Former THN VISTA, Elaine Garrison, current VISTA leader Natalie Cuccia and graduate student George Brown have volunteered to facilitate the writing of an updated version of “Moving Beyond the Gray Zone”, a 1991 Texas Interagency Council for the Homeless publication. The past publication included a collection of statistics, recommendations, and testimony gathered during public hearings at the time, more than ten years ago. This year the THN staff will be including a bit more information to clarify the problem and bring forward more reality.

Compared to the original “Moving Beyond the Gray Zone,” this time around, the same concerns will be expressed with current statistics and recommendations that will provide legislatures with more intense understanding. A survey developed by Elaine Garrison and George Brown was sent out in late June to separate areas of Texas in attempt to clarify statewide needs as well as each communities’ primary needs. With the current surveys completed and in the THN database, legislators from the specific areas of interest may be contacted and informed of their city’s specific problem areas. This approach breaks down the many factors affecting homelessness into separate manageable areas.

An important addition to the current publication are the stories of the homeless population provided by Garrison. She has interviewed a two-parent homeless family, a fulltime employed homeless man, a domestic abuse survivor and her family, an elderly homeless person, a homeless veteran and a homeless youth to cover the wide array of cases. Recorded interviews for accuracy and photographs of the homeless taken by Dylan Vitone are gathered into a document that will hopefully capture the attention of legislators and perhaps cause them to respond to the homeless needs in the state of Texas. Faces with stories and statistics as reassurance will be solid evidence of the existing problems and provide a strong reference for homeless activists and legislators that can help move things in the right direction.

Those working on the publication have high hopes that it will be a wake up call to legislators in the state. It’s also a vehicle by which people may explain in their own words how easy it is to become homeless; how difficult it is to locate/ access services; which obstacles prevented them from improving their situation; and what kinds of programs/ services have helped them. The document will be finished in September and presented to the Capitol this fall.