Daniel Walton, Resident

My name is Daniel Walton. I am 21 years old. I live in a small studio apartment on the 11th floor of a 15 story building in Downtown Dallas, TX. I work aprox. 40 hours a week in an office that is located on the 8th floor of the same building.This building is owned by Central Dallas Community Development Corporation, which is the affordable housing arm of CitySquare (formerly Central Dallas Ministries). There are 200 apartment units in this building that I live and work in. 50 of these units are dedicated to formerly chronically homeless, another 50 are dedicated to people that have been on the brink of homelessness. The other 100 units are still considered low income apartments but they are what we call “market rate” apartments.

So, let me be a little more clear cause I know it's a bit confusing. I work for the non-profit called CitySquare (Formerly Central Dallas Ministries) at CityWalk (That's what the building is called). My job title is “Community Life Coordinator." My main responsibilities are to plan and implement events, classes, and activities for the residents in the building. The idea is to provide tools and resources for these folks to use so that they may be able to further their lives. “Get them back on their own two feet” if you will. This blog will serve as a way to inform people that are interested, what goes on in a building that is so unique day in and day out. I will be writing about my journey leading up to this point in my life, things I’m learning along the way. I will also be letting you know what goes on in my life day to day, telling stories, my encounters with these people that God speaks so much about in the Bible. So to start this blog I would like to tell you about the biggest struggle I encounter day to day. My biggest struggle is to identify in my mind the boundary between being a neighbor (i.e. having a personal relationship with a resident) and being someone that works in an office to aid residents (i.e. having a “professional” relationship with a resident) The reoccurring question that I have is “Who is my neighbor?”