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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 16, 1998)
Aggielife be a genef3i| udder. Wewf ilie speaking il and re will beagfi :luding speel Sean at 68(}* : Alpha Plii0(|S ; from 10 ail ons: MSC,S| ngle and W are entered| d flight, Station. tary Engineer! & Root and? } in the 21$!! n. in the Sa'J I Rob at847J benefits BY STEPHEN WELLS The Battalion t’s November, and the first signs of winter are in the air. For most students, this means going out to buy the [jacket they have been eying [at Dillard’s. But for the homeless in Bryan and College Station, escaping the cold is jnuch more difficult. - ' It is the job of the Twin City Mission in north Bryan to help those who need it the most. Twin City Mission’s Bridge Emer gency Shelter is the only overnight shel ter for the homeless in the Bryan-College Station area. The shelter offers services ranging from dealing with substance abuse to helping the needy find jobs and homes. The shelter has a simple layout, de signed around a front office and two “dorms,” one for females and the other for males. Children live with their mothers. In side, the dorms are essentially large com mon rooms equipped with enough beds and storage space for residents to store their things. Warren Lincecum, who was once a res ident at the shelter and now volunteers at the Bridge, said those living in the shelter must abide by a strict set of rules. “This shelter is a Christian institution,” Lincecum said. “If you start fighting, you’re kicked out. If you come in and they smell alcohol on your breath, you’re out. If you disrespect the counselors, you’re not allowed to comeback.” The policies serve two purposes. First, they help people who are battling sub stance abuse by threatening to take away their protection from the elements. Second, the shelter can get crowded ♦ quickly, and too many people in too lit tle space are often quick to show their bod side. “Life in here gets hectic, but you’ve got to deal with it,” Lincecum said. “We have a lot of people in recovery, and some who aren’t. We all have to work here as a family.” In the shelter, people get to know each other and share what they have. Page 3 • Monday, November 16, 1998 A cigarette here or there forms ties of friendship between the residents, and the shared labor they perform to earn their stay brings them closer. “Here you get a place to sleep and three square meals a day, or a sack lunch if you have a job,” Lincecum said. “If you don’t have a job, you work here to earn your fair share. You do 20 hours of labor a week for the shelter, and everybody has chores to do to keep the place clean.” To aid in the transition to indepen dence, Twin City Mission offers programs to help residents overcome addictions, manage their anger or get a high-school equivalency degree. James Byles, who currently lives in the shelter, said he is optimistic about his future. “Right now I volunteer my time at the Health for All clinic, taking patient records and helping the doctors there,” Byles said. “What I’m doing with that is training for a job. They’re also trying to help me get into school and get my education. Hopefully I can take some RN classes and get a job in the medical field.” Any of a number of circumstances bring people to the shelter. For people like Byles, sometimes a run of bad luck is enough to bring them to the shelter. “I’ve got a wife and kid,” Byles said. “In addition, I was taking care of my mother. She had gotten paralyzed and lat er got an infection in the hospital, so she was there for a year, “I’ve been paralyzed on the left side of my body and had to do self-therapy to be able to move again, and I still have a bad back.” Problems can arise when the fair share of work needed to stay at the shelter is in conflict with injuries and disabilities. “Twenty hours a week may not sound like much,” Byles said. “But when that 20 hours has you bend ing down and lifting anything, it really gets to you. You’re disobeying doctors or ders to do the work.” Most residents said the shelter per forms a needed service in spite of their re quired hard work. “I can honestly say that I’ve been two years clean because of this shelter,” Lincecum said. see Shelter on Page 4. ;M ESTER TNG OUT- ( E S ER ■ram at erman I' 11 ^ s A&M >es not oinions vs and ^ You don’t have to buy pizza for everyone on your floor. But isn’t it nice to know that you could? Give yourself financial flexibility. Call us for The Associates Student Visa® card. And set all this: • 3% cash back on purchases * No annual fee * Credit line up to $2,500 To apply, call toll free 1-888-SEND-ONE “See Rebate Terms and Conditions accompanyins the credit card For more information and great discounts, visit our Web site at www.studentcreditcard.com.
