The Dallas City Council approved several projects on Wednesday pertaining to housing for the homeless and housing for people with AIDS.
Council members renewed a contract with CitySquare for housing and service assistance to homeless young adults between the ages of 18 and 24. The first of two one-year renewal options was exercised, costing the taxpayers $242,731.
Funding will specifically come from the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs (TDHCA) Homeless Housing and Services Program.
In addition, the council authorized spending $6,852,395 on housing assistance for people with AIDS. Council members approved a $2,824,600 agreement with Dallas County Health and Human Services to “provide scattered site housing assistance for persons with HIV/AIDS.”
Officials also authorized renewing several contracts totaling $4,027,795 for Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS (HOPWA) programs with Health Services of North Texas, Bryan’s House, Legacy Counseling Center, and AIDS Services of Dallas.
These agreements are funded with grants from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban HOPWA program.
The need for the City of Dallas to properly respond to homelessness and vagrancy is dire, as 75% of residents say homelessness is a “major” problem.
However, the guiding philosophy for the City of Dallas Office of Homeless Solutions is “housing first,” which has been pushed as the federally-sponsored approach to homelessness since the Obama administration.
As reported by The Dallas Express, “housing first” policies provide no-strings-attached housing for the homeless, but experts have said this approach has harmful effects on both homeless individuals and communities at large.
“There’s no requirement to be sober. There’s no requirement to engage in any sort of services,” policy expert and author Michele Steeb previously told The Dallas Express. “There’s no requirement to be employed.”
Alternatively, the “one-stop-shop” approach to homelessness taken by Haven for Hope has been credited with a 77% reduction in homelessness in San Antonio.
Haven for Hope provides homeless services such as counseling, job training, and skills development in the same location as its housing. This program is known as the “Transformational Campus.”
Previous polling conducted by The Dallas Express has shown that most Dallas residents support trying the “one-stop-shop” model. Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson recently visited Haven for Hope, but it remains to be seen whether the City will adopt the “one-stop-shop” model.
