Dallas Charity's Housing-first Program for Homeless Gets City Officials' Attention
For Darrell Irlanda, a charity's offer of an apartment came just in time.
Against the dreary backdrop of the foreclosure crisis and soaring food costs comes some good news on the home front: Chronic homelessness has dropped 30 percent from 2005 to 2007.
That's according to an assessment from the Interagency Council on Homelessness at the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). It cites two reasons. The primary one is a shift of resources on local, state, and national levels from providing emergency shelter to building what's come to be known as supportive housing. This new housing - in permanent apartments - is for homeless individuals with mental-health and addiction issues. The second reason is more mundane: the use of a much more consistent and comprehensive data collection method than in the past.
"I was fixing to end it," he said, tears running down his face as he described his despair after a year living on the streets.
Mr. Irlanda, a 56-year-old Vietnam veteran, is one of 50 formerly homeless people living in apartments through a project called Destination Home. It's offered by Central Dallas Ministries, a nonprofit agency whose services include low-income housing, food pantries and medical clinics.
The approach of Destination Home and efforts like it sounds almost radical: Combat chronic homelessness by giving people homes.
That philosophy – dubbed permanent supportive housing – is being viewed as an alternative to a system that cycles homeless people through shelters, rehab, mental-health facilities and jails.
"The vast majority, 85 percent, of homeless people really just need their own place," said Larry James, president and chief executive officer of Central Dallas Ministries.
Destination Home participants are disabled. Many receive government checks that are too small to pay the rent. They pay 30 percent of their income in rent and must sign a lease and agree to work with a caseworker twice a month. They can stay as long as needed.
Central Dallas Ministries received $900,000 for the project from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The agency expects to receive additional federal funding for 55 more apartments.
The program is one that Dallas city officials want to duplicate.
Mike Rawlings, Dallas' homeless czar, said programs like Destination Home are the solution to ending homelessness – and overcrowding at the city's new shelter, The Bridge. Mr. Rawlings is scheduled to present a plan for opening more homes at a city committee meeting today.
Dallas has about 800 units of the type of housing needed, Mr. Rawlings said, but it needs at least 700 more. Additional projects are in the works, but officials face obstacles, including lack of funding and potential opposition from neighbors.
Mr. Rawlings said people in all parts of the city must be willing to accept housing for the formerly homeless, who he said face unfair, negative stereotypes.
"Each neighborhood is going to say, 'Wait a minute, I don't want a project in my back yard. I don't want a homeless person in my apartment complex,' " Mr. Rawlings said. "But we haven't had any issues and there are already 800-plus [formerly homeless people] out there."
Central Dallas Ministries faced protests from neighbors of a downtown building it is remodeling to become housing for formerly homeless people. The agency said it has not received complaints about Destination Home, where participants live alongside other residents in two large apartment complexes. But the stigma of homelessness is such that Mr. James asked that the names of those complexes not be printed.
The housing-first concept follows a national trend. Studies have shown that it costs less to provide the housing than to care for people through shelters, emergency rooms, jails and other services for those on the streets. A recent HUD report found that chronic homelessness has dropped an average of 15 percent nationwide each year since 2005, and federal officials cite permanent supportive housing programs as a major factor.
The Destination Home residents, mostly men, have lived in their cars, on the streets or in shelters, including Dallas' new center, The Bridge. A handful of them left the program, unable to handle living in an apartment after being on the streets, officials said.
Willie Flanders, who moved into his apartment two weeks ago, sat on a new couch delivered Tuesday, looking bewildered at his new surroundings. The 47-year-old veteran, who is battling cancer, previously lived in his car and at the Salvation Army shelter.
"This has got to be a miracle, to take someone who's homeless and give him a bed and a kitchen," Mr. Flanders said. "There's a fireplace. Come on, now. Me, with a fireplace? And a bathroom this huge, and no waiting in line."
Shanele Conyers, one of the few women in the program, said she was so used to sleeping on other people's couches that having her own bed feels strange. But the 25-year-old, a veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, said she hopes to stay after being homeless for more than four years.
"I'm really loving it. This is my first apartment ever," she said. "Hopefully, this will be my last stop."
