February 2019

In looking at the impact of childhood trauma, you can’t get much clearer than this: In 2017, ACEs among Tennessee adults led to an estimated $5.2 billion in direct medical costs and lost productivity from employees missing work. That’s just one year, according to the new report, “ The Economic Cost of ACEs in Tennessee ," released on Feb. 1, 2019 by The Sycamore Institute in Nashville, Tenn. And to provide some perspective, $5.2 billion is one-seventh of the state’s annual budget . This $5.2...

“Forgotten.” In the months after Hurricane Harvey slammed the Texas Gulf Coast as a Category 4 storm, that was the word I heard repeatedly from renters, homeowners and disaster case managers in small towns and rural communities. The help that the Federal Emergency Management Agency and state leaders promised hadn’t arrived. They feared their communities would be left behind, overshadowed by larger cities like Houston. In some cases, their homes looked as if Harvey had just hit — not the year...

Inside an abandoned warehouse on the northern end of downtown Houston is an encampment where approximately 20 homeless people stay each year. The ground is covered with cardboard, old newspapers, and plastic bottles of water coated in grime. On one wall, a mural reads: "Look for the Beauty Within the Most Frightening." At the moment, there's no one here. The people who live in this "community," as retired Houston Police Sergeant Steve Wick describes it, have been asked to clear out for the...