Board of Directors
Our Board of Directors is composed of individuals from the local community who are dedicated to providing the best services to those in need. Our board members include Ben Neese (Chairperson), Hilda Trevino (Vice-Chair), Graciela Reyes (Secretary and Treasurer), Emilio Crixell Jr. (Board Member), Leonel Alejandro (Board Member), Gail Hanson (Board Member), David Willis (Board Member), and Victor Maldonado (Board Member and Executive Director).
Trustworthy Organization Providing Shelter for the Less Fortunate
Our Mission
At OZANAM Center, our mission is to provide temporary shelter and housing to individuals and families who are left on the street, regardless of sex, color, creed, and national origin. We offer referrals to social services agencies, encourage humanitarianism, and facilitate the involvement of community volunteers in our needs. We also provide information to the public about homelessness in the local area.
History
The Ozanam Center was originally established by the Diocese of Brownsville to house Central American political refugees. The Center was first named Casa Oscar Romero in honor of the martyred Archbishop of San Salvador, El Salvador. As the conflict in that troubled region began to subside, so did the number of refugees.
In 1995, the shelter gained its independent status as a nonprofit organization and was named The Bishop E. San Pedro Ozanam Center and expanded to serve anyone who needs temporary shelter. We now serve mainly Cameron County, but many of our guests also come from Willacy, Hidalgo Counties, and other parts of the U.S. and world.
Program Description
The Shelter Homeless Services Program at OZANAM Center includes a short-term (30-day) Emergency Shelter, three hot meals, transportation vouchers, and Homeless Prevention and Rapid Re-Housing services. We also provide emergency shelter during the hurricane and cold weather season. Eligibility requirements are the same as other agencies that handled displaced communities, with the basic need being a clean, safe place to stay, hot meals, and the goal of obtaining permanent housing. Most individuals stay for an overnight stay to thirty days, with extensions given based on the individual’s or family’s circumstances.
>Our board members include Ben Neese (Chairperson)
Services for former Brownsville municipal judge Ben Neece scheduled
By
Staff Report -
December 20, 2023
Only have a minute? Listen instead
Been Neece is seen in this May 2021 file photo. (Denise Cathey | The Brownsville Herald)
Visitation for Ben Neece, who died on Dec. 12, will be held on Dec. 22 from 3 to 9 p.m., with a brief prayer and sermon at 7 p.m., at Market Square, 625 E. 12th St., Brownsville.
Funeral services will be held on Dec. 23 at 11:30 a.m. at Market Square, followed by burial at 1 p.m. at Buena Vista Cemetery, 5 McDavitt Rd., Brownsville. A reception will take place at 8 p.m. at Market Square. Food will be provided, though attendees are also welcome to bring food and beverages.
The family asks that in lieu of flowers donations, be made to the Brownsville Historical Association, the Ozanam Center, the Brownsville Society for the Performing Arts, the Good Neighbor Settlement House, the ROCA (Revival of Cultural Arts) and/or the South Texas Afghanistan Iraq Veterans Association.
Anyone wishing to share photos, videos or stories of Ben may send them to benjamin.adam.neece@gmail.com.
https://ozanambrownsvillecenter.org/about-us/#Board-of-Directors
https://myrgv.com/local-news/2023/12/20/services-for-former-brownsville-municipal-judge-ben-neece-scheduled/
8) VICTOR MALDONADO…………………………………………………………….
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/742740560/202223199349331792/full
> https://www.insider.com/7-dead-texas-driver-crash-group-migrant-shelter-migrant-crisis-2023-5
A man killed 7 people in Texas after he drove his car into a group waiting near a migrant shelter close to the Mexican border
Emergency personnel take away a damaged vehicle after a fatal collision in Brownsville, Texas, on Sunday, May 7, 2023. Several migrants were killed after they were struck by a vehicle while waiting at a bus stop near Ozanam Center, a migrant and homeless shelter.
The Associated Press
7 people were killed and 6 more were injured after a car crashed into pedestrians outside a migrant shelter in Texas.
Police have one male suspect in custody and are investigating if it was intentional.
The victims were mostly men from Venezuela, according to the shelter's director.
Seven people died and six more were injured on Sunday after a man drove his car into a group of pedestrians standing near a shelter for migrants and homeless people in Brownsville, Texas, a community on the Mexican border.
According to ABC News, police have a male suspect in custody in connection to the crash who is being tested for alcohol and drug use. Martin Sandoval, a Brownsville Police Department investigator, told the local ABC affiliate that they are investigating whether the crash was intentional.
Victor Maldonado, shelter director for the Bishop Enrique San Pedro Ozanam Center where the crash happened, told The Associated Press that he watched security camera video of the crash. He said it shows a bus stop near the shelter that is not marked and has no bench, so the victims were sitting along the curb.
The Ozanam Center is the only overnight shelter in Brownsville and Maldonado said in the past few months they have been receiving about 250 to 380 migrants per day.Most of the victims in the crash were Venezuelan men, according to Maldonado.
Asylum seekers and other migrants from South America have flooded the southern border in recent months and years as they flee gang violence and other threats to their lives in their home countries.
US Customs and Border Protection reported that in March, the number of "unique individuals" encountered at the border was more than 120,000, up from about 100,000 people in February. In April, US Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz said CBP apprehended more than 22,000 people in one 72-hour period.
The influx comes as the federal government is set to adopt a new regulation on May 11 that will deny asylum to migrants who pass through another country on their way to the United States without seeking protection elsewhere first, or who use illegal paths to enter the United States.
The migrant crisis is a highly-politicized problem in the United States. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has made a spectacle of busing migrants from Texas to northern cities like Chicago and New York, Insider previously reported.
The Brownsville Police Department did not immediately return Insider's request for comment on Sunday, but the police spokesperson said more information about the incident would be posted soon to the police department's Facebook page.
> https://spotlight.nnirr.org/map/
Mapping Human Rights
NNIRR’s report, Human Rights on the Line, provides an overview of the dismal state of human rights on the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. This interactive map acts as a tool to display these human rights violations visually and show the most dangerous areas along the border.
The Report
Spotlight on the Borderlands:
How Militarization and Border Control Impact Migrants and Border Residents on the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands
Overview by Alma Maquitico
NNIRR’s report, Human Rights on the Line, provides an overview of the dismal state of human rights on the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. NNIRR’s report highlights the experiences of frontline leaders and organizers with direct experience, both in theory and practice, of migrant human rights. Their contributions uncover the direct relationship between border militarization and its explicit racially discriminatory impact on the lives of black, indigenous, and other racialized communities migrating or residing in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands.
We hope this report enhances an understanding of the intersectional and interwoven consequences of border control and how this approach provokes overlapping violence and vulnerabilities in people of color in the borderlands. While U.S. immigration agencies and institutions profess a color-blind approach, black and brown communities bear the burden of militarization and immigration enforcement.
Read the full Overview and Report:
About Us
We promote a just immigration and refugee policy in the U.S and defend and expand the rights of all immigrants and refugees.
Dream. Rise. Organize.
The National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (NNIRR) works to defend and expand the rights of all immigrants and refugees, regardless of immigration status. Since its founding in 1986, the organization has drawn membership from diverse immigrant communities, and actively builds alliances with social and economic justice partners around the country. As part of a global movement for social and economic justice, NNIRR is committed to human rights as essential to securing healthy, safe and peaceful lives for all.
> Graciela Reyes (Secretary and Treasurer),
Treasurer is running a Bingo op?
Graciela Reyes
Active Brownsville, TX — Treasurer for Bingo Gardens, Inc.