Month: October 2015

Categories
News News Blog

Pinch Plan Moves Forward

CREDIT: Toby Sells

Toby Sells

City officials and area stakeholders say they are ready to move forward with the redevelopment of The Pinch District.

Memphis City council member Berlin Boyd represents the area and he assembled government and business leaders Thursday morning at Memphis City Hall to discuss what’s next in Pinch planning. That next step in planning is, simply, that they have selected a plan.

Boyd said city leaders have selected a plan from local architecture firm Looney Ricks Kiss [LRK]. The city had once hired LRK as a consultant on Pinch planning but their plan was ultimately shelved. Boyd said the city will move forward with that plan because is is the most recent and that “it fits the model of what everyone wants.”

Details of that plan were not immediately available. But a copy of the LRK plan for the Pinch has been requested.

Boyd was quick to point out a caveat about the LRK plan : “We’re not saying this is the plan set in stone.”

“This is the most current plan and it will actually encompass almost everything that’s existing and help to grow those existing components,” Boyd said.

With that in mind, Boyd said he will soon schedule a series of meetings with stakeholders and land owners in The Pinch. While he said city leaders have notions of how to maximize the land in the area, he wants to hear from citizens.

Probably the loudest voices in the future of The Pinch development will be St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and (to a lesser degree) Bass Pro Shops at the Pyramid.

Both organizations are major anchors in The Pinch area. City chief administrative officer Jack Sammons said the city will move forward with deference to those “bookends” in The Pinch, “but primarily St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.”

The city wants to fast track Pinch development, Sammons said, and he wants city government officials to help developers, instead of standing in their way. However, the city won’t act as a developer (or set up a “City of Memphis real estate department” as Sammons said) but “we’re there to be a partner with developers, and not be an obstacle.”

“Our task is really to create this blank canvas into something that can make us proud for generations to come,” Sammons said.

Downtown Memphis Commission [DMC] president Paul Morris urged the group to make Pinch plans crystal clear both to the group working on the plan and to the public.

He recommended that city leaders publicly announce that either the city will acquire property in The Pinch (as has been the word on the street for a long time) or that it will use zoning laws and financial incentives from the DMC to aid private-sector development.

“But at this point – to me, at least – it’s ambiguous what the (Pinch plan) purpose is,” Morris said.

Boyd said his intention Thursday was clear.

“We dusted a plan off and we have an idea and now we have to get (city officials), St. Jude, and Bass Pro at the table to say, ‘Hey this is what we see and this is what we want,’” Boyd said. “Then we can move forward from that standpoint as to what the city’s position will be on narrowing down a real, defined purpose.”

Boyd noted that at least now there is movement on The Pinch District and that now everyone is included in the planning process.

“The Pinch is 30 years of missed opportunity, perhaps,” Sammons said. “Sometimes a problem is a new opportunity. The fact that we didn’t do a Sidney Shlenker amusement ride in between St. Jude and the Pyramid, maybe that’s created opportunities today to do something really cool.”

Categories
Sports Tiger Blue

AAC Picks (Week 5)

LAST WEEK: 4-2
SEASON: 28-10

THURSDAY
Miami (FL) at Cincinnati

FRIDAY
Memphis at USF
Temple at Charlotte
UConn at BYU

SATURDAY
Air Force at Navy
UCF at Tulane
East Carolina at SMU
Houston at Tulsa

Categories
News News Feature

Wandering Through New Orleans

CREDIT: Lesley Young

Parnassus: home to the Muses, sacred to Dionysus and Apollo, and generally a center of creative activity. Also known as New Orleans. Creativity is part of the air you breathe in this mythological city. The street names, the mispronunciation of street names — ride the streetcar just to listen to the conductor. Locals dedicate entire rooms to costumes in this City of Festivals. Wandering is the best way to see it. That’s when you run into the milliner or the sno-ball stand that uses Louisiana cane sugar. Wander on your bike. Just recognize that the city was built on a swamp, so there are lots and lots and lots of potholes. And don’t be alarmed by how many people talk to you — it’s a stoop city.

So how does one break it down in a city so filled with … history/bon vivance/inspiration and food? By neighborhood.

Let’s start with the Bywater. There is a strong tinge of mini-Williamsburg to the neighborhood, but this section of the Ninth Ward is mostly residential, populated with Creole cottages and shotguns, with the little coffee shop here and the little junk store there. I’m a big fan of Booty’s Street Food, a virtual global food truck fest for around $10/dish. They have “globally inspired cocktails” and, say it with me, Stumptown coffee. Slick interior with friendly staff, outdoor seating and plenty of bike racks and dog bowls, and arguably the most interesting bathroom in New Orleans — the Bywaterloo, a set of washroom galleries curated by the owner, a travel journalist. Other places to check out include Bon Castor, with locally handmade goods; Maurepas, doing the local purveyor and hand-crafted cocktail thing, and well; Satsuma, the coffee shop and juice place; and two of my all-time favorite places in New Orleans — Elizabeth’s and Bacchanal Wine. Elizabeth’s I can’t even begin to suggest something. They take all the usual suspects — po’boys, eggs Florentine, shrimp and grits — mix them up, throw in some surprises, and everything is done to exact measure. I have a romance with Bacchanal Wine. Think wine shop with an elaborate backyard of all the leafy trimmings, lit by a lone strand or two of Christmas lights, well-curated live music on a rickety stage, and affordable and divine small plates that change frequently.

Lesley Young

New Orleans is the City of Festivals.

Next, the Faubourg Marigny (pronounced FO-burg MAR-i-nee. “Faubourg” means “suburb.”) It sits next door to the Bywater and is also mostly residential with some great neighborhood establishments. Mimi’s in the Marigny was voted Best Bar in New Orleans by the Gambit. I’m pretty sure that says a lot. A two-story corner bar, Mimi’s has the hipsters and millennials and long-time locals and seersuckers and tattooed faces and artists, walls of windows, a pool table and dart board, and food. The best tapas this side of the Atlantic, in fact. Just close your eyes and point to something on the menu, and you’ll be grand. The Orange Couch is a great little coffee shop with mochi Japanese ice cream, and at one point, their Wi-Fi password was “rickjames.”

Cross Elysian Fields to the Marigny Triangle, the real entertainment district. Many say Frenchmen Street has jumped the shark. I do remember the days when reservations were not a must to get into Three Muses, my personal favorite. I had a moment there. Wandering at high tea, I heard a blind Frenchman wafting accordion music out of this little gem, where I later heard Walloonian Helen Gillet chirping French chansons and playing the cello with a loop. I cried. But it might have been the Warm Chocolate Cream Cheese Brownie. Frenchmen is still quite possibly the best place to hear the best live jazz music in the world. Wander and pop in and out of all the venues. It’s usually only a one-drink minimum. Eat at Adolfo’s, a pocket-sized place with big taste offering Italian Cajun-Creole. You’ll have to wait, but it won’t matter, because you just head downstairs to the equally small Apple Barrel for another hit of phenomenal music.

Well, folks, we’re out of space, so we’ll make our way further upriver another time. In the meantime, I’ll take one for the team and do some more research for you.

Also. Take cash. Some places require it. The musicians live off of it. And it might be someone’s birthday.

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

The Best Memphis

Ah, the annual Best of Memphis issue. It’s been going on for 20 years or so, and during that time our little reader participation experiment has grown into our largest issue and a major event on the fall social calendar.

We’re proud of Best of Memphis, and we do our best to ensure that it accurately reflects the opinions of our readers. That means that you can only vote once and that you have to fill out a large portion of the ballot for it to count. That means you can’t have your employees and family vote every hour or buy a place on the ballot. It’s not fool-proof, but it’s certainly more reflective of public opinion than, say, a North Korean presidential election. So there’s that.

Speaking of “best,” I recently read an article called “Five Ways to Grow Your Best Self,” and it occurred to me that the lessons it contained would work for a city as well as they would for an individual. For instance, No. 1 was, “Make Time for Reflection.” Surely, it would benefit all our leaders — and our mayoral candidates — to step back from the distractions of public discourse and campaign sound bites now and then and reflect on what’s truly important for the city’s future. Not just what will garner more votes.

No. 2 was “Determine Values.” What are Memphis’ core values? How do we best enhance and live (and govern) in alignment with them? Here’s a thought: We’re a friendly city, famous for our iconoclasts, musicians, artists, entrepreneurs, and weirdos. Let’s recognize that and celebrate it. Funky is a value, dammit.

“Assess Strengths and Weaknesses:” It’s clear we need to work on our flawed public education system and the poverty and crime that rides in tandem with an undereducated populace. It’s also clear that we have many strengths: our location, our climate, and what may become the most important asset of all in the coming decades — abundant water resources. If we market these strengths properly, more opportunities will arise and poverty and crime will decrease.

The fourth way to grow our best self is to “Examine Habits.” We need to ask ourselves, “What habits help us grow?” and “What habits keep us stuck and floundering?” Our worst habit, in my opinion, is our perpetuation of the “circular firing squad.” We keep shooting at each other over racial issues and the urban/suburban divide, failing to realize we’re all on the same cruise ship, and if it sinks, we all go down, regardless of zip code or skin color.

And finally, oddly enough, the article suggests that we “Take a Poll” — ask those who care about us to give us feedback, to tell us where we’re screwing up and what we’re doing right. That doesn’t mean “listen to the haters.” It means we need to try to see ourselves as others who have our interests at heart see us.

Okay, end of inspirational message. Now, go out and vote in the real city election, if you haven’t already. Election Day is only a week away.

Oh, and Kumbaya, y’all.

Categories
Film Features Film/TV

Film Review: Mississippi Grind

When you’re a critic, you have to see a lot of movies you wouldn’t normally watch. One of the great pleasures is discovering that a movie is good, even though the premise or subject matter turns you off. This is the case with Mississippi Grind, a good movie which features two things I normally avoid: gambling and Ryan Reynolds.

I’m way too poor and nervous to enjoy gambling. I just don’t see the attraction, and my admittedly few trips to casinos have been exercises in boredom and misery. But crappy drinks and crappier music are nothing compared to the misery a raging gambling addiction has inflicted on Gerry (Ben Mendelsohn). He’s a divorced 44-year-old who literally can’t keep the lights on because every dollar he makes as a (clearly crappy) real estate agent gets plowed back into casinos, backroom poker games, the ponies, or whatever. If you can bet on it, he’s there.

Ben Mendelsohn and Ryan Reynolds in Mississippi Grind

Gerry is grinding away at a poker table in darkest Iowa when in walks Curtis (Ryan Reynolds). At first, Curtis appears to be everything Gerry wants to be: a fully professional gambler who drinks Woodford Reserve whiskey because he knows when to walk away from a table. He’s good-looking, free, and easy, where Gerry is a total schlubby mess, weighed down by debts to everyone. While Curtis is there, Gerry cleans up in the poker game, and afterwards, the two bond over cheap liquor and darts. Curtis is trying to figure out a way to get to New Orleans to play at a secret, high-rolling poker game with a $25,000 buy-in. After a typically fun night on the town in which he gets stabbed, Gerry decides that the way out of his snowballing problems is to go with Curtis to New Orleans, hitting every dice table and poker shack along the way to raise the money for the climactic poker game that will solve all of their problems.

Gerry is a walking, hamburger-eating gambler’s fallacy, and as he drives his sad Subaru through Memphis, Little Rock, and rural Mississippi, he slowly discovers that, despite his classy, popped-collar blazers, Curtis is not much better. For much of its running time, Mississippi Grind vacillates between hope for redemption and despair at the reality of losing hands and elusive sure things.

It’s Mendelsohn’s sad puppy eyes that keep the film on track. No matter how many times he screws up and self-sabotages, he remains sympathetic. Surprisingly, Reynolds is just as good. Sure, he’s still a variation on the cool-bro persona that I and everyone who has ever seen Green Lantern find so grating, but slowly poking holes in his facade may be the masterstroke of directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck.

Boden and Fleck, who collaborated on the 2006 addiction drama Half Nelson, manage to wring genuine tension out of the poker scenes, the best one of which is set in Memphis. The film has several Memphis connections, including production by Sycamore Pictures and some incidental score work by Scott Bomar. It’s a surprising film that wrests unexpected pleasures out of some extremely depressing situations, but it’s still not going to convince me to make a return visit to a casino any time soon.

Categories
We Recommend We Recommend

Oktoberfest at Station 3: The Memphis Firehaus

If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.

That’s the theory behind combining High Cotton Brewing Co.’s second annual Oktoberfest with opening weekend of Station 3: The Memphis Firehaus beer garden on Saturday, October 3rd.

“We decided that it’d be a good idea for us to do the event together rather than compete against each other since we’re going out for the same crowd,” says Benjamin Orgel, one of the partners organizing the fall pop-up beer garden at the long-vacant firehouse at Third and MLK Avenue.

Station 3

This is opening weekend for Station 3: The Memphis Firehaus, a follow-up to last spring’s highly successful beer garden in the Tennessee Brewery. And it’s also the weekend High Cotton Brewing Co. was planning to hold its Oktoberfest. Last year, the day-long, all-you-can-drink beer fest was held at the brewery in the Edge District. But this year, it will run from noon to 6 p.m. at the old firehouse. They’re debuting their German Fall Lager at the event, and High Cotton co-owner Ryan Staggs said they’ll have a couple of other German-style beers, as well as their mainstays, ESB and Scottish Ale.

A Bavarian meal from Central BBQ is included in the cost of the ticket — $40 online in advance or $50 on the day of the event.

Unlike last year’s event, there will be no V.I.P. area and no glass mugs. Staggs said they’re going with a plastic mug for safety reasons. “It’s an event-safe vessel. Broken glass is never a good thing for a beer fest,” Staggs says.

After the Oktoberfest event is over on Saturday, the Firehaus will open to the general public for the rest of the evening. Station 3: The Memphis Firehaus officially opens on Thursday, October 1st with multiple taps and food trucks. It will be open every Thursday through Sunday until November 30th.

Categories
Music Music Features

100% Fresh Juice

Juicy J has been on a tear since teaming up with Wiz Khalifa and Taylor Gang, releasing mixtape after mixtape in addition to the 2013 album Stay Trippy.

In the past few years, Juicy J has collaborated with big names like Miley Cyrus, 2 Chainz, and Lil Wayne, coming up with more catchphrases than all of those artists combined in the process. Since reviving his rap career, one of Juicy J’s strengths has been his ability to turn questionable subject matter into humorous material. If Stay Trippy was Juicy J’s coming-out party as a club-anthem rapper, then 100% Juice confirms that the Memphis rapper is still content to rap about drugs, sex, non-stop partying, and not much else. Yes, it’s safe to say that the era of bloody, gruesome, and offensive subject matter found on almost every Three 6 Mafia song featuring Juicy J is over. But that doesn’t mean Juicy J has become any less inappropriate. In the new world of Juicy J, blood and guts have been replaced by strippers and blunts. I dissected his latest mixtape to get a better sense of where the Memphis legend finds himself during his career.

For those unfamiliar with Juicy J, club rap, or most popular music in 2015, it’s important to realize that this is not your mom and dad’s “Rappers Delight” type of material. There are probably 2,000 F-bombs on 100% Juice, not to mention all the other words I can’t repeat here and the drug references Juicy and his guests use over and over and over. While Juicy J has definitely been the most successful Memphis rapper of the last five years (with his only rivals perhaps being Yo Gotti and Don Trip), he was not a part of the latest reincarnation of Three 6 Mafia (Da Mafia 6ix), nor does he play locally very often. But on “Shut Da Fuc Up,” Juicy sounds like he never left home. The beat sounds like a reimagined Project Pat song, particularly from the Ghetty Green- era. There’s also a line in the song where Juicy gives a shout out to “(La) Chat, (Crunchy) Black, (DJ) Paul, and (Project) Pat,” which squashes any ideas that Juicy J forgot where he came from after finding greener pastures. There are even a few Mafia-gang vocals thrown in on the song for good measure.

Perhaps this is the mass appeal of Juicy J’s new brand of mainstream rap. To stay relevant in mainstream hip-hop, and pop music in general, the artist must constantly reinvent himself, and while Juicy J has crossed over as a rap/pop star, he continues to utilize the tools that made Three 6 Mafia one of the biggest underground rap groups of all time. Sure, there was the questionable Miley Cyrus collaboration with last 2013’s “23,” but I can forgive him for that. And it’s not surprising that a mega-star like Cyrus would want to collaborate with someone like Juicy J for the “street cred,” even though I seriously doubt that anyone now considers Miley Cyrus to be “gangster,” “hard,” or anything other than a pop star. Let’s just consider “23” to be the modern version of Mariah Carey and Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s “Fantasy,” only sadly, not nearly as good.

On “Ain’t No Rappers,” Juicy J confirms that he still has gangsters on his payroll, even if he is hanging out with pop stars. “Ain’t No Rappers” sees Juicy J at his lyrical best, specifically the lines “my homeboys ain’t no rappers, they ain’t doin shows, they not in no videos, they too busy moving dope.” This cadence is similar to Juicy J’s flow on “Bandz a Make Her Dance,” making for one of the best songs on the mixtape. Khalifa appears on the song “Scrape,” along with the album’s most used special guest, Project Pat. Khalifa does sound a little bit out of place on this otherwise street-smart mixtape, but maybe that’s just because I will always associate Khalifa with the downright-weak rap hit “Roll Up.” Project Pat comes in on the third verse of “Scrape,” and the song gets its much needed tough-guy edge back.

DJ Scream, responsible for all the interludes on 100% Juice, introduces the most star-studded track, the remix of the song “Film” featuring Boosie Badazz, Future, and G.O.D. Sadly, most of the lyrical content on “Film” is a little bit too explicit for print. Lil Wayne shows up on the next track “Mrs. Mary Mack,” a love song dedicated to marijuana. A song about loving weed on a Juicy J mixtape? Imagine that. Lil Wayne’s verse on “Mrs. Mary Mack” is forgettable until the mega-star gives his condolences to original Three 6 Mafia member Lord Infamous. Lil Wayne shouting out Lord Infamous? We must really be living in Juicy J’s world.

On the song “Real,” Juicy J shows he hasn’t lost his sense of humor. The rapper claims that Obama invites him to his barbecues in Atlanta and later claims that he will throw an alligator in your bed and watch you dance. Pretty awesome stuff. Most of the time, rap albums feature one to three legitimate hits, and mixtapes can feature even less. With 100% Juice, Juicy J offers a plethora of club-ready anthems, proving that the Memphis rapper is still one of the best in the game.

Categories
Editorial Opinion

South City and Foote Homes Get Going on Federal Grant

CREDIT: Toby Sells

South City is on the way.

Thanks to a nearly $30 million start-up grant from the federal government, this newly defined neighborhood with its brand-new name is promised to transform some blighted, low-income parts of downtown Memphis.

Memphis won the grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) this weekend. It was one of five cities to win a total of $150 million from President Barack Obama’s Choice Neighborhoods Initiative. Memphis applied for the same grant four years ago but didn’t win it.

After that loss, the city won a $250,000 planning grant from HUD, and local leaders used that money to create the South City plan. To do that, leaders met with residents and organizations in the area and inventoried community assets and programs.

The plan they came up with focused on three main elements: housing, people, and the neighborhood.

Toby Sells

A sign for South City hangs on the gate of Foote Homes.

The “housing plan” will redevelop Foote Homes, the city’s last public housing project. It will transform the aging and institutional-looking 420-unit set of buildings with a “safe, green, and well-managed” complex of 712 apartments. Residents of the new housing will have a range of incomes. The site itself will have a fitness room, community spaces, pocket parks, and “welcoming green spaces.”

“This grant is the final piece in our city’s process that started many years ago to turn traditional public housing and the warehousing of poor families into livable, vibrant communities,” Mayor A C Wharton said during a news conference Monday.

Wharton said the city has transformed its public housing into a series of mixed-income apartment buildings with five Hope VI grants totaling more than $178 million.

The “people plan” will be the pilot project of Wharton’s Blueprint for Prosperity. It will focus on giving South City residents access to medical care for healthier lifestyles, employment programs, and educational programs for children.

The “neighborhood plan” includes commercial buildings, a grocery store, a farmers market, an early education center, and more. These will be a mix of new construction and renovating existing spaces throughout South City. The plan also calls for upgraded parks, new access to transportation, blight removal, and “evidence-based public safety strategies.”

Wharton promised that building the new South City neighborhood would draw additional public and private investments of $279.6 million. He said similar projects in the past have drawn a total investment of more than $352 million.

South City — the way it’s currently drawn — is a massive chunk of downtown Memphis that swallows existing areas like South Main, Beale, and much of the downtown core. It’s basically everything between Union to E. H. Crump on the north and south, and Walnut to Front from east to west. There’s also a smaller southwestern block bounded by Main, Crump, Kansas, and Georgia.

Monday’s news conference announcing the $30 million award was one part victory lap for politicians, government agents, and business leaders who have worked on the South City project (complete with copious name drops, hand shakes, applause, standing ovations, and high praise all around). It was also one part revival ­— complete with quoted scripture and choruses of “amen” — set to churn the spirit of hope of Foote Home residents and local agency personnel gathered.

Most all of them repeated the mantra that the award was “a long time coming.”

“There’s a part of scripture, I believe, that says ‘without vision, the people perish’,” said Ed Jennings, a HUD regional administrator. “We are not here for you to perish. We’re here for you to be vibrant, for you to be energized. We’re looking for this — in a decade from now — to be able to say ‘I was there then, and look at what South City is now’.”

Categories
News The Fly-By

City Works To Rehab Memphis’ Sewer System

CREDIT: Alakoo | Dreamstime.com

It’s a shitty job, but somebody’s got to do it.

Those somebodies are the workers tasked with repairing the city’s sewer lines through the Sewer Assessment and Rehabilitation Program (SARP10), a 10-year project required by a 2012 consent decree with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC).

“We’re going throughout the city assessing the condition of the existing sewer lines and manholes. And then we come up with a plan for fixing the things that are broken,” said Brad Davis, the technical lead for SARP10 and an engineering manager at Black & Veatch, the contractor partnering with the city on the sewer project.

SARP10 launched in September 2014, and they’ve already wrapped up work in some of the older parts of town — areas of Midtown, downtown, and Hickory Hill. The project is moving to Frayser and Northaven this month.

Alakoo | Dreamstime.com

Back in 2010, TDEC and the EPA were in negotiations with Memphis about sewer repair when the Tennessee Clean Water Network sent a notice of intent to sue the city. That resulted in the 2012 consent decree that requires the sewer assessment.

“There was a very high rate of sanitary sewer overflows, which is when raw sewage is released into the environment. That includes overflows to streets, yards, streams, and basement back ups,” said Stephanie Durman, general counsel for the Tennessee Clean Water Network, as to why the organization threatened to sue.

Now the city and Black & Veach have nine years left to complete the assessment, which will cost an estimated $250 million.

“This will minimize breaking pipes,” said Bobby Allen, administrator of environmental construction with the city’s Public Works department. “If we did not fix them, the pipes could collapse, and you could have the ground eroding out from underneath the street. You could also have sewage coming out of a manhole.”

Davis says the basic premise for the city’s sewer system dates back to the late 1870s, following the Yellow Fever epidemic that killed 5,000 Memphians. That’s when George Waring, Jr., a drainage engineer for New York’s Central Park, developed a state-of-the-art (at the time, anyway) system that separated the sanitary system from the storm water.

Much of that original system was made from wooden pipes, but Allen says most of those have been replaced over the years. So far, they’ve only uncovered one wooden pipe during the assessment.

As the project moves to various neighborhoods, Allen said the city will dispatch a “green team” of young adult volunteers to canvass the area and alert residents that workers will be doing smoke tests.

“The contractor sets up equipment on two manholes in the middle of the street, and they blow smoke through a segment of pipe,” said Davis. “If the pipe is completely tight, there’s no smoke that comes out of the line. If there are defects in the pipe or there are cracks in the joints, the smoke will find its way out of the pipe, and you’ll see it coming up at the surface.”

Residents may also see that smoke coming into their homes. Davis said if there’s a defect in a home’s plumbing, the smoke may come inside the house. But Allen says residents shouldn’t be alarmed.

“The smoke is not harmful. It doesn’t stain or smell,” Allen said. “You can open a window and not have any residual effects.”

When the workers do find those defects, Davis said homeowners are alerted so they can make repairs if they wish to. The city will only repair defects in the public system, he said. Much of that repair work will be in the street, but Allen said, in some cases, the city might have to dig up a few yards.

“The city has easements where the pipes run through yards between houses,” Allen said. “It’s possible that we will have to do some work in people’s yards.”

Categories
News The Fly-By

Organization Trains Rescue Animals for Veterans with PTSD

If Memphis veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or a traumatic brain injury (TBI) want to receive a service dog, the process can be stressful and costly. And until recently, the groups that paired veterans with service dogs were located far away.

But a new local organization, The Paul Oliver Foundation, is changing that.

Oliver, a Marine who suffered from PTSD and TBI, loved animals. But in December 2013, he accidentally overdosed on medicines he took to treat his conditions.

Marine Paul Oliver died of an accidental overdose.

The Paul Oliver Foundation co-founder Amanda Butler said she and co-founder Kimm Harris heard about Oliver after his death and wanted to honor his memory.

“He was really trying to get better,” Butler said. “He wanted to help veterans that were suffering the way that he was.”

At first, they considered holding a fundraiser and donating the proceeds to a local charity, but then they found a gap in assistance for veterans — service dogs.

“I truly believe he was alive longer because of his dog, Scout. He wasn’t an actual service dog, but he did so much good for Paul,” Butler said.

Butler and Harris researched service dogs and what it would take to start an organization. Now, the Paul Oliver Foundation is trying to find trainers willing to donate their time for the all-volunteer organization dedicated to providing service dogs to veterans suffering with PTSD and/or TBI. The foundation will deal entirely in rescue animals, pulling them from shelters and placing them into training for their new human companion.

“We felt a real calling to provide those service dogs to people in this area,” Butler said. “I think the closest [other organization that provides service dogs] is in Mississippi, which is still pretty far away.”

Without any assistance, a service dog can cost up to $22,000, and insurance often doesn’t cover the cost of service dogs, despite their proven effectiveness in lowering anxiety, blood pressure, feelings of paranoia, and the indirect benefit that comes with owning a dog. The Veterans Administration (VA) is looking further into service dogs as a viable treatment. Currently, the VA is collecting subjects for a study to research the effects of a service dog in the treatment of PTSD.

In Memphis and Shelby County, there are currently around 59,000 veterans, and more are coming back from deployments. According to the VA, between 11 and 20 percent of veterans from the post-September 11th war era are diagnosed with PTSD. For the Gulf War in the 1990s, 12 percent suffer from PTSD. Vietnam War veterans have the highest percentage, estimated at around 30 percent, though only 15 percent are actually diagnosed.

The Paul Oliver Foundation plans to bring the veterans in during the dog-training process and start the bond early between recipient and dog. This also helps train the dog to specifically address certain issues, like security sweeps of the house before the owner enters, fetching medicine, or reacting to a panic attack.

“Paul was very involved in helping his fellow Marines,” Butler said. “He had a real heart for helping the people who were in the same position he was. We really felt like this was the best way to honor him, [taking] what he really had a heart for and help the people who are in this area.”