Tonight's the Night!

Housing, the place to begin

My friend Terry, the entrepreneur

After weeks of above average temperatures in Dallas, the cold snap whipped us hard last Tuesday night.  I mean, from over 70 to below 40, that's a real snap!

Upon arriving at my office Wednesday morning, I found this note taped to my door.

Terry and I have been friends for a few years.  We met on the street when he approached me offering to do a couple of card tricks.  I obliged with a $5 tip.  He wowed me and others who gathered with his 1/2 magic, 1/2 stand up routine.

He's never been much of a beggar or panhandler with me.  Too proud and independent.  Only when really pressed to the edges does he ask for help of any kind.  Last Tuesday evening at the end of the day, he stopped to see me to ask for special assistance as the note reflects.

I was busy when he came in, and he was gone when I got free.

This note shook me a bit, as I thought through what the night must have been like for him outside.  I had seen him the day before, and finally convinced him to make an appointment to see our staff who could really help him head in a new direction.  We talked several times that day, actually to the point of distraction.

As I worried about him on Wednesday morning, he showed up for a cup of coffee!  It was a relief to see him.

I asked him if he had made the arrangement with his friend to stay in out of the weather.  He told me that he had solved the problem himself.  He then went on to tell me how he had found shelter back of a restaurant dumpster.  He went into great detail about how he used scrap lumber and tin siding to construct a warm little home that blocked the wind that forced him to bed down around 9 p.m.

"That little house made me happy," he told me.  "It was just too cold to stay up, so I went to bed when I finished building it.  I got a good night's sleep, Larry!" he exclaimed.

When I commented about my amazement at his creativity and toughness, he simply replied, "Well, Larry, you know me; I'm an entrepreneur at heart."   

Well, Terry, that's one way to look at it for sure.

Just one snapshot from a guy I count as a friend. . .and, we're working on finding real housing for him. 

Press Release: Haskell Encampment to be closed, Tuesday, October 25

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Cindy J. Crain

President and CEO, MDHA

817-991-9127, Cindy.Crain@mdhadallas.org 

Housing and Shelter Targets Exceeded as Haskell Encampment Closes;

Street Outreach and Case Management Continues

Haskell Encampment, Dallas, Texas – Today , October 24, 2016, the Metro Dallas Homeless Alliance (MDHA) and the Street Outreach Initiative, closes out an intensive week of case management and engagement, reviewing options with the remaining thirty-seven individuals, living at the Haskell Encampment, who had not moved yet. The encampment area located between S. Hill and Haskell Avenues under I-30 will be formally closed beginning at 9:00 a.m. tomorrow, October 25.

                                                                    

The site was slated for closure after a joint meeting with City Officials on September 29, 2016, when MDHA and collaborative partners agreed that the Street Outreach Initiative could reasonably house half of the then population of eighty-two encampment residents. The closure guidelines were developed by MDHA in consultation with the City of Dallas, following the clearing of Tent City in April-May of this year.

As of today, 45 persons have been placed,  just above the goal of 41. 

Over the course of the last few weeks, in fact, MDHA and its partners from the City of Dallas, CitySquare, Nexus Recovery Center, Turtle Creek Recovery Center, The Bridge, Austin Street Shelter, the Salvation Army and Metrocare Services, were able to find and place forty-five residents into shelter, treatment, rapid rehousing, permanent private housing, and group homes or help them reunite with their families.

“Consistent and persistent case management, patiently undertaken by seasoned professionals, trained in trauma-informed care,  and armed with a toolbox of evidence-based solutions, is the only way we can end unsheltered homelessness in Dallas,” said Cindy Crain, President and CEO of MDHA. “The success of this effort could not be accomplished without strategic interagency collaboration, which has been developing over the course of 2016 into a true crisis response system, where we all work together, breaking down silos, and securing the best possible outcome for every individual,” she added.   

Today, as case managers and volunteers helped the remaining residents pack up, they were joined by five formerly unsheltered homeless from prior tent encampment closures who are now permanently housed.

Crain reflected, “Their presence gave residents a glimpse of hope and possibility of the results of accepting shelter, housing, treatment and services. Seeing is believing, and is critical to motivating and working through the ever present  trauma enforced fear and uncertainty of accepting assistance. The Street Outreach team gets better every day at the hard work that they do.”

MDHA and its partners will continue to work with these and other unsheltered individuals to get as many of them as possible off the streets and into shelter and housing. The overall impact of the successful, peaceful and housing-oriented closing of three encampments since the beginning of May 2016, will not be fully known before the annual Point-in-Time Homeless Count, which will be led by MDHA on the night of Thursday, January 26, 2017.

In the last Count, conducted on the night of Thursday, January 21, 2016, MDHA counted 539 unsheltered homeless individuals in Dallas. In order to conduct a full and accurate count of the unsheltered homeless, this coming January, MDHA will need 1,000 volunteers, registered as teams of 3-5 persons. Registration will open mid-November. Those wishing to receive notification of such, should text keyword MDHA to 22828 to join MDHA’s mailing list. 

Important Book Synopsis

On Monday, Setember 19, MDHA, CitySquare, and the Dallas Public Library presented a book synopsis of Housing First: Ending Homelessness, Transforming Systems, and Changing Lives.

The data for client success in Housing First programs in Dallas comes in at 96%!

Watch the presentation below!

Housing First--even Starbucks understands

The data and the experience make an irrefutable case for the best, most logical approach to solving the riddles of chronic homelessness.

 Members of the Dallas Continuum of Care have been using this approach for several years, and it works!

  As more Dallasites turn their attention to homeless encampments, the concerns of property owners in the Downtown core of our city and the pressing needs of the homeless; the best way forward to sustainable solutions will involve a deeper and deepening commitment to Housing First.

 

KERA 90.1 FM on The Cottages

KERA 90.1 FM here in Dallas, Texas, reported last week on the "soft opening" of The Cottages at Hickory Crossing.

Tune here to hear the report!

 

(From L-R): Dallas County Commissioner Dr. Elba Garcia, Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins, Dallas City Council Member Tiffinni Young, Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings, Monica Egert Smith, John Greenan and Larry James.

People keep asking me. . .

Never before have more people asked me more times this one question:

"Larry, when will The Cottages open?"

A close second is:

"Are The Cottages open yet?"

So many people have asked so many times in so many places with such interest that I feel the need to give you the "inside scoop" on why this creative project has taken us so long to complete. 

And, I get it!  We intended to open the project in the fall last year, already! 

So, here are the reasons--not excuses, reasons:

1)  2015 turned out to be the wettest year on record in Texas.  Rain, heavy rains and storms slowed the earliest, muddiest times of the year, and then some. 

2) We endured a few "technical issues."  Early on, civil engineering challenges were a factor.  Our contractor made a big mistake when he ordered a big shipment of the wrong materials for the houses.  The order had to be resubmitted, delaying us several weeks. There were other fairly typical matters that you just expect, but taken with the other matters simply added to our "days behind" count. 

3)  Our General Contractor got sick and almost died.  Our project was a tough one, made tougher by the 6-week plus absence of the leader of the company in charge of the project due to serious health problems. 

4)  We finally landed a competent project superintendent who shortly thereafter suffered a serious heart attack on the job! Shortly after surgery, he was back on the job and will see it to completion.  Still, a very disruptive event for our project.

5)  Our award-winning design strategy turned out to be very difficult to construct, requiring artisans to address the challenging metal work, a slow, tedious process. 

6)  More recently , the General Contractor underestimated the amount of material needed to complete a crucial aspect of the build out--another time draining mistake. 

7)  In general, across our region, labor is in very short, highly competitive supply.  We have not been able to keep enough workers on our job, our comparatively smaller job.  Our staggering progress is the result of this labor reality. 

Thankfully, we negotiated a guaranteed cost contract, so cost overruns are not a big concern. 

It's all about time.

As I read back over my list, I can tell you again I don't intend these to be excuses. 

There is no excuse for this ridiculous delay. 

Every day we delay means that 50 people have no home to call their own. 

No one is more upset by the time delay than I am, unless it is CitySquare's  Neighbor Supportive Services team and/or John Greenan, our leader at the Central Dallas Community Development Corporation.

I'm sure I've overlooked something else that has slowed us down.  The Cottages will be wonderful.  They've been too hard to bring to life for the result to be anything but terrific. 

In between. . .

Classic case of "between a rock and a hard place" for us at CitySquare.

See the video posted below.

On the one hand, the pressure created by the time frame to "move along" imposed on the people living in this encampment made it nearly impossible to transition folks from the street to housing.

We could have refused to be involved in the removal.

On the other, we couldn't walk away from so many friends and neighbors who endured the trauma of being removed.

We know most of these people. Our Homeless Outreach Team interviewed every one of them in an attempt to begin the process of moving toward permanent housing.  We had no choice but to be with them and attempt to ease their burden, even if inadequately.

Dallas (City and County) and its leaders need to stop, take stock and recognize the fact that every homeless person on our streets is just as important as the person living in the best housing available. Homeless persons are citizens and constituents, and must not continually be defined as a problem.

I believe the Mayor's Commission on Homelessness provides us the opportunity to "re-boot" and approach the challenge in a much different, more comprehensive manner.

Time will tell.

I know one thing for sure: Dallas must do better.


 

"Losers" and Hope

The past two mornings I've stopped by "Tent City II" on my way to the office. 

At the insistence of the Dallas City Council, city staff, including police, were given about two weeks to clean up the camp and remove the residents.

The scene: magnetic.  Both days, it literally pulled me into its center as I got out of my car (a huge luxury, by the way).

The pull connected my eyes to an extremely hard, harsh reality over the two-day period. 

Possibly 100 tents with the owners and others on day one. By 9:00 a.m. on day two, virtually everything had been removed, including most of the people.

Almost all of the residents were black. 

All possessed almost nothing. 

When rounded up by the city workers, these possessions formed giant piles that otherwise I would have classified as trash.  In fact, the piles represented the net worth of the departing owners. 

The deadline on this closing, harsh itself, fit the circumstances of the people I saw Monday and Tuesday.  Better, the deadline, completely unrealistic, framed our community response to the poorest, weakest and most vulnerable among us. 

We haul trash off. 

We move undesirable persons, even when they have no place to go. 

Some regard our homeless neighbors as inherent "losers." 

If you think about it and if you hear the stories of those being moved from under now the second bridge in our city, these people are definitely losers, just not inherently so.  

You see, each has lost something precious, invaluable and essential. In most cases the loss has been in multiple layers, as loss usually goes with people.

Losses like. . .

Health.

Children and grandchildren.

Mates.

Parents.

Relationships.

Marriages.

Jobs.

Options.

Sobriety.

Sanity.

Homes.

The list goes on. 

Maybe I'm off the edge here.  But, if I put myself in the shoes of these, the weakest among us, I'd hope for better from my hometown. 

But, how realistic would my hope actually be? 

What if I lost everything and became a real "loser" due to the loss, what could I expect?  Where could I place my trust at the lowest moment of my life?   To whom could I turn with a realistic expectation of receiving the help, the hand up I would certainly need to get back home?

Based on our community performance to date, my honest answers provide me no real comfort.

Media's impact. . .

This just in. . .

[Krystal Lotspeich, Director of Housing & Homeless Services at CitySquare, sent me the following report on recent housing progress for some of our wonderful neighbors.]

I'm so excited! We moved another 4 neighbor's into housing this week. In the last 2 weeks we have placed 10 neighbor's into housing at Tierra Linda Apartments through our HCC grant and with all the hard work from our Homeless Outreach team! This is crazy awesome.  

One neighbor was in tears while signing her lease and thankful she will get to sleep inside with her dog in her own apartment. She couldn't believe it was actually happening. She said now she'll be able to sleep through the night and not have to worry about being beat up or harassed. Days like that make everything worth it! 

Thank you Edd [Eason] for making all this happen and all your hard work to secure the funding for this new HCC program. Without the HCC funding these 10 neighbor's would still be sleeping outside on the streets. 

Krystal Lotspeich
Director of Housing & Homeless Services
Neighbor Support Services

CitySquare 
1610 S. Malcolm X Blvd.
Dallas, TX 75226
P: 469.904.7033
klotspeich@CitySquare.org
www.CitySquare.org

Public Meetings re Homelessness

Information provided by our friends at Metro Dallas Homeless Alliance:

Dallas Commission on Homelessness Community Public Meetings 

The Dallas Commission on Homelessness Community Engagement Committee will be hosting public meetings, over the next few weeks, to educate, engage and gather feedback from the community on how to address and overcome challenges related to homelessness.

Join us for these two public meetings next week (click on each meeting title for full details):

Monday, June 20, 2016, 6-8pm - Sheltering the Homeless
This meeting will feature:
Rev. Bob Sweeney, Executive Director, Dallas Life
Daniel Roby, Executive Director, Austin Street Center
Wayne Walker, Executive Director, OurCalling
Blake Fetterman, Executive Director, Salvation Army Carr P. Collins Social Service Center
Dallas City Hall - L1FN Auditorium
1500 Marilla St., Dallas, TX 75201
You can print off this flyer to share with your network: June 20th Meeting Flyer

Tuesday, June 21, 2016, 6-8pm - Homeless in East Dallas
This meeting will feature:
Mark Clayton, Councilmember, District 9
Larry James, Chief Executive Officer, CitySquare
Ikenna Mogbo, Housing Outpatient Operations Manager, Metrocare Services
Jesse Moreno, Community Leader
Harry Stone Recreation Center
2403 Millmar Drive, Dallas, TX 75228

You can print off this flyer to share with your network: June 21st Meeting Flyer

Please follow MDHA on social media for information on more upcoming dates. We'll see you there!

KRLD: Tent City Interview

Listen right here.

Lyrical Liberation

Humanizing persons is the first step in discovery of what we all share in common. People who have no homes are still human beings worthy of respect. There is no surprise here, not really.

People are amazing.

"Tent City" points to housing challenge

Blocked?

The "Tent City" nestled beneath the I-45 overpass here in South Dallas gives rise to all sorts of frustrations. 

The City of Dallas' humane decision to place portable toilets and trash dumpsters on the property triggered the explosive growth of the encampment.  As the community grew, rumors spread across town that case management into permanent housing happened quicker at Tent City.  So, predictably, the population grew.  And, it got organized:  streets, identified sections, an elected Mayor, at least one retail store selling basic snacks and sundries. 

But along with the normal human responses to an organized community of sorts came really negative realities:  ill-health, fights, other violence, including more than one murder, drug trafficking, prostitution, rape, theft and other compromises to public health and safety.

Here's where my litany of frustration begins:

1. The city had no real choice in the short term but to close the encampment.  And, the City is at work today doing just that.  Case workers, but not nearly enough of them, have been working for 5 or 6 weeks trying to arrange housing solutions for as many people as possible among the almost 500 who populated the encampment at its population apex.  Some people moved in with friends/family.  Some decided to go home to other cities (but very few fit that grouping).  Some opted for moving to other locations or encampments located across the city.  Some agreed to use the shelter services available.  Some found permanent supportive housing and/or single voucher assets.  Still, a large number of persons do not have a housing plan as they are forced to move from what was their community.

2.  The city does not have an adequate supply of permanent supportive housing to meet the obvious needs of the community. A large part of the problem is a lack of funds and political will to develop this much-needed housing stock.  Without the housing we are fighting a battle with one arm tied behind our collective back.

3. State funds from the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs (TDHCA) can be used only for developments located in "high opportunity" communities.  This means that new projects cannot be located in most parts of the community by the standards established in the recent U. S. Supreme Court decision regarding the disparate impact of siting housing efforts only in low-income or low opportunity areas.  In practical terms this means that new projects will need to be located in some of the most expensive neighborhoods in the city and/or in suburban or exurban communities.  The price of land and the organized resistance from such communities make it nearly impossible to use TDHCA tax credit funds as we've done in the past. 

4. Routinely, landlords and property owners refuse to accept housing vouchers and funds from our local Continuum of Care, both U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to pay rents.  "Source of payment" discrimination is normative. These days a very hot housing market allows property management more options for leasing, with the net result being that the very poor get kicked out and left out of housing in favor of a "better, less troubling clientele."

5. The basic duplicity of our community response is maddening.  On the one hand we all care about homelessness in general, right?  On the other, we resist its arrival if in our neighborhoods. We organize not in favor of its development, but to oppose it.

6. The silence of both communities of faith and of political groups in face of this pressing human tragedy remains as unsettling as it is frustrating. 

What will we do, Dallas, what will we do?

Stream of consciousness, random thoughts on deep poverty

Dallas' "Tent City" mushroomed over night because of two things:  trash dumpsters and port-o-potties.  Homeless people spend their days looking for food, a place to rest/sit, restroom facilities and a bed.  When the city provided a place to manage biological realities and a place to throw away trash, it didn't create new homeless persons.  It simply provided the solution to one major problem and it provided for trash management at the encampment that grew up nearby.  Tent City reminds me that homeless persons are just that, persons.  Persons who, like me, need a restroom every day, several times.  Remove that basic need and I'll camp out near the solution. 

_________________________________________

 

Landlords and property owners contribute to the problems facing homeless persons because they routinely discriminate on the basis of "payer source," that is from what source a person pays the rent.  Housing dollars go unspent monthly--I estimate between 25-30% of what the local Continuum of Care has to spend on housing the homeless because those in charge of the housing units won't rent to our homeless neighbors with whom we work. Closing this gap would provide housing if not for all, for almost all who live in Tent City.  Something to think about:  is this a civil rights issue?  

_________________________________________

 

Dallas definitely needs to include funding for permanent supportive housing development in the upcoming 2017 bond issue.  And that provision needs to be to the tune of $100 million. 

_________________________________________

 

Homerless shelters need to become extremely aggressive "triage" centers with established goals to move people into permanent housing in no longer than 30 days.  This system change would turn 100 shelter beds into 1,200 over a year.  Prerequisite:  ample supply of permanent supportive housing that employs a Housing First strategy.

_________________________________________

 

Apparently, the Texas Rangers Baseball club no longer advertises for payday lenders!  No signs on the outfield walls or anywhere else in the building.  Progress!

_________________________________________

 

Downtown Dallas, Inc. could really help the homeless presence in the CBD by reinstating homeless outreach workers as a part of the strategy to care for the very poor and the very rich investors.  Just sayin'.

________________________________________

 

The more I am around Dallas City Council member Casey Thomas, the more I like him.

________________________________________

 

Living without a home is a genuine trauma crisis.

 

Enough.

 

MDHA 2016 State of the Homeless Address

British Perspective. . .

Here's a perspective on the Cottages at Hickory Crossing from England. 

Check it out. 

And, of course, react!