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Dallas, TX

Dallas County’s mental health transfer waitlist costing taxpayers $13 million, commissioner says

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Dallas County’s mental health transfer waitlist costing taxpayers  million, commissioner says


There are 400 inmates deemed incompetent who ought to be in a state facility sitting within the Dallas County jail. Some have been there for longer than two years.

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The inmates are ready to be transferred to a state psychological well being facility. The load of it falls on the county’s tax {dollars}.

Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Value says it’s costing the county $13 million to handle 400 individuals who ought to be at both the Vernon State Hospital or the Rusk State Hospital, however they are not as a result of there are not any accessible beds.

“We have people which were in custody for over 800 days. That’s two-and-a-half years now,” Value stated. “They’re imagined to be in state custody.”

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In 2017, Dallas County had 130 inmates awaiting switch to a state psychological well being hospital. Two 12 months later, that quantity grew to 203. Now in 2022 following COVID-19, that quantity stands at 400, which is a rise of greater than 200%.

Dallas County has extra individuals ready to be transferred than the most important county in Texas.

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“We’ve got 2.6 million individuals,” Value stated. “Harris County has 4.8 million individuals, they usually have much less individuals ready to go to those services than does Dallas County.” 

The psychological well being wait checklist of 400 and one other 400 ready for switch to Texas prisons retains urgent the jail inhabitants. Proper now, it stands at about 5,900.

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“We simply wish to know why,” Value stated. “Why are we being handled this manner? It isn’t as if we’re being reimbursed. Dallas taxpayers are choosing up the tab. And on the finish of the day, you are requiring us to swim purchase. You have put our arms behind us.”

The commissioner says he is alerting the Dallas delegation to the state legislature in addition to state workplaces that they want some assist getting these people out of the Dallas County jail.

Value plans to current the Dallas County psychological well being switch waitlist at Tuesday’s commissioners courtroom. He desires Dallas lawmakers in Austin to place strain on the state to discover a method and a spot to deal with its inmates who shouldn’t be within the Dallas County jail. 

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Dallas, TX

Whose Books' Anniversary Celebration Promotes Reading Culture in Dallas

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Whose Books' Anniversary Celebration Promotes Reading Culture in Dallas


Whose Books in Oak Cliff is marking its third anniversary Saturday, November 9, with Shelf Shuffle, a communal celebration and book drive benefiting Activating Reading Communities Organization (ARCO), the nonprofit overseen by Whose Books founder Claudia Vega. ARCO will also be celebrating by offering discounts for Whose Books customers, prizes, and vendors for attendees to enjoy.

“Whose Books [is] a social impact, independent bookstore that handles…the retail piece of the book selling, right? And then our nonprofit arm is ARCO, which is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, that handles all of the programming, all of the community outreach, [and] all of our gifting of books into the community,” says Vega, explaining the relationship between the two organizations.

Vega sees the two-pronged approach of engaging with the community through both Whose Books and ARCO as critical to fulfilling the mission statement she and her husband, John, set for themselves when they originally opened their store in a small space in Tyler Station. They had spent 20-plus years working as Dallas educators. “I think my husband and I had always had this…dream of opening up a bookstore for our community,” she says. “We both grew up here in Oak Cliff, and reading was a really big part of both of our lives as children.”

They were aware, though, that not everyone had the same access to books that they did growing up. Working in education frequently reminded them of this fact. “It was just very inconsistent in Oak Cliff for a long time with what kind of book access and book ownership access there was,” she says.

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The Vegas identified the root cause of the reading challenges facing their community. They built their store to promote a culture of reading for residents. They put together a plan to use Whose Books to tackle these issues of access head-on. Their initial idea was met with some skepticism, though. “We got a lot of…side glances and weird comments and people who didn’t want to lease to us,” Claudia Vega recalls. They were told that unless they sold alcohol, the store would not be successful. The skeptics told them that Oak Cliff already had The Wild Detectives, so another bookshop would be redundant.

“Wild Detectives is a great bookstore,” says Vega. “We love it. But what we were trying to create was something different, right? Something that was more family-centered and community-facing and that centered primarily on reading culture and books, not coffee and alcohol. And it wasn’t easy, but we were fortunate enough that we found an incubator space over at Tyler Station to…launch things and test it out.”

In 2021, Whose Books opened in Tyler Station in the central Oak Cliff neighborhood of Elmwood. The community response, Vega recalls, was overwhelmingly positive. It outgrew the space, and in 2023 they relocated the shop to its current location in Bishop Arts. After the move, Vega launched ARCO to execute on Whose Books’ mission in new ways.

“One of the things that we realized really, really quickly was that we were going to need to do more than just have the bookstore,” says the founder. “We were going to need to have a very focused, mission-driven effort in the form of a nonprofit.” 

Vega says about half of the people they interacted with were already readers who were excited to support Whose Books, but they also had a number of patrons who she recalls “were curious and who [were] maybe new to reading, that [had] never been in a bookstore before and didn’t really know how to engage with it…but wanted to.”

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Since its founding a year ago, the nonprofit arm, ARCO, has been busy. “We’ve had over 100 free community-facing, literary-focused events this year,” says Vega, who serves as the nonprofit’s executive director. “That [includes] story time, author events, book clubs, community, and conversations, but all centered somehow on literature or a book.” 

ARCO has donated over 2,000 books through many of its programs. “We’ve made this huge kind of impact in getting people talking about and engaging with books in our community that previously hadn’t, and it really has been beautiful.”

Shelf Shuffle represents the next evolutionary step for Whose Books and ARCO.

“We’re encouraging people to bring us donated books that are gently used,” says Vega. “We are asking for books that are from 2019 on, with an emphasis on BIPOC stories and voices. That’s a big part of what ARCO does, is to really uplift inclusion and representation in literature, knowing that if people see themselves in the literature, they’re more likely to engage with it.” 

The book drive will also help ARCO expand its scope of influence. “We have people in other parts of the community, other ZIP codes that we engage with and say, you know, we really want some book access there. Well, then these donated books will give us an opportunity to help and go put books in these locations.”

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ARCO employs “pay what you can” format for the used books, and any proceeds help cover the costs of free storytime events and book giveaways. The event will also feature a live jazz band, as well as a handful of “coffee and populist vendors” according to Vega, who says the ultimate objective is “creating a community space for people to come together and to engage with each other in a way that’s festive, but also helps to uplift literature.” 

The Saturday, November 9, anniversary celebration at Whose Books is scheduled from 11 AM to 2 PM. Anyone interested in attending can RSVP for free here. 512 W. Davis St.

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Dallas, TX

Dallas pharmacy provides free life-saving medications to thousands in need

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Dallas pharmacy provides free life-saving medications to thousands in need


NORTH TEXAS – Prescription drugs can be expensive, and most pharmacies don’t care if you’re rich or poor; the medicine costs the same whether you can afford it or not.

The St. Vincent de Paul Pharmacy in Dallas looks like any other pharmacy on the outside – filling bottles, scanning prescriptions, packing up medicine and shipping it out to patients.

“Last year we helped over 4,000 patients,” said pharmacy manager Carlos Irula.

And if you look a little closer, you’ll see things are a little different here.

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“Too good to be true, or something like that, but in this case it really is true,” said Irula.

That’s because the pharmacists here, like Irula, are filling and shipping life-saving medications all for free.

“This service is 100% free to patients,” he said.

Patients like Ana Orenalla don’t pay a dime for medication.

“My husband is diabetic. I think we would have spent a lot. At least $300 a month. It’s just a lot of money,” she said.

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Orenalla cleans houses. Her husband is unable to work because of his health but used to do landscaping and construction.

They qualify for the free prescription drugs at the pharmacy because they have no health insurance and have an income 300% below the poverty line. According to the pharmacy, one out of six Texans fall in this category.

“We wouldn’t be able to pay for his medicine, and he would have to go back to a medication that really didn’t help him,” said Orenalla.

That’s a choice this pharmacy is helping thousands of patients avoid. Since 2018, they’ve delivered $100 million in free medications to patients like Orenalla and her husband.

“The situations that most of our patients come through, they get the doors closed a lot. Many times, we’re the safety net, we’re the last line of defense when it comes to, you either have your medication or you end up in the hospital,” said Irula.

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The pharmacy relies mostly on donations to deliver the service. Find out how to donate by clicking here. 



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Dallas, TX

Dallas Stars will now have lot of time on the ice after their trip to Finland

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Dallas Stars will now have lot of time on the ice after their trip to Finland


Associated Press

DALLAS (AP) — The Dallas Stars played back-to-back games at home against the Chicago Blackhawks, with 11 days and a trip to Finland between them.

Now the Stars will be logging plenty of ice time, with 21 games in 44 days through the week before Christmas.

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“You get through training camp, you try and settle in and then we go to Finland and it kind of shuffles things for a second,” forward Sam Steel said. “Now we’re past that. We can just focus on this next stretch coming up and grind it out and try and get to our our A-game.”

After losing two games to the reigning Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers last weekend in Finland, and then the 11-hour direct flight back to Texas, the Stars (8-4) were back in their home arena Thursday night for a 3-1 win.

Dallas next plays Saturday at Winnipeg, which has an NHL-best 13-1 record. The game in Canada will be the third country in three games over an eight-day span for the Stars.

“Just like we were waited a long time to play (in Finland). … So now we can just get in a routine,” goalie Jake Oettinger said. “It’s just hockey now and we’re going to be playing a lot, so it’ll be fun and hopefully we can just get on a roll and start winning a lot.”

Chicago was playing its sixth game since its previous trip to Dallas on Oct. 26.

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The Stars, who have made it to the Western Conference final in each of coach Pete DeBoer’s first two seasons, never trailed after Steel scored 11 minutes into their first game back home. Steel also assisted on Tyler Seguin’s goal while Oettinger stopped 25 shots, including five in a 10-second span less than a minute after they took a 2-0 lead.

“Going into this game, we just said find a way,” Seguin said.

“I thought we played a good game,” DeBoer said. “I liked a lot of things we did considering the situation coming back from overseas. I thought we controlled that game for the most part.”

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AP NHL: https://apnews.com/hub/nhl

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