Housing Forward, a local nonprofit that partners with the City of Dallas and serves as the lead homeless response agency in the Dallas area, reaffirmed its commitment to data transparency in a recent public meeting.
During an August meeting of the Dallas Area Partnership to End and Prevent Homelessness (DAPEH), Housing Forward CEO Joli Robinson shared an update on the REAL Time Rehousing Initiative (RTR) alongside Christine Crossley, director of the City of Dallas Office of Homeless Solutions (OHS).
Robinson said that the RTR has housed a total of 2,342 people, and its new goal is housing a total of 6,000 homeless people by 2025. According to Robinson, 99% of those housed through RTR did not return to homelessness based on data tracking clients over the 12-month period following their placement in a home.
However, Dallas City Council Member Cara Mendelsohn, who serves as vice chair of DAPEH, pressed Robinson and said more data should be provided.
“What is your commitment to transparency and accountability?” she asked.
“It hasn’t changed,” replied Robinson. “We have 100% commitment to transparency and accountability.”
Public-facing data from Housing Forward can be found here.
Mendelsohn noted that Housing Forward is “housing the data” for homelessness response programs funded by taxpayer dollars and asked whether the entire body of data pertaining to homelessness response is accessible to City employees.
“Can you write a report on everybody [in the] City of Dallas based on [Housing Forward’s] data?” she asked Crossley.
“If we can’t, we can certainly ask for it and have never had a problem getting it,” replied Crossley. Robinson then affirmed that Housing Forward remains committed to making that data available.
Mendelsohn said the data currently provided by Housing Forward are helpful but not “complete.” She noted it would be useful to know how many homeless people in Dallas had been housed and later “come back in the system,” but she has never seen that dataset provided.
In a statement to The Dallas Express, Robinson claimed, “Housing Forward remains committed to being transparent, that is not a new commitment.”
“[Mendelsohn] asked if we were committed to transparency & I affirmed our ongoing commitment to transparency,” she added.
During the same meeting, Mendelsohn defended the usefulness of DAPEH in the wake of a recent recommendation from a task force commissioned by Mayor Eric Johnson that DAPEH and other accountability mechanisms be dissolved, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
Meanwhile, homelessness and vagrancy remain “major” problems in Dallas, according to residents. One potential solution that has polled favorably among Dallas voters has been a “one-stop-shop” strategy, such as the one employed by Haven for Hope in San Antonio.
Haven for Hope offers homeless services, food, medical care, addiction rehabilitation, and job training in conjunction with housing and on the same campus.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, Haven for Hope has been credited with a 77% reduction in homelessness in San Antonio. The City of Dallas has yet to pursue this “one-stop-shop” model.
