Texans who don’t
want an income tax may not have all
the facts.
“We’ve got to understand that all
taxes are income taxes ... all taxes
come out of income. I think it is im
perative that we shift over to a sys
tem of direct taxation and* away
from the system of indirect taxation
we’ve been using,” Weinstein said.
Rep. Stan Schlueter, a Killeen
Democrat who heads the House
Ways and Means Committee, was
matter-of-fact in predicting the im
pact on the Legislature that would
dare to approve an income tax. “One
hundred and eighty one new mem
bers (of the Legislature),” he said. “A
new governor. A new lieutenant
governor. The public feeling is that
strong.”
Schlueter has unsuccessfully tried
to win legislative approval for a con
stitutional ban on a state income tax.
Rep. Dan Morales, a San Antonio
Democrat who is vice-chairman of
the House tax committee, said that
someday, with spiraling property
and sales taxes, “I can foresee a situ
ation where the public will believe
and the public will make the
judgment that an income tax is the
lesser of the available evils.”
But the public must decide that
before lawmakers will act, he said.
The income tax is a potential
monster of a money-maker for a
state dealing with court rulings on
schools, prisons and facilities farii
mentally retarded.
Forty-live states and the Eisitio
of Columbia have corporate item
taxes, according to inrormatioipit
sented at a tax policy confereme
year. T exas is one of 10 states#
out a personal income tax.
The select tax committee
prepared estimates on possibles
nue from an income tax. The
mate said various versions of th:a
could ra ise $5 billion to $7.8 bite
the first year. T he report assumt
the new tax would be fully inpi
mented in 1991, but concedettli
may be an unlikely schedule.
Tony Proffitt, spokesman f
state Comptroller Boh Bullock^
a 1991 effective date is unrealira
I fe said itlcould take severalveaii
WAS
to exc
141 at
ide n<
aused
nonth :
as-Fort
ort, ac
(tunica
The
kviatiot
pilots o
[nunica
lane’s
or du
aained
1mm
iresum
lie pilo
lutmai
to implement a personal inconra lentifi
except in the unlikely event thtttb
Legislature created a state incoffl /ere at
tax figured as a straight percent:?
of the federal income tax, withtt tere
state exemptions.
Bullock, asked by the comfoitti
to estimate revenue from a to
potato income tax, said aversion: sual a
that levy would generate aboulil:
million annually in net revel®
starting in five years. It wouldti
about 31 months to implementaij
there would he “very significant"#
ministrative costs he said.
Sen. Grant Jones of Temple,v
long headed the, Senate Finn:
Committee hut is leaving the Let
lature after losing the Democi
primary election, predicted Tesj
would have an income tax u
five years.
“I don’t think you
enough money with selectivetaxett
meet the responsibilities of ti*
state,” Jones said. He said aninco®
tax should be passed before resvem
is critically needed, because of® k f i 10m
time it takes to implement.
An income tax is inevitaH 1
Weinstein said. “There .s no otk ^
way to broaden the tax base ton®
t fair and efficient and generate® lescof
revenues we desperately need
schools, for highways, for socialJoston
grams, everything,” he said
The SMU economist predict
the impetus for a Texas income
will he the need for massive,set*
finance ref orm. The state is apj®
ing a judge’s ruling that the c# (f h 0 p e( i
school finance system is uncdi#
tional.
buttle
orm t
But Weinstein said the dm?
would not come before 1993,$ g,
legislative redistricting gives
Legislature more urban andi
nority representation.
He also noted that people V
itemize their federal taxes cant
duct the state income taxes they®
State sales taxes no longer ated
ductihle.
That raises the ire of Ho)
Speaker Gib Lewis.
“1 think the Congress purp«
targeted Texas and those oJ*
states that do not have a personal
come tax ... I think it was done#
ciously to force those states toa
sonal income tax,” Lewis said.
CRIMINAL DEFENSE
ATTORNEYS
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DWI • Ftelonies • Misdemeanors
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