A planned nonprofit facility in East Dallas could help lighten the heavy burden homelessness and vagrancy have placed on the city, according to its backers.
Homelessness and vagrancy in Dallas have continued to worsen over the past several years, with efforts and spending by the City of Dallas doing little to alleviate the crisis and local voters saying homelessness and vagrancy are among the worst problems faced by the city, as reported by The Dallas Express.
However, a facility being developed in East Dallas, to be called The Joshua Center, will take an approach that has yet to be tried here.
The center is the brainchild of Pastor Earl Fitzsimmons and his wife Maria. The two have already launched and operated a homeless ministry in Dallas called Bring the Light Ministries, which provides meals to people living on the streets every week.
Thus far, a site for the center has been acquired for $800,000, but another $3.5 million has to be raised for the restoration of the property’s main facility and adjacent administrative building.
The project will serve as a long-term ministry to reintegrate the homeless back into society through services like counseling, education, and job-skill training.
A similar approach utilized by the nonprofit Haven For Hope has proven successful in San Antonio, and polling conducted by The Dallas Express has shown that residents want this strategy to be employed in Dallas.
Pastor Fitzsimmons recently sat down for an interview with The Dallas Express in which he laid out his plan for The Joshua Center — named after the Biblical figure who led the Israelites into the Promised Land.
“Bringing down the walls of homelessness,” just as Joshua brought down the walls of Jericho, is the center’s goal, Fitzsimmons explained.
Fitzsimmons told The Dallas Express that he was homeless himself for about two years as he struggled with drug and alcohol abuse, and that experience has prepared him to effectively minister to the homeless.
“I’m not doing charity work,” he said. “I’m on a rescue mission for another Earl.”
The Joshua Center will take in people who are homeless and work with them for two-and-a-half to three years to equip them with the education and job training needed to get them back on their feet.
Fitzsimmons noted that if he helps as many people as he can “without enabling them, the people who want to get better are going to get better.”
He said that The Joshua Center will be equipped with an urgent care clinic, chiropractic care, and trauma-based counseling.
“We want to get people jobs where they’re going to have sustainable lives,” he said, explaining that The Joshua Center will provide pathways to careers in information technology and trades such as plumbing and electrical work.
The facility will also have a culinary school and a program to help participants earn an associate’s degree.
“They’re going to live on the first floor for 90 days to four months, then they graduate to the second floor, and then when they’re ready to graduate out of that, we’re going to move them … to full apartments [with] four or five guys [per unit],” he explained.
Fitzsimmons added that his facility will require participants to be drug-free and routinely tested to maintain accountability.
He said that by the time people are able to move into an apartment, they will have “six to nine months of sobriety,” and the counseling services of The Joshua Center will still be available to them after they move out of the main facility.
There are already several homeless shelters throughout Dallas, but Fitzsimmons made clear that The Joshua Center will be distinct from a mere shelter.
“It’s not a shelter,” he suggested. “It’s going to be a group residential housing environment where people [have] to work, meaning they’re going to go back out on the streets. They’re going to do the food bank outreaches. They’re going to do the outreaches to their fellow homeless people.”
While most shelters provide a place to sleep and perhaps a meal, there is often little accountability in place and little to no encouragement to work.
Alternatively, at The Joshua Center, “their first job is going to be helping someone else,” Fitzsimmons said. “[When] you spend half of your day making something of yourself through training, and half of your day dedicating yourself [to] getting healthy and helping other people, you got a real chance of success.”
The Joshua Center will be ready to launch in 18 months to two years, according to Fitzsimmons, who said they already have funding from banks ready to go and are currently working with the City to properly zone the property for this type of facility.
He added that Council Member Adam Bazaldua, who represents District 7, where The Joshua Center is being built, has been fully supportive of the project.
The Dallas Express reached out to Bazaldua for comment but his office was unresponsive.
In the meantime, Fitzsimmons and his wife are continuing to feed the homeless every Tuesday and Saturday. More information on how to get involved or volunteer with Bring the Light Ministries can be found here.
The organization will also be hosting its second annual Amateur BBQ Cook-Off fundraiser event on June 3.
Future projects they have planned include facilities dedicated to military veterans and women who have been victimized by sex trafficking.
The Dallas City Council recently approved spending $6 million to renovate a hotel into housing for the homeless as it continues to employ the “housing first” model in its homelessness response strategy.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, however, research has suggested that “housing first” solutions are “doomed to failure” because they “begin with an inadequate diagnosis of the causes” and do not adequately address root concerns like mental illness and drug abuse — precisely the types of underlying issues Pastor Fitzsimmons said The Joshua Center will focus on remedying.
