Active aging
March 2014 • Vol. 35-No. 4 316-942-5385
January 2004 • Vol. 25-No.2
Informing 112,000 55+ readers Southcentral Kansas Serving 80,000 Readers in in South Central Kansas
Grown-up movies abound
Are you ready for MARCH MADNESS?
By Bob Curtright
how we can break the cycle,” he says. He cited a man who walked the same route every day and refused counseling because it would destroy his routine and thus his comfort level. Trained to deal with the mentally ill, Schwiethale told him he would tear up a civil ticket if he would talk to a counselor. The man agreed and is now settled in housing. The repetitious cycle was broken. Housing First, funded by Wichita and Sedgwick County, pays for housing for those who meet the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s definition of chronically homeless. Apartment owners like the program because it guarantees they will receive their rent. As long as the tenants behave, they are welcome to stay. For local governments, the cost of an apartment is small compared to the costs of emergency medical care, jail time and possible crime. “Studies have shown that by not doing anything, a homeless person can have an economic impact of $54,000 in used resources on a community,” Schwiethale says, citing a report by the National Alliance On Homelessness. “By using a Housing First model and getting them stabilized in an apartment, you can (in theory) save $40,000 per homeless per year.” A year into the program, he says they have a 95 percent success rate, but cautions the program is still new. One success story is Kim, paralyzed in an automobile accident years ago. She was
After two months, Hollywood’s annual awards race is coming down the home stretch with the 85th Academy Awards show on Sunday, March 2 – delayed a week beyond its usual February berth so it doesn’t compete with the Winter Olympics finale. A surprising number of veteran performers have been attracting the praise of critics this year, including Bruce Dern and Robert Redford – both 77 – whose work in Nebraska and All Is Lost, respectively, has been called performances of their careers. For awhile, it seemed that the Oscars – like the Screen Actors Guild earlier -were going to set a precedent with all best actress nominees over 40. And this from an industry that previously proclaimed Bette Davis’ Margo Channing over the hill at 40 in All About Eve and shunned Gloria Swanson’s Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard as a long-forgotten dinosaur at 50. Yes, really, just 50. But Amy Adams (39) as a conniving con artist of American Hustle sneaked into the spot many thought should go to Emma Thompson (54) as the prickly Mary Poppins author PJ Travers in Saving Mr. Banks. As it is, Adams is surrounded by women who still have the moxie to carry a movie rather than be relegated to character or supporting roles, from Judi Dench (79) looking for a long-lost son in Philomena to Meryl Streep (64) as an acid-tongued Oklahoma matriarch in August: Osage County to Sandra Bullock (49) as an astronaut cut adrift in Gravity to Cate Blanchett (44) as an aging trophy wife who loses her husband, her money -- and her mind -- in Blue Jasmine. At least, falling in line behind the Screen Actors Guild, the Critics Choice Awards recognized Thompson and the other four post-40 women (although it did give a sixth nomination to 28-year-old Brie Larson of Short Term 12). For best actor, only Dern as a blue-collar retiree trying to convince everyone that he’s won $1 million, made Oscar’s final cut against a younger field that includes Christian Bale, Leonardo Di Caprio,
See HOT, page 26
See Movies, page 4
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Photo by Pamela Huffmier
The Wichita Police Department’s Homeless Outreach Team is, from left, Officer Danny Taylor, Sgt. Brett Stull, Officer Greg Feuerborn and Officer Nate Schwiethale
HOT helps homeless By Debbi Elmore
A
s a rookie cop assigned to the downtown Wichita beat, Nate Schwiethale found himself arresting the same people over and over. It created an endless cycle of tickets, fines, noshows at court dates and more warrants. He resolved there had to be a better way. After researching options throughout the country, he discovered Colorado Springs had implemented a program to get the chronically homeless off the streets. After studying their program, he presented his ideas to the Wichita Police Department. WPD’s Homeless Outreach Team (HOT) was born in February 2013. On any given day, Wichita has 500 to 600 homeless people. Colorado Springs had similar statistics, but their program reduced those numbers to 150 to 200. WPD decided to run the program as a pilot for a year, and then evaluate the results. All incidences involving the homeless are referred to the three officers assigned to HOT. Schwiethale says their phones ring 20 to 50 times a day. They concentrate on getting them treatment instead of jail. “We are trying to fix what made them homeless in the first place,” he says. “They don’t know how to manage money, so we get a case manager to teach them. We want to help the homeless not be homeless.” The officer’s first focus is to build trust so the homeless understand HOT’s job is to help. Schwiethale says some of the mentally ill manage by repetition. “We have to learn