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.
The Austin Signal is a production of
K U T News, hosted by Jerry
Kihano.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Like that.
And then you fold the ends of mine.
And these things are like big.
Find it.
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.
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.
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.
So is it better to do it while like
the masa is warm?
Does that make it more appliable?
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
You hear some version of this
question every year, when is it
time to break out the Christmas
music?
Oh hurry up and plug in the
tree It's November
twenty three and I can't
wait to
plug in the tree
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?
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?
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.
When you were thinking about
you know, how you would write songs
for your own Christmas album,
how were you thinking about
Christmas music?
Well, I've always loved Christmas
music.
Really?
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.
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.
Yeah.
As you're listening to these songs.
You cover a lot of moods too.
You got a a kid's excitement for
the season, wistful
sadness, even homelessness.
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
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
So then that's kinda like a
progression in life where you stop
going home.
Christmas changes.
Right.
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
Yeah.
Just one.
And one broken candy
cane alone on Christmas.
One dollar too much.
Do you have a a favorite on the
album?
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
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?
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.
Jesus,
the little baby
Jesus lying
in the net.
There's a I guess the first single
from the album is Made with Love.
Tell us about that song.
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.
Yeah, that's perfect.
Joy bring
to make the same,
then make your love
once smile
grow strong.
Brennan Lee.
She's such a wonderful singer
songer.
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.
Did she ever get her dog for
Christmas?
I believe she did get a dog when she
was young yea
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.
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.
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.
I love it.
I'll admit I love the bustle
of the holidays when pretty
lights and candy cane slime
the streets.
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.
You too David, thank you so much.
I just wanna sit
by fire with you.
We've been so cordially
invited to attend
a few parties and they sound
like
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.