Brazos Valley Homeless Coalition
Contact: Alsie Bond abond@bryantx.gov

The next meeting of the Brazos Valley Homeless Coalition (BVHC) will be May 10, 2005, from 11:30-1:00 at Twin City Mission Administrative Offices (Old Sheltering Arms Building), 2505 S. College Avenue, Bryan, Texas 77802.  

The BVHC serves the 7 county region of Brazos, Grimes, Washington, Robertson, Madison, Burleson, and Leon counties. Meetings are held once a quarter, with committee meetings being held bi-monthly or as necessary. Please call Alsie Bond, at the City of Bryan Community Development Office (979) 209-5175 for more information.

Homeless Issues Partnership of Corpus Christi
Contact: Eddie Mathis ejacksonmathis@aol.com

Cynthia C. Contreras, board member of Homeless Issues Partnership, has asked to reprint her thanks (also printed in the Corpus Christi Caller Times, February 18, 2005 issue) to everyone contributing to the annual Homeless Persons’ Memorial Day Sunrise Service in Corpus Christi:

I decided we should have this event [Homeless Persons’ Memorial Day Sunrise Service] locally over 5 years ago. We had gone into the night to do a point in time survey @11:00 p.m. at all the camps and places where people experiencing homelessness would be found. I met one particular man sitting on an AC/Heating unit in an alley behind a convenient store. He was Davie Ellis. He was the subject of a piece written by Eric Samuels in one of the earlier issues of [Homeless Network News]. Months later, this person had been a victim of a hate crime. He was beaten to death in front of the same store where we had met. He is the reason I started investigating the local homeless deaths in order to bring dignity to these fallen foot soldiers by memorializing them as Richard Troxell of House the Homeless, Universallivingwage.org and Michael Stoops of the National Homeless Coalition have taught me.

Cynthia C. Contreras,
Texas Rio Grande Legal Aid, Inc.

NET Homeless Consortium (previously Gregg-Harrison Homeless Consortium)
Contact: Harrison Kinney, harrison.kinney@sabinevalley.org

During the February meeting, the group voted unanimously to change the name of the Consortium to NET Homeless Consortium. NET stands for North East Texas. The letterhead portrays our group netting new organizations to network with us as we extend our hands to help the homeless, one person at a time, to step up the ladder of success.

Thank you so much for [everyone’s] help in bringing excitement and success to the NET Homeless Consortium. I look forward to what this group can do together: collaborating to acquire federal funding, sharing and learning from each other’s successes and failures, networking to prevent duplication of services and others.

Iris Stankorb – Chairperson, NET Homeless Consortium