Newspaper Page Text
Hope : Stigma of homelessness greater against women
Continued from page 1A
attributed in part to the shame
and stigma society has
attached to addiction, particu
larly where women are con
cerned.
“Many people in Augusta
just have a hard time accepting
addiction as a diagnosed and
treatable disease. They think
it’s a marter of morality or lack
of will power. And that stigma
is harsher on women. Society
will accept a male alcoholic or
addict but not a woman in
that same position,” he
explained.
Dr. Carrier says despite litde
support from the local com
munity — 90 percent of their
funding comes from federal
grants — Hope House contin
ues its mission. The program
offers drug abuse counseling,
basic living skills training and
Cuisine invented by slaves elegantly prepared for the well-hecled
By CARRIE SPENCER
Associated Press Writer
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP)
— Specially commissioned
abstract art is on the wall,
jazz on the sound system,
white linen on the tables
and Dom Perignon ($l9O a
bottle) on the wine list.
On the menu, below the
stuffed portabella mush
room appetizer and pan
seared scallops, are deep
fried catfish, collard and
. mustard greens, and maca
roni and cheese. Don't for
. get the cobbler or sweet
potato pie. Soul food has
gone gourmet.
Brownstone on Main, just
" blocks from the Statehouse
and downtown theaters,
opened last August and was
named one of the five best
new restaurants of the year
by the city magazine
Columbus Monthly. Down
town attorneys meet clients
over lunch, jazz fans watch
bands from cushioned
benches, and doctors leav
ing late-night shifts at a
nearby hospital can get din
ner from a kitchen open
past midnight.
“No, this is not the food
my grandmother makes. It’s
just very good food,” said
Danni Palmore, a political
consultant and community
organizer. Palmore lives
downtown and likes the
restaurant’s convenient loca
tion and quick service for
meetings, she said while
planning a new project with
developer Tony Hutchis
over lunch on a recent
weekday.
. Many traditional South
,fu?n arose from dish
- plantation castoffs, wild
plants and rations of corn
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aids the residents in preparing
for their GED or learning a
vocational skill. The goal is to
teach the women to function
in an adult society. The agency
has two locations, one on
Wrightsboro Road that serves
seven women with children
and a Milledgeville Road
home with a capacity for eight
single women. With stays
ranging anywhere from one
year to 24 months and the
ability to only serve a small
number, dozens of women are
left on a waiting list hoping
that they’ll get in before the ill
ness of addiction claims
another life.
Pensola Parsons woke up in
a padded room at University
Hospital on October 26,
2001. By some divine inter
vention shed managed to sur
vive the motel room binge.
duces maps and city guides
geared for black travelers.
Among the first was
Jezebel in the Hell’s Kitchen
section of New York, where
owner and chef Alberta
Wright has been serving
highbrow down-home
cooking since 1983.
The big-city restaurants
occupy prime real estate,
Dorsey said. The now
closed Georgia's in Los
Angeles was on Hollywood’s
Melrose Avenue. B. Smith’s
first restaurant is in New
York a block from Broadway
and its Capirol Hill location
is in the former Presidential
Suite of Union Station.
Rapper and fashion designer
Sean “P. Diddy” Combs
chose one of the poshest
Atlanta neighborhoods for
the newest Justin’s, which
also started in New York.
“What's happening in the
last five to 10 years is South
ern food is getting the
respect it deserves,” said Jeff
Gillian, who started Brown
stone with fellow Columbus
music promoter Greg
Provo.
They noticed the trend
while traveling a few years
ago. Gillian, also an invest
ment manager, has eaten at
upscale soul food restau
rants in Paris and London.
They decided smaller cities
were ready.
They bought and gutted a
three-story building, put
ting in wood floors, a gran
ite bar and custom-designed
wine cabinets. They emp
tied the basement and
exposed its rough stone
-walls as a backdrop to the
live jazz lounge. The top
floor soon will become
meeting space with the same
comfortable furniture and
appetizing earth tone
palette.
~ The restaurant breaks
_even on operations, but it
(R 0 four yean 0
- ment, Gillian said. If it does
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SR ST
AUGUSTA FOCUS
She hoped the change of tide
would be the beginning of a
fresh start but she soon learned
she could only remain in the
hospital for four days before
being turned back out into the
streets- they had no residential
drug treatment program. But,
Pensola said, her story was not
to end there.
“They (hospital staffers)
called Hope House for me and
I think it was on my next to
last day there that they told me
I'd be able to go. Istill remem
ber the day I got to Hope
House; it was October 31,
2001 and I was ready to
change,”
Once at the facility, Parsons
struggled to adjust to her new
life. Admittedly things like eat
ing dinner at the wble as a
family and learning how to do
laundry struck her as odd
because on the streets she says
They're not alone in that
thought.
Patrick Coleman began
Beans & Cornbread seven
years ago in the business
hub of Southfield, a Detroit
suburb. He said his black
customers often skip the
soul food for dishes such as
salmon, and he'll see Asians
cating collards or black-eyed
peas for the first time.
“I could see this concept
working anywhere in the
Midwest,” Coleman said.
“In a lot of ways it’s just
comfort food.”
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she would grab a bag of chips
wherever she could and basi
cally wore the same dirty
clothes. Parsons also said that
for the first time, she was
learning how to interact with
people in a capacity outside of
hustling them for money.
“In the streets something
happens to you; you become
cold. You don't care about
people and it’s almost like you
don't have a soul. But here I
got my soul back. Living with
my three roommates, we start
ed bonding and I learned
about unconditional love,” she
explained.
Parsons says the facility’s
Client Services Coordinator
Sheila Hatcher also helped her
work through a problem that
shed kept secret since she was
thirteen- she suffered from the
eating disorder bulimia. Pen
sola explained tearfully that
Hatcher confronted her after
ies - chef Tom Paige’s child
hood nickname - on Cleve
land’s east side and Alexan
dria’s on 2nd, which opened
in July in Seattle.
At the two-year-old Sweet
Georgia Brown in Detroit,
the concept has gone so
upscale that a pork chop
(grilled) and sweet potatoes
(baked with honey butter or
as “skinny fries”) are the
most Southern items on the
dinner menu.
As is common in the
industry, however, nothing
is a sure thing. Upscale soul
food has already come and
gone in Cincinnati. The
noticing the warning signs,
telling her that unless she
addressed that problem, she
would never be completely
healed.
Hope House has also
begun to help Pensola heal
her relationship with her
family. Her sixteen year old
daughter spent the first four
years of her life watching her
mother use. Parsons said her
daughter had to deal with
that as well as being away
from her mother after a fam
ily member agreed to take her
in, an arrangement that last
ed for 12 years. Hatcher
explained that part of the
family dynamics training
includes inviting relatives to
visit in an effort o work
through the secondhand
effects of addiction.
Although in many case rela
tives refuse to attend, Parsons
has been fortunate in being
able to repair her relationship
Shark Bar’s Los Angeles
location lasted less than two
years.
The high-end restaurants
happily coexist with mom
and-pop soul food diners,
but traditional dishes such
as greens, fried chicken or
macaroni and cheese are
served on fine china with
carved-fruit garnishes, and
as Dorsey said, “a little less
drippy.”
Theyll also be paired with
pricier items such as lobster
or the classic French duck
confit, said Thomas Head,
executive wine and food
editor at Washingtonian
August 26, 2004
with her loved ones.
Today Pensola Parsons and
her daughter are reunited.
She has nearly three years of
sobriety under her belt, no
longer practices bulimia and
is working as a counselor at a
residential drug treatment
facility for teens. She says the
journey “back to life” has
been a long and painful one
full of grief and shame that
she’s still learning to get over
but Parsons shares her story
because she wants to help
others find hope like she did.
“I think of Hope House as
God’s House. I used to
always bad mouth myself.
Now I want things for
myself. Now I got dreams,
hopes...l got ambitions. I
want my own home now and
because of this place I believe
that I can have that and any
thing else I work to get. And
that feels good,” she said.
magazine.
“Most of the grits that
you're finding in restaurants
these days aren't Quaker
grits. They're stone ground
grits from real mills that
grind their own grits and
take it seriously,” he said.
“It just sort of makes sense
that people in looking for
the roots of their cooking
would turn to the South,”
said Head, a Louisiana
native. “As long as people
stay interested in finding the
best ingredients and the best
that America has to offer, it’s
a pretty stable trend.”
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