New Members, Scary News, Solar Panels

uRth HAUS abides. The turnover from July to August has brought some turnover in membership: two departing, two replacing them. Two of our current members have moved into the rooms that those departing vacated, and the two new members have moved into their old rooms. Got it? Good.
One of our departing members is moving locally; the other will be traveling with a companion in South America. We’ll miss them, certainly, but we uRthlings are happy to see them pursuing their dreams and ambitions. Meanwhile, two new personalities bring some excitement to the place.
There was no difficulty in finding new members. After we posted the vacancies at the beginning of July, applications came in at the rate of one every other day. Then it was a matter of whether the applicants could visit us at dinners or meetings and decide whether living here was right for them, and vice versa, and whether the timing was correct for them to move here from their current housing arrangements.

Scary News
Last week, within a couple of days, the Museum Park Neighborhood Association sent out two alerts regarding incidents in this district. On Thursday morning 1 August, there was an attempted robbery at the Caroline Collective. The target of the robbery had a handgun that morning, having been accosted there previously by the same assailants, and he shot two of them, neither fatally. One of our new members has just moved her office out of the Collective due to its impending closure.
The next morning a fire broke out at a small strip shopping center on Blodgett Street at La Branch. After the HFD extinguished the blaze, MPNA sent out requests for neighbors to help move art objects from the Jatad Gallery. About a dozen locals responded to the call.

Solar Panels
HAUS owner/member Paul Schechter has contracted a firm to install solar panels to heat the water at both HAUS properties and an apartment building that he owns near the University of Houston. We should have more details and photos when the work is completed.