Senior News

Dallas to open new activity facility in Oak Cliff for select crowd

The new center will encourage health and wellness for the over-60 set.

Photo courtesy of WCF

Dallas is partnering with a nonprofit to open a health and wellness center in Oak Cliff, but for a select audience: seniors. Sorry, you peppy people under 60, but you won't be able to get in.

The center will serve adults age 60 and older and will open in fall 2018, at Camp Wisdom Road and US-67, at Red Bird Square.

The $1.4 million facility is a cooperative between the City of Dallas and nonprofit WellMed Charitable Foundation. The announcement of the center was made at a festive event that included a performance, posted on Facebook, by the "Dancing Divas of Dallas."

In a release, Mayor Mike Rawlings calls it a "terrific" public-private partnership opportunity.

"WellMed not only shares their resources in generous charitable work, they also have a clear vision of what they want their contributions to do," Rawlings says. "Their senior center facilities provide innovative, practical resources for persons age 60 and over — geared to not only promote health and wellness, but to provide exercise equipment, fitness classes, health screenings, and referrals to vital social services at no cost."

The new Southwest Dallas center will be built adjacent to a WellMed primary care clinic, also under construction. WellMed doctors, nurses, and staff provide health care services, such as diabetes screenings and flu shots, to center members.

The new senior activity center is the sixth WellMed-branded clinic in DFW and will be the largest. WellMed also operates more than 50 health care facilities in the region under the USMD brand.

Funding comes from the WellMed Charitable Foundation, which is renewing a $150,000 grant to the city to underwrite annual and monthly fees for residents age 60 and older to attend Dallas Park and Recreation centers. Since the first WCF grant was issued in March 2017, more than 2,100 older adults have joined the centers.

Activities will include aerobics, walking clubs, weight training, bridge, dominoes, arts & crafts, book clubs, day trips, fitness and nutrition classes, volunteer opportunities, and more. The Foundation will also introduce programs not found at other centers, such as healthy cooking classes in the demonstration kitchen, Internet safety classes in a computer lab, and caregiver support programs.

The WellMed Charitable Foundation pioneered its the senior center in San Antonio, where it operates three centers — two in conjunction with the City of San Antonio.

The Foundation also operates facilities in Corpus Christi, Austin, two in the Rio Grande Valley, and two in Miami, for a total of nine centers.

According to figures from the US Census Bureau, Americans 60 years and older will nearly double by 2050, to approximately 84 million people.

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Fugitive News

Dallas Police Department arrests 99 fugitives in summer crime program

Dallas Police/Facebook

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The Dallas Police Department has a new round of arrests in Operation Justice Trail, a coordinated effort led by Police Chief Daniel Comeaux to apprehend individuals with violent felony warrants, with 99 fugitives arrested and taken into custody during June.

The program is a partnership between the Dallas Police Department and the United States Marshals Service which began on May 1, with a goal to identify and take into custody violent criminals. During the firest month of May, a nearly-identical haul of 98 violent felons were arrested, and the initiative will continue through the summer.

“Our goal is simple: to make Dallas the safest large city in America,” Chief Comeaux says in a statement. “We know that a small percentage of violent criminals are responsible for a disproportionate amount of crime. By focusing our efforts on these individuals, we are sending a clear message—violence will not be tolerated in our city.”

These 99 fugitives, who collectively have 616 total arrests for crimes such as Assault on a Public Servant, Manufacture/Delivery of a Controlled Substance, Murder, Aggravated Assault with a Deadly Weapon, Sexual Abuse of a Child, Reckless Driving, and Stalking, were taken into custody by the Dallas Police Department Fugitive Unit and U.S. Marshals North Texas Fugitive Task Force between June 1–30.

Of those 99 fugitives, 22 were women and 77 were men. Three had arrests for Illegal Entry into the U.S., and one had an arrest for Alien Inadmissibility - Section 212 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA).

Officials told Fox 4 that officers used "a combination of the city’s camera system and old-fashioned good police work" to make the arrests.

North Texas Crime Stoppers is offering a guaranteed $1,000 reward for tips submitted to the crime stoppers tipline that lead to the arrest of any individual with an existing felony warrant for specific crimes, until August 31.

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