Concerned in Conroe
Homelessness troubles downtown businesses, but help may be on horizon
CONROE — As barber Leon Apostolo trimmed a client’s hair on a recent morning, an acquaintance suggested that he go outside.
Apostolo had experienced a problem with people going up on the roof and putting out cigarettes on the rubberized surface, ultimately causing water to leak into his shop. When he went outside, he observed a homeless man sleeping on a stairwell landing, but not on his roof.
“He’s on a staircase so he’s not bothering me,” Apostolo said, walking back down the steps after scanning his roof and only spotting a white paper bag left in a corner.
Business owners in this oldtimey downtown recently identified homelessness as their top concern in a survey conducted by Conroe officials. Although an annual count showed the homeless
population declined this year in affluent Montgomery County, Apostolo said he has encountered people sleeping on his roof and on a bench in front of his business, defecating behind his shop and dumping garbage in his truck bed.
“They don’t need to be in downtown Conroe,” said Apostolo, who’s been at the
barbershop for 42 years, since he started working there at 17. “These are nice businesses down here, and we don’t need them.”
Views such as Apostolo’s reflect some of the tensions over homelessness in Conroe, the county seat of Montgomery County, the fast- growing suburb north of Houston. The presence of government agencies and nonprofits that offer services to those in need likely draws unhoused persons to downtown Conroe.
The survey’s responses underscore that the issue of homelessness — Saturday was World Homeless Day — is not limited to major cities such as Houston.
Now a local organization is focused on what it believes will be a creative approach to the challenge, recently receiving support from city officials.
Compassion United, a group that assists the homeless, broke ground last week on a new campus where it plans to expand services beyond what’s offered at its current multi-purpose facility downtown. City officials last year donated 5 acres to the group, which landed a $1.25 million grant for the project, dubbed “Miracle City.” The group hopes to move out of downtown and into the first of its new buildings early next year.
“I’m just really optimistic,” said Luke Redus, who founded the organization with his wife Karla. “Right now there is a heightened awareness of the homeless situation, and while that could immediately be negative, I think that it’s also bringing attention to an issue that needs to be given some attention but in a healthy way…”
“The homeless problem isn’t that you can see homeless people; the homeless problem is that people are homeless, so how can we help them not be homeless anymore?”
Coexisting with unhoused
The survey was the idea of Frank Robinson, the city’s new downtown manager. He wanted to assess what local businesses were doing and what issues they cared about.
“We are not really any worse than other cities,” he said of Conroe, a city of 56,000.
Tommy Feagin, 55, who has an insurance and financial services company downtown, has been around long enough to point out where retail stores and
pharmacies once welcomed customers — and the streets that marked the boundaries of where he was allowed to play as a boy.
He said those without a home unsettle some customers, but added, “They don’t bother me and they don’t bother most people.”
And yet Feagin acknowledged that he wished the homeless weren’t such a presence in downtown.
Linda Vernele Ezernack, owner of a bakery on North Main Street, said she and her husband have tried to help several homeless individuals — offering cash and food, striking up conversa
tion. Some customers, though, become uncomfortable when confronted with loud pleas for help or money themselves.
“Part of the challenge is we all have big hearts,” she said.
Nearby at Mimi's On Main, a man believed to be homeless is suspected of toppling over big antique pots that were placed outside the store. Another woman knocked over other pots and took American flags that are usually posted outside of the shop, said owner Gayle Burke.
“It’s not like we are overrun,” she said, noting that there is a police officer who patrols on bicycle and that downtown re
mains vibrant. “It’s a concern that these people need help and what do you do for those people?”
Empowering people
It can be hard to get a clear picture of Montgomery County’s homeless population.
A point-in-time count conducted by the Coalition for Homeless Houston found 193 people without a home in 2017 on streets and shelters, 298 in that situation last year and 145 this year, including 59 who lacked shelter of any kind.
The decrease can be attributed in part to smaller shelters that did not report data in time, but the point-in-time count also reflects just that — a point in time, said Catherine B. Villarreal and Ana Rausch of the coalition, which began doing its counts in Montgomery County in 2017. The increase recorded before this year may be attributed to more accurate counts.
Prior to Hurricane Harvey in 2017, therewas a significant drop in the number of people experiencing homelessness throughout the region as groups such as the coalition worked to help people, Rausch noted.
Neither Villarreal nor Rausch had read the survey of Conroe businesses, but Villarreal said the coalition seeks to educate people about poverty to understand that someone on the street may not necessarily be homeless.
“Even when we hopefully someday get to the day that we have solved homelessness — in Montgomery County and Harris County and Fort Bend County — you will still see people on the streets because it’s also a symptom of poverty,” she said.
A homeless advocate attributed the apparent decline in homelessness in the county to continued efforts to help people struggling through poverty.
“We have a tremendous network that is not only able to address the homelessness issue but some of the peripheral issues that cause homelessness,” said Gary Audas Jr., treasurer of Montgomery County Homeless Coalition.
Among the services offered in Conroe is Redus’ Compassion United, which currently has a location, the Conroe House of Prayer, in downtown. The organization doesn’t plan to renew its current lease and hopes to be out of downtown by early next year, Redus said.
One of the planned new buildings will expand the group’s space from about 2,000 square feet to 12,000 square feet, allowing unhoused persons to shower, do laundry and use computers. Redus said the intention is to keep people occupied on-site — rather than wandering the streets — and increase the likelihood of moving them to transitional housing.
“We don’t want to enable anyone,” he said. “Our plan is to completely empower people to turn their life around. That is what we want to do.”
City Councilman Jody Czajkoski thinks the idea could potentially be replicated in other parts of the country.
“We are basically going to build a community that rehabilitates the homeless,” he said.“We are trying to do some good.”
Collaboration needed
Outside of Apostolo’s barbership, the man who was lying on the upstairs landing, 28-year- old David Oliva, found shade from the blazing sun.
Oliva explained that he got to Conroe some time in 2011 through foster care. He started living out of his car in 2015, then began living on the streets.
The city helps in some ways, he said, but every homeless individual is different and addressing the entirety of the matter requires collaboration from all.
“Some folks are good,” he said. “Some folks don’t care.”