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HomeMy WebLinkAboutOB 3 REVENUE SHARING 09-20-82DATE: FROH: $UB J E CT: August 9, 1982 OLD BUSINESS NO. 3 9-20-82 Inter-Corn Bill Huston, City Manager C. R. Thayer, Chief of Police R'evenue Sharing Request-Christian Temporary Housing Facility (CTHF) Mike-Elias, 704 N. Grand, Orange, Director of CTHF. Today Z contacted Mike Elias. at the Grand' facility for CTHF. At this time he gave an explanation of' the purpose of the program and the reason they are requesting revenue sharing funding from the City of Tustin. In order to adequately understand this program, I will have to explain what the various titles mean on Attachment A. Intakes (family units). These are contacts made by people in need of CTHF assistance and where some actto~ is taken . This does not necessarily meam that they were housed, but CTHF personnel did something in order to help that person with their individual problem'. It could have included any one of the other items listed. Clients temporarily housed. This is basically self-explanatory. These are people who stayed at the North Glassell or El Modena house operated by this organization and is included in the intakes. Bed Days. This indicates the total number of days where people slept at their facilities and the average length of the stay. Meals Served. Self-explanatory. It is interesting to note, in the evening meal particularly, they are running three shifts in order to get the total number of people fed at this particular time. I want to emphasize this is not a soup kitchen, but an actual sit-down meal. The people are charged $1.00 for dinner and 50~ for lunch or breakfast, for a grand total of' $2.00 per day. Referrals for solution other than CTHF. These are strictly referrals where people receive additional help from someplace else, but were referred to that help by CTHF. Job Club. This is an in-house organization made up of the residents and staff that helps people learn how to obtain jobs and how to retain them once they have obtained them. Page 2 Revenue Shari ng-CTHF 8/9/82 Operation S.A.P. A program of sharing other outside housing'. Volunteers meet on a scheduled basis to "paim up" with residents of CTHF. They share expenses in a home or an apartment until the individuals can get on their own feet. Operation Band Aid. This is basically emergency assistance for a shot: duration, maybe overnight. A motel room, transportation to some other location, quick remedies to. possible long-term problems when the person will be leaving the area immediately. The facility on Glassell has 20 beds and a staff of four f~llotime people and 30 volunteers. It is interesting to note there are actually 35 people utilizing this facilitiy; it was very clean, well organized, there was but 1 or 2 people in the facility and they were night shift workers. The basic philosophy of CTHF is to provide assistance to families who are in financial need and do not have housing. The program is to help the person get back on his feet, obtain a job, save enough funds to get his own housing and then become productive members of society. Should a person not wish to follow those guidelines, they are removed from the facility. This is not a free ticket or a liberal welfare program. In fact, the residents are constantly reminded that it is not a welfare program by the fact that they have to pay for their meals and from each paycheck they receive after obtaining a job, while still living at CTHF, they must donate 10%. Once they have moved from the facility, there are no longer any financial obligations upon them. The majority of funding is provided by private donations, United Way, some churches, the Fluor Corporation, and, of course, the residents' income as indicated above, which amounts to about $20,000 per year. The majority of the daytime referrals come from church groups and the nighttime referrals, from police. Mr. Elias indicated the police are bringing in more and more victims of family violence in the middle of the night, for some type of shelter, in order to help the family separate until tempers can cool. Additionally, they provide job/credit counseling, and money management classes to teach the people how to handle their money and sometimes includes teaching how to shop for the proper foods in order to get the most out of their money. Page 3 Revenu~ Sharing-CTHF 8/9/82 For the first six months of 1982, the Orange and E1 Modena house of CTHF handled 66 families from the City of Tustin. They emphasize the term "family" because the average number in a family is ¢ and in order to get an accurate picture of the service they are providing any of the. cities on the attached list, you must multiply each of those numbers by 4 to get the actual number of persons who have passed through their doors. Attachment B. This facility has not been greatly used, if at all, by the City of Tustin on a referral basis from the Police Department to the~ best of my knowledge. However, I can assure you that we do have one to two cases a month that we could refer to this facility and it appears as if we will. My evaluation of this program is that it is an outstanding no-nonsense program with the primary aim to help once productive people become productive again and return them to the community.~ Recommendation I recommend that from revenue sharing, the City of Tustin provide approximately $5,000 in funds to help support CTHF, CHIEF OF POLICE CRT:dh STATISTICS FOR JANUARY TO JUNE 1982 INTAKES (~mzzy ~.zt~) CLIENTS TEMPORARILY HOUSED A~ULTS CHiLdReN 538 192 BED DAYS AVERAG~ £~NGTH OF STAF 10.6 MEALS SERVED REFERRALS FOR SOLUTION OTHER THAN CTHF (~mzly JOB CLUB OPERATION S','A,'P',' OPERATION BAND-AID 5;'225 7~0 7,703 17,888 6~003 473 483 838 CHRISTIAN TEMPORARY HOUSING. FACIUTY ~7 JANUARY I'0 JUNE 1982 I. 060 2.672 Cfi/lO 1.982 SB~O~ FAMILY VIOLENCE 1,675 CTHF August 19, 1982 The Honorable Mayor and Council Members City of Tustin 300 Centennial Way Tustin,California Dear Mayor and Council Members; Previous correspondence indicated the extent and the way in which the residents of Tustin are served and helped by the activities of CTHF. If you have further questions please feel free to call me at 633-6403. During the past several weeks quite a bit of pub- licity efforts have featured the work of CTHF. Several television programs, both local and national, have shown our work. In addition, a number of newspaper articles have described what is happening, not only at CTHF, but con- cerning the total problem of the homeless. I am en- closing several such articles. Perhaps two additional comments are in order. First, although the articles are general, they do apply speci- fically to the Tustin community just as well as to other Orange County cities. Second, although the articles may not primarily focus on CTHF, I hope you will glean that CTHF in every case is focused on as providing substantial and effective assistance to the needy. Sincerely, Elmer Holthus, Ph.D. Dvelopment Director 131 E. Collins Street · Orange, California 92667 · (7141 771-2843 Member ot Umtcd ~,'~a~ Reprinted by Permission Anaheirn Bu Iletin Problems of the homeless move to suburbia CHIUSTIAN TEMPORARY HOUSING DIRECTOR MIKE ELIAS · .. meets wJh~.,,, A[u.u,..,oaermor tor cbn~rence on ~omeless women. By Gay Arakawa Bulletin Staff Writer IRVINE -- The homeless who survive by sleeping in bus stations, neighborhood parks, street corners or other public places; eating whatever they can find in garbage dumps; and washing themselves in public restrooms are not seen only in places like New York City but live in affluent suburban Orange County. Many do not appear homeless like the stereotypical shopping bag lady, but look like everybody else. And homeless people are not centered in poorer cities like Santa Ana and Garden Grove but are found in all 26 cities including Newport Beach and Laguna Beach, according to Mike Elias of Christian Temporary Ilvu .... b~l,k,~.flzz~h~n based homeless, ~ ~' ~'~' ~ ~ ....... ~:~as among a dozen speakers at ~e ?E~0ne - day Conference on Homeless Wom~ held at UC Irvine. It was the first of its kind held on the west coast addressing ~e problems of ~e homeless and some ~ssible In .Orange County there are no municipal shelters, showers, or places the homeless can get food like those in other cities... solutions of this complex problem. No statistics have been kept on the number of homeless women in Orange County because they are difficult to count. Agencies serving the homeless keep statistics but the methods of counting vary from one another. The Orange County Coalition for the Homeless estimates there may be 4,000 homeless women living in the. county. The coalition sponsored the conference that was made up of more than a dozen organizations who aid the homeless. Elites said 5,2~2~v/~^'~dgdi-tht' first ~i~ ~ the prospects of that reality. Jean Forbath of Share Our Selves that also aids the homeless spoke about some of the typical women who are homeless. Some women face being evicted from their living dwellings or are evicted and turn to the street to live. Forbath said. Other young women with children are abandonedby their husbands or are victims of aouse. Their families will not take their daughters back home, Forbath said. Forbath also described the chronic homeless who are mentally or emotionally disturbed. These women have l.ost contact with their families that loved them at one time. They aren't hostile or violent, Forbath added. But what can be done for these people? In Orange County there are no municipal shelters, showers or places the homeless can get food like those in other cities such as New York. There are temporary shelters in Orange County but those who work in the field agree that they are always filled. When someone calls for help, the band - aide approach is usually taken, they say. Food may be given for a day or two. An organization may put a familyin "sleezy, crummy motels" that charge $25 to $30 a day for a few days, Forbath said. Some places offer job counseling and searching but until they get a job, they can't be on their own. And when they get a job, they don't get paid for two weeks or so. What are they to do until then? Elias asked. And the housing situati~range County doesn't help matters. The vacancy rate is one percent. An~ pointed out, "There is no hous~n~-ailable if you're poor in Orange County." He has worked with the homeless for seven years. Affordable housing needs to be built, most agreed. However in this day and age, affordable means homes or condominiums costing between $80,000 to $110,000. And most agreed at the conference that one agency or organization should not be solely responsible for the homeless but it should be a cooperative effort between many agencies, organizations and churches. ~ ~Eliz~,,~id he finds it appalling that agencies or churches have the attitude that they will serve only one type of person such as the Catholics aiding only Catholics. And he finds it even more distressing that a church uses a house for storage rather lhan housing people. He wouldn't say which church· Sponsors of this conference included the Board of Rabbis of Orange County, Catholic Social Services, Florence Crittenton Services, Fairview Community Church American Baptist, Human Relations Commission of Orange County, Interfaith Council, Irvine Ministerial Association, Irvine United Church of Christ. Others included Lutheran Social Services, Orange County Association for Mental Health, Orange County Commission on Status of Women, Orange County Urban That's ['it to Pr/nt" VOL. CXXXI .... No, Reprinted by permission. YORK, SATURDAY, AUGUST New Cal ornia Homeless Move From Park to Park By JUDITH CUMMINGS TRABUCO CANYON, Calif., Aug. 6 ~ Only a few miles from some of the most expermive communities in affluent Orange County, people are living in tents, vans and cars in public parks, They have been left homeless by eco- nomic hard times. Officials of volunteer agencies in Orange County link a small but growing populatiOn of park residents to a sharp rise in requests for shelter from fami- lies and individuals who until recently were seif~sufficient. They attribute the appearanCe of a new ~ o/home[ess to~ the double squeeze of scarce jobs ann soaring rental costs in a regiOn that has had one of the highest household in- comes in the country. "I see the reason as the ecenomy," said Michael Elias, director of the Christian Temporary Housing Facility in the city of Orange. "The increase is in the family-type person, who can't find a job, lost the apa~me~t, can't get credit." Jobless Rate Has Increased The unemployment rate f~r Orange County has jumped sharply, from 3.6 percent in May 1981 to $.4 percent a year later, according to the latest avail- able Federal figures. Mr. Elias said his facility filled 8,571 requests from needy families for shelter in all of 1981. This year requests teachad 5,225 in the first six months alone. · Other service agencies report a simi- lar trend. ,lean Forbath, director of Share Our Selves, an emergency center in Costa Mesa, Calif., said 180 families with a total of 618 children had sought shelter or rent money to stave off evic- tion in the first 20 days of 3une, con- trested with 108 families for the whole month o! Sune last year. There are no reliable fi§utes on the number living in parks, largely because it is a floatin~ population. The esti- mates of shelter officials range from 20 families to more than 200. Rick and Penny Thieiemann and their two children live in a tent in O'Neill Park in Trahaco CanyOn about 15 miles from such wealthy enclaves as Newpor~ Beach and Laguna Beach. They cook in a cinderblock pit and wash up in camp restrooms. Mr. Thielemann, a roofer, said they had been living in parks since Novem- ber when they were evicted from an apartment after he fell behind in his rent because of the construction slump. "We had a choice of either spending what we had en an apartm~t Or buying camping gear," Mr. Thielemann said. "The kids and us, we all decided to buy camping gear because we knew work was going to be slow." He said the family moved from park to park to avoid running afoul of laws barring long-term residence in camp~ grounds. The Thieiemanu children, Lori, 7 years 01d, and Michael, 10, were taken out of school because o! the fre~ quent moves. Mrs. Thielemaun said they were teacht-_* the children them. selves, with ~30 wort~ of schoolbooks. Many of the park people are refugees from other states, lured to Orang~ County by its reputation as a thrivtn~.__~ job center. Marleae Lenz, a 27-year-old Arizonan, said she had migrated with her husband, David Porter, in a camper in the h0pe hoth wonld get work. "We investigated it first," she said. "We were making phone calls to Las Vngas all the way to San Dingo. But by the time we gut here, the people from Michigan and those places had flonded the market." her plisht while she tidied up a van ~oWdad with belongings near a bed on cinderblocks in the open air. She said her boyfriend, Tony, was a union welder who traveled to Los Angeles every Monday unsuccessfully seekin8 work on his union's job list. She had a job in a We~troinster, Calif., thrift store, she said, "but the thrift store w~lt out of business. ' ' scribed ~ situaUon as an eroergence of"Umt cities." '!The people livin8 in the parks can't get euoullh money to~ether to get into an apartment," she said. "Last week we had a family where the father worked in a factory days and the mother in a fast-food restaurant at night. They had four children and they made ~ a month too much to get wel- fare help. Welfare told them if they con- tinued to keep their children in a car in the park they would take the children from them. It's a horrible situation, a Catch-Zl.' Mrs. Forbath said her organization had.been givin8 families money for the 15 nishfly park fees and in some cases buyin& tents and camping equipment. But the goal is to establish a revolvin~ lean fund to provide rents and deposits for apartments. Of partieular concern, the officials said, is the lack of a shelter in the county for women who are alone or who head families. The Rev. Jane Ann Moore, of the United Church of Christ Board o! Homeland Ministries in Ir- vine, Calif., said the increase in horoe- less women had been aggravated as low-cost housing has disappeared through condominium conversions. "A lot of single mothers have brou&ht their children here because of the ~ reputation of the school system," she said. "They're being the best mother they know how to be, but because of the high housil~ costs, if the rent g~es up, if anything happerm~ they end up on the streets." ~.Lr~. Moore is oneo! the I~gders of ~q ~ort to link a newly ~om_~ local conl- tion with the Natinnal Cealition for the Homeless based in New York. Mr. Elias, of the christian Tempo- rary Housing Facility, said, "The ironic thing is that the city of Irvine has just voted ~3.5 million to build a Holiday Inn for doggies, an aniroal shelter," he said, "and the city has given not one dime for a shelter for homeless peo- ple.'' Los Angeles Fimes Copyright, 1982 I-os Angeles Times. 'Thurs~y, August 5, 1H Reprinted by permission. Agencies Unite to Help Needy A' Network Approach to Rips in the Social Fabric By LIZ MeGUINNESS, T/m~s St~ff We/ret Jean Forbath says that what she offers is basically a "hand-aid operation" -- a quick-fix station, even though major surgery appears indicated. Those band-aids are the food, clothing, furniture and financial aid Forbath. and her co-volunteers dis- pense at Share Our Selves (SOS), a Costa Mesa a~ency opened 12 years a~o to serve the poor. While those band-aids are needed, said Forbath, the major surgery would be to change society, offering the kind of support that helps people change their lives. But that takes time. And what do you do when people are hungry, when mothers and their children are sleeping in cars, when young- stere don't have warm clothes to wear on Cold nights? Jean Forbath's answer: You hand out second-day bread and bruised beans, hunt for cheap housing and offer donated clothing free to those who need it, hoping some day to have that time to tackle the bigger problem. Forbath and SOS, it turns out, are not alone in their concern; they are part of a ~rowing phenomenon in Orange County: the small, usually church-originated a~ency trying to patch the welfare fabric that often seems to pull apart under today's economic stress. The a~encies don't necessarily speak with a unified voice, or even share one view of the problem. Some grumble at the govern- ment, protesting that it is "dump- ing'' the welfare mess on unpreo pared local communities; others say it is high time local ~roups took over, easing the government out of welfare. Some think most hard-up folk could solve many of their own problems with a hot shower, some clean clothes and a few well- presented job applications; others see a ~reat mass out there, most of whom are unable to "take charge" like that. Yet, all the agencies are working on the problem in their own ways. And some are trying to pull those sometimes diverse efforts together, through a network formed six months a~o with the acronym I CAN (Interface Community Action Network ). Yvonne WinsWn was there at the beginning of I CAN. She had benton not Wo many months earlier as the first full-time, paid director of Lutheran Social Services' welfare pro,ram. Those had been tou~h months. She started out, Winston admitted, "wet behind the ears." Sometimes, she suspected, she was being conned by people' who would get $25 from her, then another $25 from the next agency down the street. Sometimes she just felt the need of someone to share problems with. The idea of a network appealed to her, she said, because it could offer advice and support while letting the agencies coorindate their efforts. "We feel we need all agencies in- volved, for unity and purpose." Now the agencies that' are in. volved -- at recent count there were 39 -- hold sack lunch meet- ings the first Wednesday of e~ery month. Winston believes the network has lots of potential. One idea is that a~encies might adopt individual special- ties, one working with convicts, for instance, another with battered women. Lutheran Social Services, Win- eton thinks, might specialize in advocacy. No one a~ency can meet all the needs, said Winswn. Even if all the county's agencies work together, they probably can't pick up more than "maybe one-fourth of what was cut back," she said. There is a "wide gap," she said, "between what the government has asked and what we can do." Sometimes, added Winston, she is "annoyed that the goverument didn't ask for our help, annoyed they didn't ~ive us time to prepare." But the churches have a responsibility to try, she said: "We need to try to do more than pay somebody some money and say, 'You do it.'" Mike Elias already has found his specialty -- and it's one of the toughest to solve: housing. His agency, Christian Temporary Housing, provides short-term shelter for as many needy as it can. As often as not a few more individuals wind up sleeping in the parking lot or on the floor, Elias also offers food and clothing to his clients -- but he insists they do more than accept aid: He expects each to start solving his own problems. The first step usually is to look for a job. "Our a~ency stands for people getting out of their mess by working," said Elias. He was distressed recently when he put together a spacial project to help the needy. He even edver~ised. Few Aceepted Offer The offer was that Christian Temporary Housing would provide showers, washer-dryers, food, thrift shop clothes -- plus job leads and telephones to set up appointments. "Very few took advantage of it," said Elias. When people called and found the offer didn't involve cash, they didn't show up, he added. That's an attitude Elias resent He doesn't mind helping -- that's what i~'s doing with his life -- but 'Tm fed up with paying taxes,'* he said, to support those who !'sit around collecting welfare and aid from the churches.' All aid programs, he believes, should aim at getting clients to the point where they're "living independefltly and paying taxes like everybody else**' "That," he said, "is how I measure our success." Like Elias, most agencies identify housing as a major block to solving the county welfare situation. Almost every agency contacted mentioned destitute families living in cars or camping out in Featherly Park. It's a problem exacerbated by the flow of unemployed from other states, those who hear about Orange Coun- ty's Iow unemployment rate and arrive with minimal skills and empty pockets, said Judy Grover, a Crystal Cathedral social worker. "It's back to 'The Grapes of Wrath,' ' she said, frus- tration tinging her voice. "People are literally starving in other parts of the country.'* Few Jobs for Unskilled But when they arrive, there are few jobs for the un- skilled; there is little if any housing for those who can't make a substantial initial payment, and there's a stgnifi- cant wait before they can get on welfare, said Grover, They have an almost impossible time qualifying for* welfare if they're "camping out" and have no mailing address. That is when "they throw themselves on the mercy of us in the churches," said Grover, But, she added, "there really isn't a whole lot of help for people like that." With facilities like Christian Temporary Housing and the Salvation Army center always running on overload, there is no place to send destitute persons. Small agen- cies cannot afford to put clients in motels, said Grover -- especially when, in today's market, "some cheap, sleazy motel costs $185 a week -- for a motel that does- n't even supply toilet paper." Most agencies keep lists of whatever inexpensive housing might be available and share that information within the network. Many calls are directed to Elias, who sometimes bris- tles under the demand to provide impossible service: "One huge church sent 2,000 people to us last year," he said. That church, he added, did not provide food, housing or clothing, just referral to other agencies. Elias knows how he would like the housing problem attacked: Huge Churches and Organs "Instead of building huge churches and buying huge organs, if every church in the community would buy one house for a down-and-out family, then work with that family until it was on its feet, then take on another, that would have a tremendous impact on the whole community. We have hundreds of churches.' Savings and loan associations could do the same thing, he suggested. A little creative thinking along those lines could do a lot to solve the problem, said Elias. In the meantime, Elias is working on a computerized housing list, so that at least the housing that is available will be identified and used to its best advantage. While few agencies are able to conjure up much hous- lng, most do manage to provide some emergency sup- plies. Church congregt ,s these days are being encour- aged to fill grocery ~gs with specified items to feed a family of four for two days. Some agencies hand out commodities like cheeses on an intermittent basis, or- purchase basic foods in bulk, then distribute smaller portions. The Episcopal Service Alliance -- which has become an ecumenical agency, drawing support from Luther- ass, Methodists and Presbyterians, as well as Episcopa- lians -- gives away an estimated $500 worth of food a week at its Santa Aaa location. The alliance also has a special supplementary protein project, being supported through a $2,000 gift from the United Methodist Church. While food sacks are heavy on canned, and dry foods, the protein project allows pur- chase of fresh milk, meat and eggs, explained Dr. Katharine Newman, one of the group*s vice presidents. Donated clothing also is offered at several agency thrift shops, usually at a low price, sometimes free. But another items -- one that visitors almost certainly ask for -- is in frustratingly short supply: money. "We can provide for a crisis," said Crystal Cathedrai*s Bi, it Kari Rene Hall / LO~ Angeles Times Ruth Oliver, a myasthenia gravis sufferer, was turned down for federal aid and needed help. Judy (]rover, "but I don't see where we can sustain peo- ple for the long term." SOS's Jean F'orbath, who counted 862 families seeking food during the month of June, said her agency spends an average of $12,000 a month on direct aid. That's far from enough to meet the need. she said. "Someone who comes in with an eviction notice, who needs $300, if they're lucky we'll have $50 to give them. That's if we're really flush." 'HELP: A Network for the Needy In some cases, agencie~ have used the network to pull in $25 from one, LS0 from another, to make up the necessary rent payment. Compounding their problems, most agencies believe, are the tightening of welfare and social security bene- fits and the limited availability of legal help for thoee who feel they're being unfairly squeezed out of the sys- tem. Traditionally, when a small agency had a client need- Jng legal help, it automatically sent that client to one agency, Lagal Ai~L In many cases, the Legal Aid Society of Orange County has been able to make a difference. Huntington Beach's Ruth Oliver is one who thinks she -- and Legal AM -- may be resolving a particularly frustrating problem. Oliver, who suffers from myasthenia gravis, a pre- gressively debilitating disease that affects muscular control, enlisted Legal Aid in her battle with Social Se- curity. Oliver, 58, applied for "early" Social Security pay. ments a year ago, when her illness made it difficult to walk or even raise her arms. Some days she couldn't get out of bed -- or even open her eyes. But Social Security, citing an ambiguous medical evaluation, turned her down. She could, indeed, go beck to work, their report said. When Oliver was ruled ineligible for Social Security, she also lost her disability MediCal benefits. Won h~k B~nefits With Legal Aid's help, Oliver has now gotten back those disability benefits. And she expects to wir~ the battle with Social Security, too: "I'ii give those turkeys the devil one way or another? she confidently proclaims. The outlook, however, may not be equally bright for Legal Aid, itself, said Robert Cohen, executive director of the Orange County society. Most Legal Aid money comes from the government, he explained, and that income was cut by some 25% this year. More cuts are expected next year. 3'he 17 attor- neys who were employed by Legal Aid a couple of years ego already have been pared to eight. Cohen calls the cuts "devastating and d~astie." The end result, Cohen predicted dourly, will be that *'the court becomes a vehicle for the wealthy and no longer provides justice. It will be just for those who have resources to get more resources." While Legal Aid is contemplating a future with a shrunken budget, the agencies are talking of the need to increase theirs. "We turn almost no one away," said SOS's Forbath. "We give everbody something. But we are not really answering needs. There is just not enongh to go around." It is fitting that churches help provide for the poor. Forbath believes. SOS, she pointed out, began with sponsorship of the Catholic Church. "But :unti! churches regrder their priorities and put service to the poor on the same level as evangelism and buildings," she said, "we're just fooling ourselves that we're ~oin~ to meet the needs" Yet those involved in the ~ency operations said that in spite of the problems, they see a meaningful, renewed role for religion in the current growth of aid programs. '~nis has nothing to do with doctrine, but everything to do with a bos/c tenet of Christianity." said Episcopal Alliance's Newman. And even though the small agencies may not be able to solve the problem, they are having an impact, sug- gested Newman. As they Sow, and as they learn to work together, the agencies may be able to offer more, she said: at least "a little wider bend-aid."