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Hi, my name is Sarah Davidson and I'm a student intern at the Houston Jewish History Archive at Rice University. Today is July 20th, 2022 and I am joined by Shelley Cypress. Shelley. How are you today? I'm fine, thank you. Yeah, great. Um, I'm so excited that

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you're joining me today. Uh I wanted to start with talk by talking a little bit about your childhood. Where were you born? And where did you grow up? I was born, uh, the second daughter of my mother and father in Brooklyn, New York. So, until I

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was 10 years old, I lived in an apartment in Brooklyn, New York. And at the age of nine, my parents moved to Miami Beach, Florida. My father was not, well, and the doctor suggested that he had to get out of the cold winters in New York.

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And so to Miami Beach, which he thought was paradise because we could go to the beach in the summer. And I mean, in the winter and it was just, it was warm and at that time, very different than Miami Beach is today. But we lived in

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an apartment down on third street to begin, which is now a very cool place to live at the time that I was a child. Um It was an orthodox section of town. My father worshiped in small orthodox synagogues wherever he could find them. And he liked

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that area very much. Eventually we bought a home in Florida and that's where I went to school until I graduated from high school. So we lived on an island called Normandy Island, which is at the 79th street Causeway between Miami Beach and Miami. It was not

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very heavily populated at the time. That is not true today, but at the time it was not. And um we had good neighbors next door and that was pretty much it. I took a bus to school and I graduated from Miami Beach Senior High School. Everyone,

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everyone in my high school class was Jewish. Hmm. Everyone in my high school class and that means everyone, none of my teachers were Jewish but every one of the students, everyone was Jewish. And so BBg and A Z A were our sororities and fraternities. And I

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was president of my young Judea chapter and president of my, the Neighbors Girls Chapter and all of that stuff. That is where we had our social lives. Everyone had their social lives at BBg and A Z A. That is what we did. And we did any

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better to tell you quite honestly, I had always lived, always lived in areas that were almost totally Jewish and so un until I went to college, which was a great awakening for me. I have lived primarily my entire life with other Jewish people. Yeah. Um, tell

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me a little bit about the differences between growing up Jewish in Brooklyn and growing up Jewish in Miami. How were those two experiences different for you? Actually, they weren't very different for me. Um, the experiences in Brooklyn or, you know, it was, was a, it was

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a big city and, and we lived on the city streets. I went to a high PS 189 with my public school which was right down the block from where I lived, um, going to school in Miami Beach. I needed to take a bus to school and

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that was very different for me. Um, but the education was pretty much the same. Um, my Jewish education was pretty much the same. I went to little, little, I, I can't even call them Jewish schools but they were, there were schools that taught, um, Hebrew and

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Jewish history and they were pretty much the same between Brooklyn and, and Miami Beach. And to tell you the truth, a lot of the people on Miami Beach were from New York and I came down in the winters and spent the winters there. And so I

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cannot say that my experiences were very different. My friends growing up primarily were Jewish because those were the people I knew. And that's where I lived, that's where I lived. I lived in areas that were primarily Jewish areas. Um My father was really very upset that

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when I went to high school, I asked if I could join a reform synagogue. Yes. He said, you can't do that. That is like going to church. And I said, no, it really is not. And I joined. And so I went to the rabbi of the

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reformed sy uh synagogue in Miami, which was Temple Israel at the time and asked him if I could join as an individual, not as a, my family would not join, but could I join alone as an individual? And he asked me why. And I explained that

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my father would not be happy with that decision either with my mother or my grandmother. And that um my grandmother lived with us. And um and could I do that? He said, well, he would go and speak to my father. So the rabbi from Temple Israel

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came into our house and spoke to my dad. And, and after that, my, he reluctantly agreed that I could become an individual member. And so I became an individual member of um Temple Israel in Miami. I preferred the service. It just seemed more contemporary to me.

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And um and a lot of my friends were also there. So that's where I went to school. Um the Hebrew school. Uh And um until I graduated from high school, what was that experience? Like at Temple Israel, what were your favorite, uh, like experiences you had

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there? I don't know, it's like all kids going to that kind of environment. Um I was with friends so I enjoyed the camaraderie and, and I enjoyed, the teachers were wonderful and the rabbi was, he was a great man. Mhm. So, um, I just, I just

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felt at home so I felt that just felt good going and I love services. I sang in the choir um on Friday night, uh we had choir and during the week we had choir rehearsals and I si sang while I was in high school. And so,

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um I enjoyed that. It was uh it was a nice, it was a nice experience. It, it really was. So I, I was happy that uh oh, ok. I'm back. All right. Perfect. Yeah. So, so I was primarily, I was raised by my grandmother. My parents

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lived in New York for part of the year. They came down in the winter months and went back around April because my parents did not want me to have to transfer schools every few months. I stayed in Miami Beach with my grandmother who lived with us

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and was widowed. And so I was primarily raised by my grandmother um who was a wonderful human being, an immigrant. She um she could not read English or write English. Really? Uh She primarily spoke Yiddish and Polish and she was very talented. She was a dressmaker.

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She was very, very talented person and she had a good heart. She was a wonderful woman. And so I was very fortunate to have the opportunity to really know my grandmother growing up and my parents came and went. And in the summers when school was out,

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I took the train by myself. That's 26 hours on the train, which we would never do today. From the time I was very young, I would go on the train for 26 hours back to New York. And then my parents would pick me up at the

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train station and I would spend the summers in New York with them. So I had a kind of commuting life a little unusual, but it worked for us. And I have to say, I mean, we would never today send our, let's see, how old was I,

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when I started doing that, probably 12. Ok. So we would never see our year old child on a train by herself today. Ever, there was no fear that someone was going to hurt or harm you. No one harmed Children, no one harmed Children. It was not

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even thought about so that I loved going on the train and eating in the dining car and, and reading and I usually stayed awake for the whole 26 hours and then got to New York. So that was a really interesting experience. And when I think back

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on it now it's so different than the life that we have today. And, and how about our safety and security? Um, it's very, very different. Yeah, I cannot imagine same kind of thing happening today. I cannot imagine anyone taking a 26 hour train ride, honestly. So,

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yeah, I was on a train back to New York and I, I enjoy being independent and by myself. Um, I thought it was a wonderful experience. I look forward to it every year, uh, to do that and I went back and forth. So, from New York,

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I took the train back to Miami Beach and, well, actually Miami with the train and then I was picked up there and taken home. So it was a, it was a really interesting experience one that we would not allow our Children to have today. It was

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frightening. Yeah. Really? Um, I wanted to talk a little bit about what that transition to, uh, college was like when you were no longer surrounded only by the Jewish community. It was, it was really, um, I went to Vassar College, which was an all in Poughkeepsie,

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New York. Yes. Ok. Um, my, none of my roommates were Jewish throughout the years. They had remained very good friends. My best friend is my college roommate who now lives in England. Hm. Um, but they weren't Jewish and since I sang in the choir, uh, I

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sang in the church choir every Sunday. So I, four years yeah, very different from the temple choir. Very different from the temple choir. And I learned a great deal. I mean, I sat through services for four years. Um, when I sang in the choir, love singing

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in the choir. Totally different music, of course, than what I was accustomed to singing. Um, I learned different perspectives about religion. I learned what people felt about their own religion. So I had really no experience and so it was a, it was just eye opening for

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me. I, um, really was so, um, celebrated my first Christmas and Easter at other people's homes, um, really thought about religion in a different way. In fact, ended up morring in religion in college because I was fascinated by it. So, um, I majored in psychology. I

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minored in religion and history. Um, it was just something that appealed to me. Right. Um, and so it, you know, I, it wasn't a problem, it was just eye opening. It was just a new way of looking at life for me. Yeah, I had to understand

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that. Yeah. Very provincial life up till the time I went to college and it was, it was just a different experience. Just a different experience. Yeah, definitely. Um, after your time in college, how did you end up in Houston? I met my husband when I was

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a sophomore in high school. He was visiting his parents who lived next door to us in Florida. They were only there for one year. They were exploring business opportunities and they happened to live next door to us and he came down for a holiday vacation and

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that is how I met him. He was much older than I was. He, well, at the time it seemed that he was much older. He was in college and I was a sophomore in high school. So you seem much older than I was. He was only

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a few years older, but it seemed very much older at the time and it was not love at first sight. However, our parents, my parents and his parents because we live next door to each other and my grandmother became best friends and remained best friends for

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the rest of their lives. Hm. Um, very interestingly in any case, when I was a freshman in college, coming back to New York to stay with my parents for the summer. His parents, his grandparents were celebrating their 50th anniversary and he and his parents were coming

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into New York for that anniversary. He was going to Rice University at the time in Houston. So he was a rice student. Ok, going at the time and they were coming into New York for the 50th anniversary party. And his mother told my mother that that

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was happening. And my mother said, if Joel calls you, please say yes to a date after all, his parents are very good friends of ours. It's only one night out of your life. And his mother said to him, please call Shelley and ask her out you.

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They know we're in New York and you know, it's only one night out of your life. So ask, you know, call and see if she'll go out with you. So he called, he said, do you wanna go out? And I said yes. And he took two

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trains. They lived in the Bronx, they were in the Bronx for this event to two trains to get to Brooklyn. He had to walk 10 blocks from the train to my apartment and he got there and the first words and it's never been forgotten. The first

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words that I said to him after years of not seeing him was you're late. So it didn't start out in the best possible way, but it ended up to be the very best possible date I'd ever had. My husband was brilliant. Truly. There are very few

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brilliant people I know, but he was one of them. Hm. And he was brilliant. And when I was in high school, I hadn't realized that. But when I was in college I did, he, there was just nothing he didn't know, knew everything about everything. It was

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just brilliant as an engineer, he was an engineering school. He ended up teaching at Rice for the rest of his career. Even though he worked at Texas Instruments, he always taught a class at Rice University always. Um But for the rest of his life. He was

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a great teacher and, and he was a great student winning many awards at Rice. And um he was very special human being in any case, that date was great. So it was one of those great dates that you don't forget. And we ended eating at a

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restaurant called King of the Sea, which no longer exists in the Lower East Side. And then we walked all the way up to Rockefeller Center. It was a long walk to go to the movies. And we saw Vertigo, which was an Alfred Hitchcock movie, very, very

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famous Alfred Hitchcock movie. And then he took me on the train to get back to Brooklyn, got home very late. And the next day, my mother said, well, how was the date? And I told her it was great and he had told his mother the same

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thing and that's all they had to hear. So when I went back to school as a sophomore, Joel and I had already started writing to each other. Now, there was no internet. Ok. And there were no iphones. So we wrote to each other every day because

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at the end of the day, if you had a lot to say, you certainly didn't call, it was expensive to call and no one really had a phone, the phone was in the hall in my dorm. And so we wrote and we wrote letters which started

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once a week and then twice a week and then ended up being every day. And we wrote to each other every day until I graduated from college. In any case, as a sophomore, his mother called me and asked if I wanted to come to Houston to

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visit the Thanksgiving. And I said, oh, I don't think my mother will allow me to go by myself to visit you in Houston. She said, oh, I don't know. why don't you call your mother and see. So I did. And my mother said, oh, we'll be

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just fine. We know we know them and they're very good friends and there should be no problem. And I also was very friendly with Joel's brother, Doctor Jerry Cypress. Jerry lives in Houston and Jerry and I went to high school together, we carpooled. So, um, we

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have remained best friends forever and he still lives in Houston in any case. Um, I went down in two dates, Joel had asked me to marry him. We were engaged. Um, if my Children said to me that they were getting engaged after two dates, II, I

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would have been shocked. Right? My parents were quite sanguine about the entire thing. They thought it was very good. So we were engaged and I, and remained engaged until I graduated from college. And Joel graduated with his master's degree, working on his doctorate. He hadn't yet

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received it. And so when we married a week after I graduated from college, we came down to live in Houston. So that Joel can finish his degree at Rice, which took two years. He finished his degree. He was one of the first people to work on

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the computer or what was then a computer. Nobody understood computers at that point in time it was 1961. And so he, he worked on one of the original computers. It took up a whole room, literally a whole room. And there are pictures that you can find

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in rice magazines of Joel under the computer, which was really where he spent a good deal of his time. Um So anyway, he, he graduated, he got his phd, he was also in the military um in the navy. And when he graduated, we owed the military

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two years of service, Joel served the navy at the National Security Agency. Um He was never on a ship at the National Security Agency which is located between Washington DC and Baltimore. We lived on the Baltimore side. By the time Joel went into the military and

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actually did his service. He was a lieutenant and I had already had a child and was pregnant with my second child. So Joel and five Children, we had them quite rapidly. And so I was pregnant with my second daughter and he was in the military for

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two years. So we lived in Baltimore in a little town called Linthicum Heights, which was lovely. Um for the two years that he was in the service. So that's how up in Houston he was going to rice. And his parents also lived in Houston. So we

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came and, and lived and remained, uh, living in Houston for most of our lives. Mhm. Yeah. Wow. Uh, how did you decide to join Temple Emanuel? Once you got to Houston? We didn't, we didn't Temple Emanuel. We joined with Shalom. Ok. Got it. We joined with

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Stallone was a small temple. It was a conservative temple. My husband was more comfortable in a conservative congregation. I was not, but he was. And so we joined a congregation which was very nice. We moved on to Betty Shin. When our kids got a little older,

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they went to day school. So they were in Jewish day school at Bethy Sherin. When my Children went off, today's school went off to, it was not called, it was um I don't know, they were four years old, three years old, whatever that is. Um at

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Beth Shean, I went off to teach nursery school. So for the first two years that they were in nursery school, I taughtt nursery school at Beth Shean. That's important for our later for later on in our story. So I taught nursery school for two years. My

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kids went off there. We belong there because they were going to school there. It wasn't until my son Bradley had his bar mitzvah or was going to have his bar Mitzvah that we moved over to Temple Emanuel. It was many years later. So for the early

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years, we were a conservative congregations. We were not at congregation Emanuel, but we always attended services at Congregation Emanuel because one of the iconic rabbis in our city was rabbi Khan and he was at Congregation Emmanuel. And we ended up going there because his sermons were

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always amazing and we just liked hearing them. And so even though we weren't members there, we often attended services at Congregation Emanuel. Um And eventually, when my son Brad went off to school, I mean, went off to have to be bar mitzvahed. We joined congregation Emanuel

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and I was very happy that we did and I became quite active there in the Sisterhood and in the social action committee. Great. Yeah. Um It's very interesting. Um Yeah, I wanted to shift gears a bit to your role as the founder and chairman of Search

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Homeless Services. So, uh what led your decision to create the organization as my kids were growing up? I can tell you I started Search, I founded Search when I was 50 years old. I'm 83 now. So I know always exactly how many years it is. So

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it's exactly 33 years ago this summer, that Search was opened, not founded, it was founded two years earlier because it took a while to raise the money and get the site and do everything that you need to do to start a nonprofit organization. Ok. So, but

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it was opened in 1989. And so when I, when my kids got older, I went off to graduate school in speech pathology and audiology. They were going to school. I was going to school at night. I came home, my parents, my mother, at that point lived

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with me. Um, she was a widow. By that point, my father had passed away and so she came down to Houston and was living with me. Um My sister at that point was living with me. She had multiple sclerosis. Uh She had a son. So at

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that point, though, Joel and I had five Children, we had six Children to raise. Uh There were 10 of us in the household, my sister, my mother and six Children and Joel and me. Ok, so it was a busy household as you can imagine. Um And

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the kids were all ages from elementary through high school and I decided that if I wanted to go back to school. So I took one course a semester for five years. I took one course this semester to get the courses that I needed to start the

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graduate program because I didn't have the prerequisites from Vassar. Um And so I went to school and also was very busy with my family and also very busy doing volunteer work with Jewish social organizations. I was in Bne bri at the time and Hadasa and all

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the stuff that women do. Ok. So I did it too. So I was busy but I also took classes and to become a speech pathologist because I thought that's what I would be best at. Mhm. Once I had taken all the prerequisites I got two clients,

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um, to start my clinical work and I realized that it's not what I wanted to do. Now. You can imagine. I had spent five years doing this. I love the coursework. I could go to school forever. But once I clinic, once I knew how to do

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a lesson plan, I'm gonna have to do it for the rest of my life. It just wasn't what I wanted to do. As it turns out my daughter Lenore went into that program, the exact program I was in as she got older to get her master's

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degree in speech pathology, had the exact same teachers I did and went through the exact same program and did become a speech pathologist. It wasn't right for me, but I flogged through it. I was doing it because I felt if I didn't, I would have failed.

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And I didn't want to give my Children the impression that you could start something and not finish it. I just didn't think that was the right impression to give your Children. And so I just kept on working really hard. There were times when Joe had to

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drive me to school because I was up all night making little dolls and cutouts for my clients that, you know, um, for the classes that I was doing. And he finally said to me one night, he said, you know, I think you should recons and this

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is how he talked. I think you should reconsider your options. He said, I think that, you know, you will be on social security before you finish this program and, and I think you should finish the semester and then go find something that you really want to

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do somewhere else because I don't think this is for you. And so that was the greatest gift he gave me. He gave me the gift of failure. He gave me the gift of being able to fail and not feeling as if I had. It was a

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great gift. I can't tell you how great a gift that is. In any case, I finished the semester. And then when, where I always went, I went to the Social Action Committee at Congregation Emanuel at the time. It was in the early 19 eighties that I

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did this and homelessness was just becoming an issue in the city. Houston had never experienced homelessness ever. And to see people walking the streets, bathing their Children at the library in the sigs at the library, digging in garbage pails. I mean it was and thousands of

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people, not hundreds of people, thousands of people out there, women and Children. It was, it was really shocking. And one day, a friend of the head of the Social Action program at Emanuel who at the time was Adelyn Bernstein called her. Um May she rest in

00:31:31.790 - 00:31:53.959

peace called her and said his name was Don Johnson. That he was opening a woman and family shelter for the star of hope and could her committee help him? Because he had, when he opened it, 100 Children in this warehouse on North Main Street, no place

00:31:53.969 - 00:32:09.189

to go. He opened in the summer. No air conditioning. The only little room that was air conditioned was the chapel. The rest of it was on air conditioned and the windows didn't open. This was a warehouse. The end of the windows didn't open. It was very

00:32:09.199 - 00:32:37.069

hot and could he could she help him with the Children? And because I was the only person on that committee who had ever taught nursery school. Ok. I volunteered to chair the program for Children at the Star of Hope Women and family shelter on North Main

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Street. And that is the first time I ever met a homeless person and the first time I ever met a homeless child. Mhm. So I chaired that program for 18 months and during that time, our little committee became very good at what we were doing. Cleared

00:33:00.609 - 00:33:21.229

out my garage, put all the toys in there. We had a speech therapist and a play therapist. We had someone playing Ruth Smith and was playing the piano and we had wonderful games and it was a great program for Children. It really was. It turned out

00:33:21.239 - 00:33:46.260

to be fabulous. The warehouse was horrible. It water leaked when it rained. They had buckets to catch the water. The kids urinated in the water and then played in the buckets. I mean, it was star of hope. Has a great facility now. It's beautiful. That wasn't,

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it was a new place. Dawn had just opened. He had no idea what he was getting into. None. And he didn't even realize how many women and Children there were on the streets. It was just overwhelming for him. And so as I was doing the program,

00:34:03.239 - 00:34:21.110

every week, we would leave and our little committee would talk about what we could do because obviously though we were enjoying ourselves, we love playing with kids. It was, it was a wonderful experience for us to do all of this difficult. But, but worthwhile, we realized

00:34:21.120 - 00:34:43.138

we weren't making any changes in anybody's life. We weren't making anything any better for anybody, even though we were helping Don out it, it really was not helpful to the homeless families that were in the shelter. And so every week we just kept doing what we

00:34:43.148 - 00:35:01.509

were doing, getting better and better at it. Larger and larger programs. We ended up having a food program and having, I mean, medical services. I mean, we ended up with a great program. However, we realized it was not adequate. And so I think I'd still be

00:35:01.519 - 00:35:23.030

doing it today if I hadn't met this child. His name was Brian and eight of his top front teeth were missing was about 11 years old for reasons that nobody cared about or understood. His mother left the shelter in the morning, left all of her Children.

00:35:23.040 - 00:35:49.169

There was a variety of them to work the streets. Um She only came in when she was pregnant. Brian was the oldest. He had many developmental problems, physical emotional mental, he was slow, but he was delightful. I love that child and he would cling to me

00:35:49.179 - 00:36:05.090

every time I came and I just kept on saying to my husband, I just wish I could take him home, wish I could take him home because this poor child has three strikes against him already. I have no idea how his life is going to turn

00:36:05.100 - 00:36:24.540

out and he is such a sweet and loving person. Unfortunate. But so I concentrated on his teeth because I thought, well, maybe that was something I could do. How could he grow up without tea? So I finally found a dentist after several months who said that

00:36:24.550 - 00:36:36.969

he would look at him. You, it was difficult to find anybody who was going to help the homeless person. It was almost impossible. But this dentist was very nice. He said, yeah, he would look at him, see what he could do. It sounded like a difficult

00:36:36.979 - 00:36:53.280

case, he didn't know but he'd look at it. So I called the shelter and I said, get him ready. I'm coming in the morning to get him because I have an appointment with him. I came the next day and he and his siblings and his mother

00:36:53.290 - 00:37:25.000

were gone. They had left never to return. I had never seen that. I cannot tell you how depressed I was over that incident. It changed my life forever. I felt that I had failed him. And I said to my husband, you have to come down and

00:37:25.010 - 00:37:38.610

see this place because he had never been there. He had, he known what I was doing, but he had never come down to the star. He said, you have to see it. He came down and he said, we should be ashamed. He said, if it was

00:37:38.620 - 00:37:57.189

a shelter for dogs, there would be picket signs around this building. But we're allowing human beings in there to live. And by that time I had had every possible shot like I had gone into a third world country. I had dysentery for the 18 months. I

00:37:57.199 - 00:38:21.659

was there as did everyone else who lived there. So, so he said, really it is a, he said, so I will support you in whatever you wish to do. And she did. And we started to look for programs around Texas that we could emulate what programs

00:38:21.669 - 00:38:42.669

were doing a good job to help homeless people that we could do a better job of or help them. And so we started traveling the state and, um, we could find nothing until that we could do. That was practical and realistic for our little group to

00:38:42.679 - 00:39:00.370

do. Until we went to Galveston. I had heard of a program in Galveston called Our Daily Bread. It was run by the sisters of charity and I went down there to volunteer because I wanted to see what they were doing. And it was a day shelter,

00:39:01.340 - 00:39:23.580

a day shelter that I felt that we at Emmanuel could help with in Houston if we could find a day shelter. So I worked at the day shelter for a year learning how to prepare lunch for 100 people and what kind of services they needed and

00:39:23.590 - 00:39:40.610

what kind of services they had. Now, the sisters of charity didn't have money issues. That was not their issue. It was our issue, but it wasn't their issue. They had no money issues at all. They had money, but they put together a wonderful program and I

00:39:40.620 - 00:40:04.449

thought that we could emulate that program in Houston a day shelter, which was also a resource center where different organizations and nonprofits could actually find homeless people that they could help in one place and where homeless people would have a place, a respite from the streets

00:40:04.699 - 00:40:22.020

during the day, we weren't going to be a shel a night shelter where people could sleep. We didn't have that kind of money. But we wanted to open a day shelter in Houston or find a day shelter in Houston that we could make bigger and better.

00:40:23.719 - 00:40:48.669

And there were not, there were no day shelters, there were shelters which were evening shelters, there were floop houses, there were soup kitchens, but there were no day shelters and resource centers that we could find in Houston. And so that's how search began. It began because

00:40:50.270 - 00:41:14.760

it began as a small agency. I at this point was already a member of the Emergency Aid Coalition on the board of that coalition. And we helped not homeless people but poor people to have food and to get their driver's license or whatever they needed to,

00:41:15.600 - 00:41:34.050

to get services. So I was already a member of the Emergency Aid Coalition. I had been interviewing poor people for years about what their problems were and how difficult it was and, and how they stayed in housing and, and all of these other problems. So I

00:41:34.060 - 00:41:59.310

had already been dealing with the issue of poverty, but I had never been dealing with the issue of homelessness, which is a more intractable issue. And, but emergency aid coalition already had 12 congregations along the main street corridor that were involved with it, giving financial support,

00:41:59.320 - 00:42:22.370

volunteer support and kind support, prayer support. And Emanuel was one of those congregations, the only Jewish congregation along the main street corridor. But nevertheless, it was there and I was on the board from Emmanuel doing that work. And so I knew the ministers and people from

00:42:22.379 - 00:42:43.709

those various congregations because I had been working with them every week. And so I went to the Emergency Aid Coalition and I said, if I start a program for homeless people, will you help me allow me to become um, a project of the emergency aid coalition?

00:42:44.090 - 00:43:00.659

So that when I get, when people give me money they're giving to you as a nonprofit, I wouldn't have had my nonprofit status at that point. My 501 C three which you need to be a nonprofit organization in Texas. I said I'll become one of your

00:43:00.669 - 00:43:22.290

projects until I'm big enough to become my own. And they said yes. So search stands for service of the emergency aid resource center for the homeless. That's what search stands for. So as I was, I walk on the walking machine every day. So I was, I

00:43:22.300 - 00:43:41.189

was walking and walking and thinking, what could I call this place? Emergency aid, emergency aid resources emerge. So it finally ended up with service of the emergency aid resource center for the homeless. And that became search um Wow. Eventually we got our own 501 C three.

00:43:41.199 - 00:43:57.840

Eventually I found a building, one of the people who had been rocking babies at the star of hope with me for the years that I did that program. I didn't know if she had a dime or a doll, ended up giving me a check one day

00:43:57.850 - 00:44:15.439

cause we would meet weekly to work out programs and problems. She would get, ended up giving me a check and for $50,000 and said to me, now you have to put your money where your mouth is and you have to find a place and do this

00:44:15.449 - 00:44:44.409

work. So that was my first contribution with the check for $50,000. So I could go to the congregations and say I have raised $50,000 toward the opening of a small nonprofit organization to help homeless people. And can you help me? And they did. So Search has

00:44:44.419 - 00:45:09.100

a council of congregations um that helps with money and volunteer support and in kind support and has through the years, including the sisters of charity who have been with us from the beginning and who worked as volunteers at Search still to this day. So, um anyway,

00:45:09.110 - 00:45:28.090

that's how we started. We started very small on the corner of Louisiana and Elgin. Rabbi Walter convinced the owners of that property which had been derelict and had been empty for years to don not to donate, to donate the property to us so that we could

00:45:28.100 - 00:45:45.600

fix it up, but we paid rent for that property. Nevertheless, they gave us the property. We had a lot of in kind support to help us the brotherhood at Emmanuel and many others came to help us put the place together so that we could have a

00:45:45.610 - 00:46:00.969

little kitchen, we could have bathrooms so that people could take showers. We'd have a little room that we called our living room where people could rest and relax. And the main thing was our dining room where we serve lunch every day. Lunch was the festive meal

00:46:00.979 - 00:46:16.739

of the day. We would all sit down and meet together. That was the whole point. The whole point was to treat people with dignity so that they could regain their self-respect and feel as if they had hope for the future. That was my whole, it was

00:46:16.750 - 00:46:40.590

my whole aim really nowadays, when search, which is a very large organization now talks about what their goals are for the future is to end homelessness. Ok? A Houston without homelessness is our goal. That's what we say so that homelessness should be rare and brief and

00:46:40.600 - 00:47:02.699

non-recurring. That's what we say. When I opened search, I had no such goals. I couldn't imagine a homeless city, a city without homelessness. And I couldn't imagine that we would be ever big enough to even hope for such a thing or collaborate with others to make

00:47:02.709 - 00:47:26.050

it happen. So I had my own project in mind. The day we open, we had five homeless people and 25 volunteers. The next day, we had 100 homeless people and 25 volunteers. It only takes one day. Ok. So we ended up, we could only have 100

00:47:26.060 - 00:47:44.899

people in our small facility was a 5000 square foot facility was small. We could only have 100 people. And so we had 100 people from then on until we moved into a bigger structure. But our first building was really a learning experience, learning what homeless people

00:47:44.909 - 00:48:07.800

needed, what we could do for them. And within the first year, we had started health care for the homeless in a tiny room in our building. My daughter was in medical school and she and others came in and helped people with minor medical problems. So we

00:48:07.810 - 00:48:27.929

started healthcare for the homeless in our little shelter. Um And within the first year, we had our first hud grant to get people housing. Within two years, we started the House of China Treasures, which is our with daycare uh for homeless kids. So we started figuring

00:48:27.939 - 00:48:42.479

out what it was that we could do in small ways and large, my biggest problem was always money. Where was I going to raise money every morning? I, the first thing I did when I woke up was to call the bank and figure out how much

00:48:42.489 - 00:48:58.280

money we had in the bank and what I could do next, it was for the first five years, it was very, very difficult for the first six months. You can't think it's the first could be the first year. Um You can't get food from the food

00:48:58.290 - 00:49:19.290

bank as a nonprofit um, until you've been in business, at least, I think it's a year could be six rule and so couldn't use the food bank to, to get produce. Um, I cannot even tell you all the places I had to go to find food,

00:49:20.149 - 00:49:40.649

but I did cooking for people for a long time. Um, and, uh, we had wonderful volunteers from the very beginning who are still with us today and have cooked with us and cleaned with us. We had to, we did our own cleaning, we did our own

00:49:41.500 - 00:50:00.530

everything until and the first thing we did with the $50,000 was higher. An executive director, I have always been a volunteer at Search. I have never been paid. I am not the executive director at Search. I am the founder. I am not the executive director. Never

00:50:00.540 - 00:50:18.080

have been, never wanted to be. And I have been a volunteer all these years and so we needed to hire someone. And as I said, the first qualification is he has to be big and tall because I'm very short. So he has to be big and

00:50:18.090 - 00:50:35.169

tall and he has to have some, some experience with this clientele. And he did, his name was Earl Hatcher. He came to us. It's, you know, so many things are miraculous. He just like came, fell out of the blue. Earl did. May he rest in Feast

00:50:35.179 - 00:50:53.729

too. They're all gone. May he rest in peace too? But in any case, he was our first executive director in a marvelous job of ushering us through everything that had to be done through the city to get our place ready to open. And he did. So

00:50:53.739 - 00:51:10.090

anyway, that's how it started. Yeah. Wow. It was kind of, it was a great story. Um I really loved hearing all that. Um, since then, what do you think has been the most rewarding uh experience you've had at c So for one moment that was really

00:51:10.100 - 00:51:28.250

stuck with you over the years, I wish I could say it was finding Brian. It was not. I have never, I have looked for him every day, literally, every day. I've never found. Um I think the first time I think when we opened our House of

00:51:28.260 - 00:51:52.350

Tiny Treasures, the future for this problem is in the Children. There is no question that that's the case. House of Tiny Treasures is the only daycare and, and developmental resource center for homeless Children in Houston. It is the only one. Um when we opened the doors

00:51:52.360 - 00:52:10.110

and all of those Children, we're in there playing, I think. And when we had, when we got someone to run it and then we had teachers and it was really a going concern. I think that was my happiest moment when I knew I had done something

00:52:10.120 - 00:52:36.010

for the future and for Children like Brian, oh, would experience and had experienced a very sad life up to that point. But could find in our place, stability and happiness and way forward. Hundreds of Children, hundreds and hundreds of Children have gone through that program and

00:52:36.020 - 00:52:57.510

have made successful lives. To me that is the greatest experience. Yeah. That's really inspiring. Um, yeah. Uh, I wanted to also. Oh, yeah. Down to the house of Tiny treasures. Of course COVID has changed everything. Right. But if you haven't been down to the house of

00:52:57.520 - 00:53:12.570

Tiny treasures, you really have to go. It'll just make you feel good. I will certainly, I'll certainly be on my list. I'll make a point in going sometime soon. Um I wanted to know maybe some of the challenges that you have faced since founding search. Like

00:53:12.580 - 00:53:35.040

what were some kind of difficult moments along the way? Well, the first challenge with finding a place to do search. Yeah, I, I was so naive. I had always worked for nonprofit organizations that people were happy about. I had never attempted to do something that maybe

00:53:35.050 - 00:53:53.260

somebody wouldn't like. And so I went to community organizations and said, oh, we would love to open a homeless day center here in your community. We will do lunches and laundry. We'll, you know, clean people up, we will give them a future. We will give them

00:53:53.270 - 00:54:11.699

the opportunities. We will have blah, blah, blah. And what I started to get were death threats. People call me on the phone. Oh, tell me that I didn't have a long life ahead of me. If I even considered doing this. That's terrible. Oh, it was, it

00:54:11.709 - 00:54:24.929

was scary. And I turned to my husband one day and I said, I don't know that I should be doing this. I'm putting you and the Children at risk. And he said, honey, and this was Joel because people have said they were gonna kill us and

00:54:24.939 - 00:54:42.879

all of that. And he said, honey, if people wanna kill you, they don't call you first. They really don't. They're just trying to frighten you and we're not scared. So let's just forget it. So that's what we did. I mean, it is true that I did

00:54:42.889 - 00:55:00.360

receive people calling me saying that if you attempt to do this, your life is at risk. I mean, truly, people were at the possibility because what we're looking for was a restaurant that we could convert because we knew we were doing breakfast and lunches and we

00:55:00.370 - 00:55:16.949

thought, well, we need, if we had a restaurant, then we could convert it to for the other things, but we'd already have the kitchen in place. Um So we were looking for restaurants that were abandoned in midtown, which is where we finally opened at Louisiana and

00:55:16.959 - 00:55:32.179

Elgin, which is Midtown. And I was in, I, I went to the Midtown Association and other associations around there and they were furious. They said we have our own problems. We have economic issues here. We don't want homeless people here. And you're going to bring in

00:55:32.189 - 00:55:50.290

homeless people. Oh, they were. So that was my hardest, my hardest point was finding a place that someone would rent to me that they would allow me to use to do this project. So I went rabbi who was rabbi Walter at the time, I went to

00:55:50.300 - 00:56:13.389

the rabbi and I said, I'm, I'm having this problem. I have enough money, but I don't have a place and I, nobody's willing to rent to me. And he managed to talk to one of our, um, emmanuel members who own, who was in real estate and

00:56:13.399 - 00:56:32.689

own this establishment. This, this old 5000 square foot building at the corner of Louisiana and Elgin, that was just a one story square kind of old building. I don't know what it had originally been used for. And he was willing after the rabbi talked to him,

00:56:32.760 - 00:56:58.139

he was willing to rent to us. So that's how I got. And we creeped in like thieves in the night. No signage, nothing in the front that would even indicate what we were. We work basically at night when the place wasn't open because we knew there

00:56:58.149 - 00:57:16.790

was a dental office across the street. There was also a brothel across the street that we knew also. And there was a dental office across the street and we knew they wouldn't be happy to have homeless. Yeah. So, and so I learned my lesson very quickly.

00:57:17.469 - 00:57:40.750

I stopped advertising and we were very, very quiet for the earliest, for the early move in. Um, the hardest part was finding a place and the hardest part with convincing people that we were responsible neighbors that actually we would raise the, the neighborhood because there were

00:57:40.760 - 00:58:01.479

homeless people anyway, walking around and that we would make it better because they would at least have a meal and be clean and because they could take showers and it would be better for everyone. We tried to convince people of that fact. It took years to

00:58:01.489 - 00:58:25.340

convince them. The second problem was that everyone worked in a silo. Everyone was so concerned about it. His own fundraising and, and there wasn't enough money out there that no one cooperated with each other, no one did work together. And so we duplicated services. We were

00:58:25.350 - 00:58:48.360

not as efficient as we could be. Um We were afraid to talk to our neighbor organization that has all changed and because we are now cooperating 100 organizations cooperated in the way home program in Houston, which has made an enormous change in homelessness in this city.

00:58:48.370 - 00:59:10.469

We've reduced homelessness by 63% in this in Houston. It's an amazing accomplishment. Ok. That's because everyone has decided to work together. The mayor has, and the mayor has been wonderful and he's put someone in charge of homelessness and, and has made such a difference in our

00:59:10.479 - 00:59:31.540

attitude about how to work the problem. So now each of us do what we do best and we don't duplicate what other people do. And so the money is used more wisely and more efficiently and what serge does best is find housing for people. And most

00:59:31.550 - 00:59:53.520

of our employees, we have 100 30 employees. Most of our employees, we had one employee when I started our executive director, everyone else was volunteers for years. Um We have 100 30 employees now and most of them are social workers. And so what they do and

00:59:53.530 - 01:00:17.379

what their job is to is to keep people in housing, finding them the jobs and the healthcare services they need to help them stay in housing. We have ourselves about 1000 people in apartments in Houston, men, women and Children, that is the search clients, but there

01:00:17.389 - 01:00:40.679

are overall about 10 to 12,000 people that are housed because of what c what Houston has been able to do. It is a remarkable story. It really is when you think back, it hasn't been that long ago, that that was not the case really is a

01:00:40.689 - 01:01:00.080

remarkable story about um you know, the ability for everyone to come together to reduce the homeless population. Kind of a really true success story. Yeah. And the way that I think that the Judaism helps me because I really believe that if you help one human being,

01:01:00.090 - 01:01:27.729

it's as if you have helped the world, I believe that I believe that every person every person is, is given God given talents and that every person has the possibility of success, every person. And so that's a very Jewish feeling. Ok. Yeah. Very Jewish feeling. And,

01:01:28.840 - 01:01:48.050

and, and many times when I was down and depressed because I didn't think I was doing a good enough job. I wasn't moving us fast enough. I didn't have enough insight in what needed to be done when I prayed when I, when I went to temple

01:01:48.060 - 01:02:09.449

on Friday night, and I asked God for help, I really felt as if there was someone listening to me. I mean, maybe that wasn't true. But then somehow miraculous things have happened through the years that I don't understand, somehow I've needed something and someone has walked

01:02:09.459 - 01:02:30.860

through the door and said they had just what I needed for some reason, Brian was meant to change my life for whatever reason that was. I believe that and that's, and that's what I feel is a religious about my story because I truly believe that I

01:02:30.870 - 01:02:54.270

was meant to do this. Why me? I had no experience. None. I've never met a homeless person. I had no experience in this field at all, at all. I am not a social worker. I had no experience. So why me and I had other obligations, huge

01:02:54.280 - 01:03:20.199

obligations at home, huge obligations at home through the years. My sister who was not well lived with me for 25 years, you know, we raised her son as our son. So I had enormous obligations, my family to my mother-in-law, eventually my mother-in-law who, unfortunately her house

01:03:20.209 - 01:03:34.709

burned down because of a thunderstorm. Ok. Can you believe it? But it's true. Lightning struck her house and burned it to the ground. She moved in with me too, which was lovely because she and my mother who were best friends spend their last years together, which

01:03:34.719 - 01:03:53.939

was really very nice. So, but in any case, why me and so I said, if it's me, it's because it's meant to be. And so with all the bad years where, you know, we couldn't make the budget, we didn't know where our next dollar was coming

01:03:53.949 - 01:04:09.459

from. All of those problems. The executive director would ask me to speak to the staff, which could be five people or 10 people to speak to the staff and tell them how I felt about how we were meant to do this. So it was gonna be

01:04:09.469 - 01:04:28.209

all right because something was going to happen to make it possible. And I have to say I have to tell you that through all the years, I have believed it now, I don't have to do that anymore. Search is respected and, and funded and, and has

01:04:28.219 - 01:04:43.620

a big following and it's very different than it was when I started this organization. And so I don't have to do that anymore because we understand that we have, we are one cog in a big wheel and that ours is important and that we have a

01:04:43.629 - 01:05:03.699

job to do and if we do our job, other things will happen that will make homelessness rare and brief and non recurring. And that is our hope. So that's my story. That was great that I think that was a great way to end off the interview

01:05:03.709 - 01:05:17.810

too. You really gave such a great insight into, you know, the connections between your work and Judaism and all that you've done for the community. So, yeah, thank you so much for sharing all this for me and I'm honored that you asked me to tell my

01:05:17.820 - 01:05:22.500

story. I appreciate it very much and uh have a nice night.