GED programs, workforce training programs and doctor’s appointments are some of the new incentives that the Good Neighbor Settlement House will develop in order to assist the homeless population in Brownsville.
“Rather than giving people everything they want … you have to build programs that not only serve people in the most humane way possible, but provide them an opportunity for incentives to move in the direction you want them to go,” said Jack White, a UTRGV social work lecturer and interim volunteer director at the Good Neighbor Settlement House.
The Good Neighbor Settlement House is a nonprofit agency at 1254 E. Tyler St. that serves and helps the homeless in Brownsville with basic needs such as warm food, showers and a place to sleep.
On Jan. 6, Robert Marbut, founder of Marbut Consulting, visited the Good Neighbor Settlement House to offer ideas to benefit the homeless community in Brownsville.
“I came down to do sort of an overview of what the homeless system is like and give some suggestions of sort of how to move forward, how changes may occur with the new administration, how funding changes with the federal funding cuts … that were already started through sequestration and talk about that … and did a quick analysis of how the situation is going, what improvements can be made and such like that,” Marbut said.
White said it was informative to hear from Marbut the changes that the nonprofit agency needs to make in order to better serve the community.
“Dr. Marbut suggested that one of the first things we needed was better data. We all waved our hands and said, ‘We are doing this.’ … But those are not the kind of output changes that Dr. Marbut said were important,” White said. “What we need to be about is how many of those people came off the street, how many of those people take a course, how many of those people deal with addiction or mental illness … and then begin to move toward a housing opportunity that they could afford.”
White said the Good Neighbor Settlement House is in the process of cleaning up parts of its building that is unused so that people can receive better housing service.
“The optimum use of these [facilities] would be for something that would house people and give them a chance to experience living independently. … The challenge is that these [facilities] are on the second floor. … So, if somebody is handicapped, they cannot climb the stairs,” he said. “We are going to be looking for ways in which either we can accommodate those individuals or we can put essentially a lift in here that will address that issue.”
Asked what it would cost to renovate the nearly 82-year-old building, White replied: “We are on the cusp of looking at what those costs are with the help of SpawGlass, [ a general contractor]. … My guess is it is going to easily take $150,000 and that would be at the light end with dealing with both of those [facilities] and that is not going to provide the elevator. An elevator will cost you at any point in time $100,000 for just one elevator.”
White said once the agency receives the total cost of renovations and program implementation, he will solicit funding from United Way and the Legacy Foundation.
As previously reported by The Rider, there are many ways in which UTRGV students can volunteer to help the Good Neighbor Settlement House. White said students studying such majors as culinary arts or education can help the agency.
For more information on volunteering at the Good Neighbor, call 542-2368.
