With the help of a generous
grant from United Way of Metropolitan Dallas’ Unite Dallas Relief Fund, we are
in the midst of a research and action program from the Center
for Social Innovation (C4) titled “Racism and Homelessness - Addressing
Inequity in 10 American Cities”, nicknamed SPARC (Supporting
Partnerships for Anti-Racist Communities). In the words of C4, “While no single
initiative can end structural racism across all systems, we believe,” that
through this initiative we can, “create positive change in attitudes and
behaviors that will begin to close the racial gap that has led to the
disproportionate prevalence… of homelessness among African Americans.”
Hard Conversations: Racism
and Homelessness
We launched the program,
with a number of activities in late November 2016, including a
first round of training for service providers, and the first meeting of a
planning body to help MDHA and C4 shepherd this program in Dallas
In February, C4 staff spent
a week here in Dallas
We also spent time that
week, MDHA and C4 staff together, meeting with a variety of stakeholders in the
community to seek their guidance and input, including a large group of
African-American and allied clergy, and leaders of other anti-racism efforts in
our community. We also had another in-person meeting of the local planning body
we had formed to help us shepherd this effort, whom we have and continue to
meet with regularly over the phone.
2017 State of the Homeless
Address
During the State of the Homeless Address in March,
Cindy J. Crain, MDHA’s President and CEO, shared the relevant data on racism
and homelessness, from the 2017 Homeless Count, and the Homeless Management
Information System (HMIS). These numbers reiterated what the 2016 Homeless
Count numbers showed us already: 60-70% of those experiencing homelessness in
our community are African-American. She vowed that MDHA would continue to work
to, “counter the systemic influences that created such extraordinary disparity
with systemic changes.”
Along the way, we were
heartened to see the media address these issues, with Tasha Tsiaperas’ Does Dallas' homeless population show the
city is racist? in the Dallas Morning News, and Stephanie Kuo’s How Dallas' History Paved The Way For A
Disproportionately Black Homeless Population, on KERA, as two prime
examples. Race has also been constantly in the background of KERA’s excellent
series, One Crisis Away: No Place to Go,
which focuses on the plight of families in West Dallas ,
who are at risk of losing their homes.
Currently, as C4 analyzes
the qualitative data collected here in Dallas at the end of February, they are
also in the process of collecting quantative data from the HMIS system, which
they will subject to rigorous analysis. They have also begun to connect us with
the other cities they are working with in a budding online learning
collaborative, where we are sharing our challenges, and how we are beginning to
tackle them. It is fascinating to see the commonalities and differences between
the different communities regarding the connections between racism and
homelessness.
C4 encouraged us, from the
beginning of this process, to develop and incorporate structural changes that
could begin to move the needle on racism and homelessness in Dallas
A key action item pertains
to one of our most important innovations in our homeless response system this
year, the MDHA Homeless Response System Community
Dashboard. It provides a quarterly snapshot of the core
system metrics that inform us on achievements in moving individuals to
permanent housing. We will add an addendum to this important tool, which will
capture, along racial and ethnic lines, who is homeless and in need of housing.
Even more importantly, it will inform the community on how well we are
utilizing the housing resources we have, in a way that promotes racial equity
and begins to eliminate racial disparities in service delivery.
Promoting racial equity in
service delivery begins “at home”. What do we mean by that? During the State of
the Homeless Address, Cindy Crain shared a slide that showed the racial and
gender breakdown of the CEOs/Executive Directors of the main thirty-two service
providers in the homeless arena in Dallas
Last Hard Conversation with
Randy Mayeux on Housing First
Later this month, we will
host another public event, related to racism and homelessness, as we seek to
keep this issue front and center in our work.
MDHA, CitySquare, and the Dallas
Public Library will present a book synopsis of Toxic Inequality: How America’s Wealth Gap
Destroys Mobility, Deepens the Racial Divide, and Threatens Our Future.
Randy Mayeux, renowned scholar and longtime book reviewer at
CitySquare’s Urban Engagement Book Club, will lead the discussion. Larry James
and Rev. Dr. Michael Waters, will join him for the Q&A portion. They will
expound on how the lessons of Toxic Inequality can be applied to race, poverty
and homelessness in Dallas
We look forward to
continuing to work with C4, with our partners, and with the community at large
on addressing this important issue. Together, we can fulfill the vision we
started this process with, and “create positive change in attitudes and
behaviors that will begin to close the racial gap that has led to the
disproportionate prevalence… of homelessness among African Americans.”
