New PSH Project for Women with Children

Check out this really great piece by Roy Appleton in the Dallas Morning News:

http://www.dallasnews.com/news/community-news/south-dallas/headlines/20150129-southern-dallas-apartments-for-the-formerly-homeless-draw-praise.ece

As a reader of this blog, you no doubt know already that permanent supportive housing (PSH) has been shown to be the best solution to end chronic homelessness. Most persons experiencing chronic homelessness are single men, so naturally most PSH projects focus on men. At the same time, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has instructed communities not to lose sight of family chronic homelessness. Much of the latter cases involve single women with children.

MDHA was instrumental in pioneering PSH specifically for single women with children, when it brought together the Dallas Housing Authority and Lifenet Texas to form the Pebbles community a few years ago. The new community, discussed in the article by Appleton, would be the third such project that MDHA and specifically, MDHA Vice President of Programs, shepherded.

Not at all incidentally, ABC is headed up by Myrl Humphrey, outgoing Dallas area Continuum of Care Vice Chair and MDHA board member. Both Myrl and Charles are two of the most passionate and caring folks I know in the fight to end homelessness. Interestingly, one of the fascinating facts that Charles shared with me about this project is that it is part of a larger affordable housing development for folks who qualify as "low income." The idea is to integrate those in PSH units into the general community.

I love the Mayor's words that close the article:

“We cannot be a great city and just go make a bunch of money and leave the homeless, the mothers and children … on the side of the road,” he said. “That’s not the way the Good Samaritan does it, and we’re a Good Samaritan city.”