Listen
Austin nonprofit LifeWorks has helped nearly three dozen young Austinites stay housed through a cash-assistance pilot program. We hear the story of one person who said the money helped her at a critical time.
Plus: A look into holiday tunes and unwrapping our favorite present: tamales. Chef Rick Martinez brings us to the table at a holiday tamalada.
If you host or or plan to attend a tamalada – let us know! Email austinsignal@kut.org.
The full transcript of this episode of Austin Signal is available on the KUT & KUTX Studio website. The transcript is also available as subtitles or captions on some podcast apps.
Jerry Quijano [00:00:09] Nonprofits are considering different ways to get people off the streets here in Austin, especially after the city council made funding cuts for homeless services in their latest budget. One way they’re thinking of lending a helping hand, giving cash to Austinites who need it most. We’re gonna hear the story of one person who said that money helped her at a critical time. That’s coming up on Austin Signal. We’re glad you’re spending part of the day here with us.
KUT Announcer: Laurie Gallardo [00:00:32] The Austin Signal is a production of K U T News, hosted by Jerry Kihano.
Jerry Quijano [00:00:37] Plus, out in Williamson County, folks are looking into where its cities get their water from and how they could better work together. And ’tis the season for some end-of-year traditions. Today we’re talking holiday tunes and unwrapping my favorite present, the Males. Those stories are coming up next, and they’re right here on Austin Signal. Howdy out there, and thank you for starting the week here with Austin Signal. We are listener-powered public radio. It is Monday, December 8th, and we’ve got a lot happening in today’s show. So let’s jump right in. Nonprofits looking to get people off the street in Austin are looking for new ideas as the city cuts funding to homeless services. One way to do that giving cash directly to people who need it most. KUT’s Andrew Weber brings us the story of one Austinite who says that assistance helped her at a critical time.
Andrew Weber [00:01:43] Over the last year, Bri Belcher has learned to be her own safety net. She aged out of the foster care system, managed to find an apartment, but was still struggling.
Bri Belcher [00:01:53] I wasn’t prepared at all. I got into debt with the apartment complex, you know, behind on rent, behind on utilities and I was at risk of being homeless again. And I was scared, I was nervous, I was angry, I was confused.
Andrew Weber [00:02:09] Then she got connected to the targeted housing assistance program through the Austin Nonprofit LifeWorks. Belcher is one of nearly three dozen Austinites who avoided homelessness in the year-long cash assistance pilot program, one that could be a model for nonprofits amid cuts to homeless services in Austin. Lifeworks program helped Belcher pay off debt, save up money, and get a new apartment.
Bri Belcher [00:02:31] For me personally, I got to a spot where I was like, Okay, grateful for that help. Now how can I how can I help myself now? I’ve been blessed to be in a position to where I have another chance to do that.
Andrew Weber [00:02:44] And LifeWorks CEO Liz Schoenfeld says Belcher wasn’t alone. Nearly all of the clients who received thirty five hundred dollars on average stayed off the streets. Schoenfeld says it’s cheap and effective, something especially important amid cuts to homeless services at City Hall.
Liz Schoenfeld [00:03:00] All service providers are being called upon to think differently and to act differently and to try new models where we could potentially get further, faster with less money. And this is one example of how we in our community are trying to innovate and push the envelope.
Andrew Weber [00:03:19] On top of that, the population of homeless youth in Austin has quadrupled in the last five years, which led to LifeWorks partnering with Point Source Youth, a national nonprofit on the Cash Assistance Pilot. Point Service CEO Larry Cohen said the nonprofit has had similar successes with homeless youth in cities like Tucson, Seattle, and Los Angeles. Cohen says the programs cost way less than other more traditionally funded programs like shelters that tackle homelessness after the fact.
Larry Cohen [00:03:47] We know that shelters and the homeless experience cost tens of thousands of dollars. So, like, why not spend three to save thirty? You know, it’s a logic that appeals, I would say, to everybody.
Andrew Weber [00:03:59] Looking back on the program, Bree Belcher said it was a challenge, but it felt more like a hand up than a hand out. She says the cash and case management she got through LifeWorks not only helped her get stable housing, it also helped her secure a job.
Bri Belcher [00:04:12] I’m still young, I still have things to learn, life is still life in. So yeah, it’s it’s definitely been a challenge, but it I wouldn’t change anything.
Andrew Weber [00:04:24] Yeah. Belcher hopes other people with similar experiences take advantage of these kinds of programs if they have the opportunity. I’m Andrew Weber in Austin.
Jerry Quijano [00:04:38] This is Austin Signal. Water is becoming an ever more precious resource here in Central Texas, and that’s why officials in Williamson County are banding together to form a coalition of local and regional water providers. Their first task will be to explore the long-term water supply needs for the fast growing area. The newly formed Williamson County Water Group includes representatives from the county, from Cedar Park, Leander, Round Rock, Georgetown, and the Brazos River Authority. Williamson County Judge Steve Snells says the group will help oversee the county’s upcoming five hundred thousand dollar study, which aims to better understand the area’s water and infrastructure needs and identify new water sources.
Steve Snells [00:05:19] We can’t do anything without water. Our citizens need it. We need to protect it. It’s limited. We have aging water infrastructure in several of our cities and we all need to work together and use our expertise.
Jerry Quijano [00:05:33] Cedar Park Mayor Jim Pennerman Morin says it’s important now, more than ever, that communities work together to ensure everyone has enough water for the future.
Jim Pennerman Morin [00:05:43] For us to achieve our long term goals as a community, particularly economic development, you know, all our neighbors have to thrive as well. There is no version of Cedar Park as successful as it should be without all our neighbors being equally successful.
Jerry Quijano [00:05:55] Georgetown resident Jonathan Moore agrees, a self described vegetable gardener. Moore says he’s always looking for better and more efficient ways to use water, but he’s also afraid officials are putting too much pressure on consumers to fix the water supply issue. He says he hopes the study will provide some alternative conservation strategies, especially for new developments.
Jonathan Moore [00:06:15] I think it’s important at the the governmental level to acknowledge that the consumer, while they do have some sway over these things, they’re not them they’re not the big contributor.
Jerry Quijano [00:06:26] County Judge Snell stresses that this new Williamson County Water Group will not be coming up with solutions overnight. He says it will be a process, and the group will start assessing those needs early next year when they pick an engineering firm to conduct the study. It’s Austin Signal, and it’s right here on KUT News. We are community-powered public radio. We got more signal coming your way after this break. This is Austin Signal. Welcome back. Tamales are at the heart of comfort food here in Texas. Eating one or two or a dozen can turn a terrible day right back around. Trust me. Now, Chef Rick Martinez, who grew up here in Austin, says you can absolutely make tamales by yourself for yourself, but there’s something magical about a tamalada when a group of people get together to make this home cooking. It’s why Chef Martinez teamed up with Austin Brand Siete to host a community tamalada, and Austin Signal was there.
Steve Snells [00:07:34] Like that.
KUT Announcer: Laurie Gallardo [00:07:35] Like that. And then you fold the ends of mine. And these things are like big. Find it.
Rick Martinez [00:07:44] It’s Rick Martinez. You know, there were Christmas parties, but to me, I actually enjoyed the tamaladas butter because I mean it was it was just a part of Christmas, right? It like it was just fun. It was everyone getting together and you had a mission and you know, there was still the laughing, the cheese meh, the the drinking, but you know, it started at 9 a.m. And it started with donuts and breakfast tacos and bandulce. You know, I guess at a r regular family gathering, you know, you’re just sitting around eating and talking. At a tamalada, you know, you’re working. It brings you together when you have like a combined mission and a purpose, right? And you’re doing something so that you can enjoy the food at the end and take it home with you. And so there’s something so tasty just loving and beautiful about an it you know, a group of fifty people cooking together, eating together, and then taking it home with them. And that to me is just beautiful. And that’s that’s what I wanted to do here.
Tamalada Attendee [00:08:49] That is too small. So one of the things is that you do want to you want it to be about this big and so you can always layer it.
Anna Amesqua [00:08:55] My name is Anna Amesqua. Well, I am attempting to spread masa on these oca here. Attempting to the operative term. Hi, my name is Liz Garcia. So the the masa was spreading the masa was one of my assignments as a kid. So that actually happened for more it was like muscle memory. Yeah. I use the spoon like he was talking about. So I’ve got my filling going and about to wrap my first tamala. Alright, I’m struggling. Let me know if you want me to help.
Tamalada Attendee [00:09:31] So is it better to do it while like the masa is warm? Does that make it more appliable?
Al Lomboria [00:09:37] My preferred technique is how my grandma had showed me and she would always have a small glass of water and she would dip the spoon in and then get a little bit of masa and then you know put it onto the husk and spread it evenly. My name is Al Lomboria. I’m making some tamales. We’re doing the corn with we’ve got green chile with chicken and we’re just showing everybody how to make some traditional tamales and this is the the corn husk and then we’ve got the banana leaf as well. Great job guys, thank you.
Keely Gray [00:10:19] Oh, Keely Gray. The I really like the idea of, you know, you don’t have to do what I guess we think of the traditional where it’s the masa and then the filling, that you can mix it all up. So that’s to me is the great thing about tamales, is that you like you was saying, you can throw a little bit of anything in there, but you know, as long as it tends to go more meat, of course, and if it has a little spice and gets your nose running a little bit, that’s always good too. Yeah.
Scarlett Aguilar [00:10:46] My name is Scarlett Aguilar and I’m executive chef of Brandet Siete. Tamales are really, it’s not just a holiday food. Tamales are a Sunday morning kind of thing, right? Where you go, you have you have barbacoa and you have tamales with it, right? It’s like more of a new tradition that we call it a tamalada, which I feel like I’ve I heard it as my as an adult, but as a child being around an actual tamalada at the house. We never called it that, right? It was just like we’re just making tamales, like we’re gonna whatever that’s what we’re gonna have for dinner. But it was never this like big thing. It’s just you just know that if they’re making tamales, oh, it’s gonna require everybody and everybody’s gonna take part of it.
Richard Martinez [00:11:30] My name is Richard Martinez and I’m Rick Martinez’s father. Well my Aunt Lucy lived on 2nd Street and she and my mother got together and made tamales and chicharrones and we always use a hog head because of the skin and the you put everything into it, yeah. But that’s what we we made the tamales. Then of course when we got married, my wife Gloria, she she was a good cook and we made tamales by ourselves and we used our recipe, you know. And we didn’t have a recipe for a long time. I mean we just threw it together, but then when they were growing up, we decided we better write it down. The last time we did it, it was
Rick Martinez [00:12:21] Right. Twelve years ago. Part of part of the reason why I think we don’t do the tamales tamaladas anymore is because you know the and people are getting so old. You know, I think it’s it’s I think it’s important now for the older cousins or the the grandkids who are now old that are getting married and have kids, that they are the ones that need to carry on the tradition. Um, ’cause like, you know, he’s one you were one of eight children and now there’s only three left, you know, and they’re all in their upper eighties and nineties. And so I think it’s I think it’s important that we keep it going, you know, and that that’s that’s another reason why this is so important to me.
Jerry Quijano [00:13:05] That story was produced by Austin Signals managing producer Kristen Cabrera. And hey, if you or your family or your friends have your own tamaladas, we want to hear from you and we want to crash your tamalada. Let us know. Email us AustinSignal at K U T.org. And in case you forget, we’re going to have that email in our show notes. Austin Senior Songwriter Melissa Carper is out with a new Christmas album titled Simply Enough A Very Carper Christmas. She talked with Texas Standard about her new holiday record. Here’s the Standards, David Brown.
David Brown [00:13:40] You hear some version of this question every year, when is it time to break out the Christmas music?
Melissa Carper [00:13:46] Oh hurry up and plug in the tree It’s November twenty three and I can’t wait to plug in the tree
David Brown [00:13:56] Well, Austin singer-songwriter Melissa Carper’s probably had that on her mind much longer than most of us. For a while now, she’s been working on her latest album, a collection of holiday tunes featuring her own songs and a few covers too. It’s called A Very Carper Christmas. And Melissa Carper, welcome to the Texas Standard. Thank you, David. Congratulations on the new record. Why why a Christmas album?
Melissa Carper [00:14:21] Well, actually a friend of mine, who’s who’s a manager and and he’d been giving me some advice on on what he thought I I should do with my career, I asked him and he said, I think you should make a Christmas album and I’d I’d never thought of the idea before and and actually at first I was like, I don’t know about that. That sounds kinda cheesy. Like I don’t I gotta know if I could pull that off and and I for some reason I was imagining myself trying to cover the standards that had been covered over and over kinda too many times and then then I thought well what if I r read an entire album of original songs And so then it kinda became a challenge for me, like can I actually do this?
Melissa Carper [00:15:09] Shley. Crouch the word in just one day. And I have a lot of co-writes on the album because I asked my good friend Gina Galena if she would want to get together and try to write Christmas songs. And and so we have eight co-writes together on there and and she came up with a lot of the song ideas so I did not do this on my own at all. It’s a big collaboration.
David Brown [00:15:39] When you were thinking about you know, how you would write songs for your own Christmas album, how were you thinking about Christmas music?
Melissa Carper [00:15:47] Well, I’ve always loved Christmas music.
David Brown [00:15:50] Really?
Melissa Carper [00:15:50] Yes, you know, Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, and I I I have them in their names in one of my songs on the album. Smok.
Melissa Carper [00:16:02] Memories singing songs so joyfully Franks and Natra and Ecking Coke Fue His glowing us. What we ended up doing, me and Gina just coming up with sort of a more a slightly more modern day take on our own experiences from Christmases. And so I think this album has since Gina and I grew up in like the seventies and eighties, it kinda has that feel to it to me. Like you can picture Christmases from that era.
David Brown [00:16:39] Yeah.
Melissa Carper [00:16:39] As you’re listening to these songs.
David Brown [00:16:41] You cover a lot of moods too. You got a a kid’s excitement for the season, wistful sadness, even homelessness.
Melissa Carper [00:16:49] You know, yeah, I I feel like the album starts out with with that feeling of what it’s like to have what Christmas is like for a lot of kids, you know. I have really good memories of my Christmases, luckily. Like w I had a I had a great family and and we would always have a, you know, Christmas all together and then kinda moves into, you know, there’s some some nostalgic stuff looking back and then some romantic stuff and and then getting into like I wrote a song about Christmas in New Orleans which was actually the first Christmas that I spent away from home. Yeah, we should
Melissa Carper [00:17:26] Yeah. All Jimmy Rogers songs And we drank from a cheap box of wine We open the presents we got from my mom Can we show her the good Christmas time
Melissa Carper [00:17:45] So then that’s kinda like a progression in life where you stop going home. Christmas changes.
David Brown [00:17:50] Right.
Melissa Carper [00:17:51] And then I have a couple of songs about about spending Christmas alone which I’ve experienced that myself and I know of course a lot of people that have. And I I think that probably there’s more probably more people out there that that don’t have good Christmases, so
David Brown [00:18:10] Yeah.
Melissa Carper [00:18:11] Just one.
Melissa Carper [00:18:15] And one broken candy cane alone on Christmas. One dollar too much.
David Brown [00:18:25] Do you have a a favorite on the album?
Melissa Carper [00:18:29] I’ve got a I’ve got a few I mean I there’s different moods I’d say like my favorite sad one is just one stocking. And then I’m finding that a lot of people like the the cult classic could perhaps be Oh cheese ball. Oh
Melissa Carper [00:18:45] Who will bring the cheese ball and center it on the table adorn it with crackers as we all gather round Oh beautiful delicious cheese ball you’re in?
Melissa Carper [00:19:00] My my mom would always have a have some cheese balls, just the kind you would buy from the grocery store, you know, she didn’t make homemade cheese balls, but I just remember it was always a part of the holidays. And then I noticed my sister putting them out too and I’m like, Oh, she’s carrying on the cheese bowl tradition and then and then Gina, my friend who I wrote a bunch of these songs with, she was like, You know, a couple of the Christmas parties I’ve had you’ve always brought the cheese ball.
Melissa Carper [00:19:25] Jesus, the little baby Jesus lying in the net.
David Brown [00:19:39] There’s a I guess the first single from the album is Made with Love. Tell us about that song.
Melissa Carper [00:19:44] Yeah, made with love. So it doesn’t mention, you know, the holidays at all. It just talks about making gifts and food with love and how those are always the best. And yeah, actually inspiration for that song came with my my friend Brennan Lee and and Kevin Skurla. They they showed up with a homemade jar of granola and it said made with love on it. And and I was like, Well, I gotta write that song.
David Brown [00:20:12] Yeah, that’s perfect.
Melissa Carper [00:20:14] Joy bring to make the same, then make your love once smile grow strong.
David Brown [00:20:26] Brennan Lee. She’s such a wonderful singer songer.
Melissa Carper [00:20:30] Yeah, and we we’ve got a song on here that we wrote together. It was her her idea, she said she always wanted us to write a song called I Want a Dog for Christmas ’cause she always wanted a dog for Christmas.
David Brown [00:20:40] Did she ever get her dog for Christmas?
Melissa Carper [00:20:42] I believe she did get a dog when she was young yea
Melissa Carper [00:20:45] I’m sing all my praise for what I want most of all. I want a dog for Christmas. Please, mom and dad. I want a dog for Christmas obey.
David Brown [00:21:08] Looking back, I mean, this started as as a challenge of sorts, right? Given your experience putting this together, would you do it again? Did you enjoy doing the the the Christmas album or or was it especially you did.
Melissa Carper [00:21:22] Oh yeah. I I I’m expecting volume two to show up one of these days. I it was so much fun and we had extra ideas. We didn’t even get to write all the songs. I mean, it I feel like m this could turn into my entire career at this point.
David Brown [00:21:39] I love it. I love it.
Melissa Carper [00:21:43] I’ll admit I love the bustle of the holidays when pretty lights and candy cane slime the streets.
David Brown [00:21:51] Melissa Carper’s new album, A Very Carper Christmas, and she’s starting a new tradition with it too. Melissa, thanks so much and a very Merry Christmas.
Melissa Carper [00:22:02] You too David, thank you so much.
Melissa Carper [00:22:06] I just wanna sit by fire with you. We’ve been so cordially invited to attend a few parties and they sound like
Jerry Quijano [00:22:18] And that’s it for today’s episode of Austin Signal. Thanks for being with us. And thanks to KUT’s Andrew Weber, Kailey Hunt, and Texas Standards Leah Scarpelli for their help with today’s episode. Rayna Sevilla is our technical director. Kristen Cabrera is our managing producer, and thanks to her for reporting on the Tamalada. Don’t forget, if you’re having a Talmalada soon, tell us, invite us, send us an email at AustinSignal at K U T.org. We’re gonna have more in our show notes at K U T.org slash signal. I’m your host, Jerry Quijano. Austin Signal will be back on the air tomorrow. We’ll talk to you then.
This transcript was transcribed by AI, and lightly edited by a human. Accuracy may vary. This text may be revised in the future.
