HAAM, y’all!

Beloved Austin nonprofit HAAM fine-tunes mission with new permanent home

Health Alliance for Austin Musicians performing during annual HAAM Benefit Day

HAAM's new South Austin home will be ready for groovin' later this year.

Health Alliance for Austin Musicians/Facebook

A critically important nonprofit that serves as a lifeline for Austin’s working musicians is getting a new home that it aims to establish as a community hub, all while working to drum up support from the local community for the essential services it provides.

HAAM, the Health Alliance for Austin Musicians, is purchasing a 7,134-square-foot office building at 3036 S. First St. that will enable the nonprofit to expand its offerings and programming to area musicians and further establish itself as a vital pillar of the Live Music Capital of the World.

HAAM’s new office, which will be established as the nonprofit’s permanent home, is expected to be fully operational by the third quarter of 2022.

Though the specific purchase price of the South Austin space was not disclosed, HAAM notes that the acquisition was made possible through a legacy gift of nearly $2.7 million from Robin and Bud Shivers to be used toward the purchase of a permanent home for the organization. Businesswoman, local philanthropist, and Austin music lover Robin Shivers founded HAAM in 2005 to address the previously unmet healthcare needs of low-income working Austin musicians.

“To continue our growth and meet the rising need, we need efficient infrastructure to support all 8,000-plus Austin musicians,” says Paul Scott, the new CEO of HAAM. “Providing additional needed support and care for our musicians requires adding additional staff while maximizing the efficiency of our current staff. Our current infrastructure and physical space limits our ability to grow in either capacity.”

Since 2005, HAAM has helped nearly 6,000 members access more than $113 million in healthcare services, ranging from primary and specialty care to dental, vision, hearing, mental health, and other services — all much-needed resources for Austin’s working musicians, particularly as the city becomes increasingly more expensive.

Indeed, HAAM says its success has been driven by increased demand for its services as the city has grown, with the organization seeing a 46 percent rise in membership since 2015. No doubt that the COVID pandemic has added an even more significant burden on Austin’s musicians, further contributing to the importance of access to HAAM’s services.

The expansion in programs will continue to save Austin lives, all while maximizing the community’s healthcare dollars by ensuring low-income working musicians are receiving efficient, cost-effective care, HAAM says.

The new HAAM home will enable the organization to add more program staff, which will in turn allow it to enroll new clients, as well as provide more services, including a musicians’ resource hub to address food insecurities, a hearing screening room, access to computers and Wi-Fi, and space for musician education and wellness training.

“This building will be so much more than just an office,” Scott says. “Our new home will be a welcoming and collaborative environment for clients to receive HAAM’s care and services, featuring a musicians’ resource lounge and dedicated stage for intimate performances by Austin’s amazing musicians.”

The announcement about the nonprofit’s new home comes as the organization embarks on the public-facing and final portion of its $6 million capital campaign.

Aside from the Shivers’ $2.7 million legacy gift for the headquarters space, the St. David’s Foundation also approved funding $1.25 million as a capital gift as well as a challenge grant. Additionally, the Topher Family Foundation and Cayetano Development have also donated $100,000 toward HAAM’s capital campaign.

As such, $4.4 million of HAAM’s $6 million capital campaign goal has already been raised.

“The capital campaign will help support the purchase and renovation of the new home for HAAM,” says Matt Long, HAAM board member and capital campaign committee member. “Seventy-five percent of our $6 million campaign has already been either donated or pledged, and now we publicly turn to our friends and partners in the community to help us bridge the gap. The Central Texas community has always been generous to its musicians, and we hope this is no exception.”

To learn more about HAAM and its services and to make a donation to the nonprofit, visit myhaam.org.

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RIP Cecile

Women's rights advocate and Waco native Cecile Richards dies at 67

Courtesy photo

Cecile Richards

Cecile Richards, a national leader for abortion access and women’s rights who led Planned Parenthood for 12 tumultuous years, has died. She was 67.

Richards died Monday at home in New York “surrounded by family and her ever-loyal dog, Ollie,” her family said in a statement.
“Our hearts are broken today but no words can do justice to the joy she brought to our lives,” the family said.

Richards, the daughter of the late Texas Gov. Ann Richards, was diagnosed with glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer, in 2023, five years after she left Planned Parenthood.

Though Planned Parenthood also provides birth control, cancer screenings, and testing for sexually transmitted diseases at clinics nationwide, its status as the nation’s leading abortion provider has long made it a target of social conservatives. Under Richards' leadership, the organization gained in membership, donor support, and political clout, and she played a prominent role in pushing back against critics.

In 2015, she spent hours answering hostile questions from Republican U.S. House members who later created an investigative panel to probe Planned Parenthood’s abortion and fetal-tissue policies. In 2021, she warned that the U.S. Supreme Court’s inaction on Texas’ restrictive abortion law could signal the end of judicial checks and balances on the issue. And after the court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, she continued to speak out.

“One day, our children and grandchildren may ask us, ‘When it was all on the line, what did you do?’” she said at the Democratic National Convention in August. “The only acceptable answer is, ‘Everything we could.’”

Born on July 15, 1957, in Waco, Texas, Richards earned a bachelor of arts degree in history from Brown University, where she unfurled a banner from a second floor window during her 1980 graduation ceremony to protest the school's investments in South Africa.

“One of the more popular buttons of the day was ‘Question Authority,’ and I feel like we did that every single day, and it absolutely set me on my path,” she said in a 2017 address to graduates. “Brown instilled in me the belief that any one of us can change the world and that, in fact, it's sort of what is expected of us.”

After college, she worked as an organizer for low-wage workers in several states before returning to Texas to help with her mother's 1990 gubernatorial campaign. In 2004, she was a founder of America Votes, and before joining Planned Parenthood, served as deputy chief of staff for House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi.

“It was my privilege to work directly with Cecile for many years and to I have a front-row seat to her sharp intellect, strategic thinking and relentless effectiveness," Pelosi said in a statement Monday. “As she ascended to other leadership roles, we never stopped working together to defend the rights of women and working families.”

Outgoing President Joe Biden, who awarded Richards the Presidential Medal of Freedom in November, on Monday called her a “leader of utmost character.”

“Cecile fearlessly led us forward to be the America we say we are,” he said in a statement issued about an hour before Donald Trump was sworn in as president. “Carrying her mom’s torch for justice, she championed some of our Nation’s most important civil rights causes. She fought for the dignity of workers, defended and advanced women’s reproductive rights and equality, and mobilized our fellow Americans to exercise their power to vote.”

After leaving Planned Parenthood, Richards served as co-chair of American Bridge, which supports liberal causes and conducts opposition research on Republicans. Last fall, she launched a project that used social media to emphasize personal stories about the impact of abortion bans and restrictions.

Alexis McGill Johnson, current president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, called Richards an “indomitable force.”
“As we continue to navigate uncharted territory, we will be able to meet the challenges we face in large part because of the movement Cecile built over decades,” she said. “I know, without a doubt, that Cecile would tell us the best way to honor her memory is to suit up — preferably in pink — link arms, and fight like hell for Planned Parenthood patients across the country.”
Richards is survived by her husband, two daughters, a son and one grandson.

In her Democratic convention speech, Richards described the joy of becoming a grandmother in 2023 and called Kamala Harris' presidential campaign a “celebration of women.”

“As my mother, Gov. Ann Richards, would say, ‘I hear America singing,'" she said. “When women are free to make their own decisions about their lives and to follow our dreams, we are unstoppable.”

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