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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.
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