Trinity Center

Something that a lot of us take for granted is our identification. Whether we keep it in our wallet, a safe, or an old shoe box, most of us have ready access to it when we need it. That is not a luxury most of our neighbors have unfortunately. IDs get lost, birth certificates get damaged, or your bag gets stolen and you have to get them all back. It’s another unfortunate barrier to living life on the streets. In many cases having these IDs is integral to accessing resources. You need them to check mail, enter shelters, and apply for benefits as well as housing resources in many cases. Luckily we are able to not only help people apply for or make appointments to get their documents, we also help pay for them.

Mondays at the Trinity Center can be a little hectic, but it is an important day for many of our neighbors. People begin lining up early before our doors open so they can get a 7 day bus pass which will take them to their medical appointments, their jobs, maybe to class, and everything else they may need to do; we don’t judge. A bus pass can make getting around our sprawling city much easier and sometimes it is the thing that gets you from one appointment to another on time, making them an essential for many. Unfortunately we can only give 80 every Monday.

It was six months ago, this week, that Trinity Center’s staff and Board of Directors made the decision to close the center which would typically serve sixty to seventy people daily. Everything around us was closing as the city of Austin, the country, and the world as a whole attempted to defeat the COVID19 pandemic. For quite a while, downtown Austin was eerie, with only our brothers and sisters who are  experiencing homeless still visible. However, what was even more visible  amongst the empty streets and shuttered businesses were the organizations like us; libraries and other churches that were now unavailable. Imagine how the summer season felt, with temperature over 100 degrees for days in a row and every place these folks called “community” no longer available for respite and for basic services. Imagine the impact these closures had on these individuals, our neighbors.