The 90th Texas Legislature convenes January 2027. These are the prison-related issues we are watching, praying over, and calling the Church to engage with.
These are real people. Real lives. Real souls that Jesus died for. The Church must speak.
Extreme heat in Texas prisons is a documented killer. Over $1.5 billion is needed to fully air-condition TDCJ facilities.
Only $118M was allocated in recent sessions. Inmates, officers, and advocates are pushing for full funding in the 90th Legislature.
The Senate Criminal Justice Committee has been assigned to study contraband in prisons — including cell phones and drugs smuggled in.
This is expected to be a major legislative focus in January 2027.
HB 3725 would have limited the use of solitary confinement in Texas prisons. It died in committee.
Advocates continue to push for reform. Prolonged solitary causes documented psychological harm.
SB 2405 passed, expanding educational programming. SB 676 allows good conduct time for participation in religious services.
Education reduces recidivism. More funding and access still needed.
Legislation was proposed to send 15-year-olds to adult TDCJ facilities. This is opposed by child welfare advocates.
Research consistently shows housing youth with adults increases trauma and recidivism.
Some parole changes passed. Significant gaps remain in reentry support — housing, employment, mental health services.
Without proper reentry support, formerly incarcerated people have few pathways to stability.
Texas jails have become de facto mental health providers. In 2026 a federal court ruled the competency-restoration waitlist unconstitutional — people were waiting an average of roughly 200 days in jail for a state hospital bed.
Real reform means treatment before a crisis becomes an arrest, and timely care once someone is in custody.
Housing instability drives the cycle of incarceration. Many people leave prison or jail with nowhere to go, and many in crisis are jailed instead of housed.
Stable housing at reentry is one of the strongest predictors of not returning to prison.
Successful reentry takes more than release — it takes rehabilitation, workforce training, and continuity of care. Evidence-based programs measurably reduce recidivism.
Texas’s roughly 20% three-year reincarceration rate drops most when people leave prepared, with housing, a job, and treatment lined up.
A majority of the justice-involved population lives with substance use disorder. Punishment without treatment fuels the revolving door; recovery support breaks it.
Access to addiction treatment and peer recovery — inside and after release — saves lives and reduces reoffending.
Cover the 90th Legislature in prayer. Ask God to raise up legislators with hearts for justice and mercy behind the walls.
Find your Texas State Representative and Senator at capitol.texas.gov and tell them you care about prison conditions.
Tell your church, your community, your social media. Most people don't know what happens inside TDCJ. You can change that.
You are not alone. Scroll down to Support Advocates & Grassroots Partners for organizations fighting for reform across Texas.
Is your loved one facing medical neglect, abuse, extreme heat, or other suffering inside TDCJ or a county jail? Share your concern — you are heard, and your story matters.
Share a Concern →The families of the incarcerated are also suffering. Reach out to someone you know who has a loved one inside. Show up for them.
Know My Name is not a program. It is a purpose. Every policy, every statistic, every legislative debate affects a person with a name, a story, and inherent dignity.
“Real change begins when we stop seeing labels and start seeing people.”
These issues do not exist in isolation. They intersect. When one part of a person’s life begins to unravel, the effects often reach into every other part. Families are impacted. Communities are impacted. Lives are changed.
This initiative exists because lasting change cannot come from government alone. It cannot come from churches alone. It cannot come from nonprofits alone. It requires all of us.
Every day, ordinary people have opportunities to restore dignity, extend compassion, influence policy, mentor someone who feels forgotten, encourage a family in crisis, or simply remind another human being that they matter.
Imagine
People from every walk of life, moving in different directions — still with the same goal: to be seen… to be heard… to be known… And loved.
Communities where businesses, churches, advocates, public servants, families, and neighbors worked together instead of separately.
Policies shaped not only by statistics, but by the stories of the people living them.
That is the vision behind Know My Name. This purpose belongs to everyone.
For Restaurants & Businesses
Add a compassion item to your menu. Name it anything — “Pay It Forward,” “Know My Name,” “A Meal for a Neighbor.” Let your customers opt in. Let your staff know why it exists. One item on a receipt can remind someone that they are seen.
Signal your interest below — we read every submission and would love to feature partners who are already making a difference.
This Week’s Challenge
Buy someone a meal. Pay for a night somewhere safe. Hand someone a coat. You decide how. Just do it once, intentionally, this week.
Join the Purpose
Tell us about a life that changed yours, a challenge you’ve overcome, or an injustice you’ve witnessed. Stories give a face to the issues.
If you see a gap in your community, tell us. Many of the best solutions begin with someone willing to say, “This isn’t working.”
Good ideas can come from anyone — teacher, first responder, business owner, person in recovery, concerned citizen. Your perspective matters.
Not for recognition — to inspire someone else to take the first step. One story has the power to spark another, and another after that.
Every act of purpose begins with one person deciding that someone else’s story matters. Perhaps the next story is yours.
Share Your Voice ↓PIT stands for Point-in-Time Count — an annual, single-night census of people experiencing homelessness in communities across the United States, conducted every January and reported to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). These counts capture who is sleeping in shelters, transitional housing, and unsheltered locations on one given night. They are the closest thing we have to a true picture of homelessness in a community — and they exist for nearly every zip code in America.
The scripture says, "My name is Legion, for we are many." The PIT count puts a number to that legion — but the number is not the point. The names are.
Enter any zip code or city — anywhere in the world — to find homelessness data for that community.
Your name is not collected or stored. This search opens public data in a new tab.
Texas PIT Count & Housing Inventory Data
The official statewide Point-in-Time count data for Texas — actual numbers, by community, updated annually.
Need shelter tonight?
Find emergency housing and shelter near you — anywhere in the United States.
An article from Patheos that puts into plain words what no count, chart, or policy brief ever can.
“What Jesus said to the homeless man initiated his healing. You can do the same thing. You can ask the name of the person who lives, literally, on your doorstep. You can strike up a conversation, and then a relationship. You might not be a behavioral health specialist or the director of a shelter. But you can call somebody by name and see where it goes from there.”
— Gregory T. Smith, Breathing Space, Patheos
“Too often, we treat people who are homeless like they are less than human. We ignore them. We avoid eye contact. We see their need and pass by without saying a word. Asking someone their name, and then calling them by the name of their choosing, should be the first, and the least, thing you can do. It makes them feel like somebody cares. And it changes your perception of them. It humanizes them. It’s easy to tell the ‘wino’ to get a job. But when you get to know Carlos or Jasmine, Bodhi or Little Bear, their lives take on meaning. When you know their name, you have to engage.”
— Gregory T. Smith, Breathing Space, Patheos
A legion of people from countless encampments cries to you —
“Know me by name!”
Will you find out who they are?
Follow the bills, hearings, and committees directly at the source — and find your own legislators.
Search bills, track status, and read official bill text for every Texas bill.
Open →Upcoming Senate committee hearings, meeting notices, and live video.
Open →See every Texas House committee and who serves on it.
Open →See every Texas Senate committee and its members.
Open →Look up your Texas Senator and Representative by address, and contact them.
Open →Where the state reviews agencies like TDCJ — and where the public can submit comments and input. Speak up.
Open →Harris County’s Local Mental Health Authority. 24/7 psychiatric crisis care, mobile outreach, and programs bridging mental health, homelessness, and the criminal justice system.
Open →Statewide coordination connecting Texans to health, education, and financial stability resources across every county.
Open →Global network fighting for the health, education, and financial well-being of every person in every community — find your local chapter anywhere in the world.
Open →Local United Way serving the Houston metro area with direct community investment, crisis resources, and 211 services for families in need.
Open →Free, confidential service connecting people to local help 24/7 — housing, food, health, crisis support, and community services nationwide.
Open →Texas-based 501(c)3 bringing mobile hot showers and hygiene care directly to those experiencing homelessness. Founded in McKinney, TX in 2017 by Lance Olinski after one moment in a public restroom changed his life. Bringing hope to those who need it most.
“The purest form of love in this world is demonstrated by a person who loves somebody who can give absolutely nothing in return.” — Bill Wilson
Open →Organizations walking alongside returning citizens as they transition from incarceration back into community, faith, and life.
A shower is not a luxury. It is dignity. These organizations are proving that one trailer, one bus, one parking lot can restore a person’s sense of self.
Founded in 2013 by Doniece Sandoval after she heard a woman say, “I can’t get clean because there is nowhere to shower.” Sandoval retrofitted decommissioned San Francisco transit buses into mobile hygiene centers. LavaMae℠ has since shared its open-source Toolkit with communities worldwide, inspiring 100+ programs on every continent.
Visit LavaMae ↗Founded by Lance Olinski in 2017 in McKinney, TX. What started as one silver trailer now runs a weekly schedule in Plano, Denton, and McKinney, giving people experiencing homelessness access to hot showers, clean clothing, and human dignity. Clean underwear was the beginning of it all.
Visit Streetside Showers ↗One of Texas’s most complete mobile hygiene programs. Lighter Loads ATX brings not just showers but commercial-grade washers and dryers in the same trailer — giving someone access to a hot shower and clean, dry clothes in a single stop. One trailer. One visit. Real dignity.
A 36-foot lightweight trailer with four private, climate-controlled shower stalls — including an ADA-accessible stall for individuals with mobility needs. The Wash Foundation is designed to serve people with the highest barriers to dignity, making sure physical ability is never a reason someone goes without.
Visit The Wash Foundation ↗A consistent five-day-a-week mobile presence in Houston. Moving Waters Houston brings showers, hygiene kits, toiletries, and clothing directly to people where they are — no shelter requirement, no appointment, no barrier. Just care, consistently showing up.
Visit Moving Waters ↗A shower is a gateway. When it arrives alongside a haircut station, a medical van, a mental health counselor, a housing caseworker, and a job counselor — something shifts. A Pop-Up Care Village meets multiple needs at once, in the same lot, on the same day. The shower is the door. Everything else walks through it.
“The shower is not the destination. It is the beginning.”
Know someone doing this in your city? A mobile shower program, a hygiene trailer ministry, a pop-up care event? These stories belong in this conversation. Share a concern or idea →
This is not an opinion. It is decades of data. When people are treated with dignity, given education, vocational training, and real support — they come home and stay home.
Norway treats incarceration as rehabilitation, not punishment. Halden Prison — a maximum-security facility — provides education, vocational training, art, and a music studio. The result: roughly 1 in 5 return. In the United States, that number is nearly 1 in 2 within three years.
World Prison Brief: Norway ↗The Bureau of Justice Statistics tracked people released from prison across 34 states. Within three years, 68% had been rearrested. Within five years, 79%. The system as designed is not reducing crime — it is cycling people through it.
BJS Recidivism Study (PDF) ↗The RAND Corporation found that incarcerated people who participate in educational programs are 43% less likely to be reincarcerated within three years. For every $1 spent on correctional education, approximately $4–5 is saved in future incarceration costs.
RAND Corporation Study ↗Norway did not lower its standards. It raised them — for everyone inside the walls. The result is a system that costs less, produces less crime, and treats human beings as capable of change. Because they are.
Texas does not have to do what Norway does. But Texas can choose what the data has already proven: dignity reduces crime. Education reduces reoffending. Treatment saves money. Rehabilitation works.
Organizations across Texas fighting for mental health, corrections, addiction, and housing reform. Reach out, connect, and join the work.
Texas’s largest grassroots mental health org — education, support, and advocacy.
Visit →Free mental health education, support groups, and advocacy across the Houston area.
Visit →Mental health support for Galveston and Brazoria County families.
Visit →Mental health policy, research, and grants across Texas.
Visit →Data-driven mental health policy solutions for Texas.
Visit →Legal advocacy for Texans with disabilities — won the 2026 competency-waitlist ruling.
Visit →Ending mass incarceration and advancing justice reform (formerly Texas CJC).
Visit →Systemic justice reform through research and policy.
Visit →Civil rights and criminal-justice reform litigation and advocacy.
Visit →Support and advocacy for families of the incarcerated.
Visit →Ending mass incarceration and detention in Texas.
Visit →Faith-based prison ministry and justice reform.
Visit →Building Texas’s recovery community and peer-support workforce.
Visit →Statewide homelessness data, training, and policy advocacy.
Visit →Housing justice and affordable-housing advocacy.
Visit →Statewide criminal justice reform organization working to end mass incarceration and bring fairness to the Texas justice system. Executive Director: Mary Sue Molnar.
Visit →Grassroots advocacy organization founded and led by Tatiana Santollo, working to expose conditions inside Texas prisons and fight for the rights of incarcerated people and their families.
Visit →Peer-led organization providing harm reduction services, reentry peer support, and advocacy for people impacted by incarceration and substance use in Texas.
Visit →Friday nights, 9–11 PM CT on KPFT 90.1 FM. The voice of incarcerated Texans, their families, and the advocates fighting for them. "Your Voice. Your Community. Your Radio."
Visit →These are things we are watching closely and want to bring to your attention. Your voice matters.
A federal judge ordered Texas to admit mentally ill jail detainees to state hospitals within 21 days, after wait times averaged ~202 days — a major due-process ruling on competency restoration.
Someone is one good idea away from a solution to end homelessness, combat hunger, protect the oppressed and fight for injustice.
Will you share your voice?
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