All homeless service
providers must practice full transparency, by reporting all data into the
Homeless Management Information System (HMIS), the federally-mandated
community wide database, that drives improvement of homeless services programs,
without exception (barring issues of safety). Reporting into HMIS is not simply
an issue of bureaucratic compliance. This is the only way we know if and how
much progress our community is making. More importantly, this is the only way
we can improve and self-correct, where we are not[i].
In the last three years, Dallas made huge strides,
specifically, in this area. For instance, as late as 2014, no emergency
shelter beds were reported into HMIS. It is impossible to assess system performance,
in the absence of data on the point of entry into homelessness. Therefore,
communities that do not have that data in their HMIS are routinely penalized
for it, as Dallas
was. However, unlike the housing programs, funded through the Continuum of Care
(CoC) Program, MDHA cannot simply require shelters to enter their data. MDHA
methodically worked with each of the major shelters, and over the last three
years brought most of them into the system. As of December 2017, with the
Salvation Army adding all of their 700 beds into the system, 57% of shelter
beds are now entered into HMIS. In 2018, we will meet and exceed the
standard set by the Federal Government, 86%. These simple numbers,
important as they are, bely a more fundamental shift in the HMIS, here
in Dallas. In
early 2015, MDHA and its partners began a discovery process that led the Continuum
of Care (CoC) to adopt a new HMIS system, built from the ground up, by a
non-profit founded by the Parkland
Health and Hospital System, PCCI[ii],and its for-profit affiliate,Pieces Tech[iii].This system was designed to be part of a larger ecosystem tracking individuals
as they move through the healthcare system and social service organizations, Pieces
Iris.
Dr.
Steve Miff, PCCI
Pieces Iris was born out of the recognition that limited
communication between the healthcare system and social service organizations,
may cause vital information to slip through the cracks. The idea was to create
a seamless system that connects healthcare and community-based organizations,
allowing for smart sharing of information that makes a tangible difference in
the lives of the most vulnerable populations[iv].
As PCCI President and CEO, Dr. Steve Miff, told theBecker Hospital Review[v],
in September 2017, “Up to 50 percent of clinical outcomes are driven by social,
economic or environmental factors, and not necessarily related to the direct
care the individual received. That has basically set the stage and created the
need for this solution to connect communities, and through that, to drive
personalized medicine." Over the course of the last
three years, MDHA, PCCI and Pieces Tech worked hand in hand to launch the new
HMIS, which went live in mid-2017. AsPolitico Magazine[vi]wrote in December 2017, Pieces Iris is already, “having a powerful impact on
overwhelmed homeless organizations in Dallas…
The availability of data showed… that homeless people were 167% more likely to
have emergency room visits than the non-homeless population, and that from 300
to 400 homeless were arrested in Dallas
each month. Neither of these pieces of information was shocking, but they gave
[MDHA President and CEO, Cindy J.] Crain data she could take to officials to
try to influence policy on homelessness. If she could show that housed people
needed fewer EMS transports, ER visits and less time in jail, then, she
reasoned, ‘I can make a business case to say, it’s not only the moral thing to
bring housing to these homeless, mentally ill people. It’s going to save you
money. If you don’t serve these people they’ll die in the street or eat you
alive with these public response systems.’” Finally, one glaring fact
that “jumps out” at anyone who analyzes the data on homelessness in Dallas, is the overrepresentation
of African Americans in the homeless population. Since late 2016, with the
support of theUnited Way of Metropolitan Dallas[vii]Unite Dallas Relief Fund[viii],we are
partnering with six other cities, towards establishing more racial equity in
homeless services, through SPARC (Supporting Partnerships
for Anti-Racist Communities)[ix],
a new research and action program from the Center
for Social Innovation(C4)[x].
The entire system is
oriented towards housing as the solution for homelessness, and this
approach permeates every component of the system. There is a sense of urgency
in getting everyone, and first and foremost those who are high on the Housing
Priority List, into housing, as soon as possible, with as few barriers as
possible. In the meantime, individuals, who need it, are offered temporary
shelter, with the constant ever-present expectation that they be moved into
housing as soon as possible.
Dr. Iain De Jong
(Courtesy of the Salt LakeTribune)
Since 2015, MDHA has held
regular policy discussions, trainings, lunch and learns, boot camps, and
roundtables for case managers, program managers, agency leaders, and the
public, to reorient every part of the Dallas
homeless services ecosystem towards this thinking. Notably, in March 2017, MDHA
asked pioneering world expert, Dr. Iain De Jong, of OrgCode, to conduct
one of his international learning clinics on Being an Awesome Shelter, in
Dallas. MDHA sponsored
ten spots for Dallas shelters, to further
facilitate a transformation in how Dallas
shelters operate, as housing-oriented programs. To further assist case
managers in housing their clients, in 2015, in conjunction with United Way
of Metropolitan Dallas, MDHA founded the MDHA Flex Fund[i]. This fund
gives case managers an important tool to pay for hundreds of minor but
impactful expenses, every year, that can help individuals resolve their
homelessness, quickly and permanently.
Since late 2016, with the
support of theUnited Way of Metropolitan Dallas'Unite Dallas Relief Fund, we, at
the Metro Dallas Homeless Alliance (MDHA), have been partnering with five
other cities, towards establishing racial equity in homeless services, throughSPARC(Supporting Partnerships for Anti-Racist
Communities), a new research and action program from the Center for Social Innovation(C4). Our motivation to join this
effort was born out of the deeply tragic and difficult
work of assisting in closing multiple large homeless encampments, in 2016. MDHA
President and CEO, Cindy J. Crain, described the realization that experience
brought about, “The truth of the dramatic overrepresentation of persons of
color, predominantly black, in this population, was right in front of us. Our
annual homeless counts and periodic reporting to the Federal Government
affirmed these facts too. We wanted our community’s experience to be a part of
a greater body of research and action necessary to effect system change and
address this racial disparity head on.”
Cindy J. Crain, with a
friend, in 2016
Today, March 2, 2018, the
Center for Social Innovation released itsfirst public report, based on
careful analysis of qualitative and quantitative data, from Dallas and five
other cities, including, “111,563 individual records of people from HMIS
(homeless management information systems)… 148 oral histories of people and data
from 18 focus groups in six communities across the United States.” (pg. 4) The research and action over
the course of the last 16 months has shown us, as it has shown the Center for
Social Innovation researchers that, “it is critical to understand that racial
equity should not simply be another initiative or program that is implemented
in the mix with other strategies. Instead, commitment to racial equity must
permeate all other tactics and strategies that cities, counties, states, and
the nation use to prevent and end homelessness.” (pg. 21) We are thankful to United Way of
Metropolitan Dallas, and to all our friends and supporters who have traveled
and continue to travel with us on this journey of social justice, and we invite
you read thefull report.
One glaring fact that
"jumps out" at anyone who analyzes the data on homelessness in Dallas, is the
overrepresentation of African Americans in the homeless population. Since late
2016, with the support of theUnited Way of Metropolitan Dallas' Unite Dallas Relief Fund, we are partnering with six
other cities, towards establishing more racial equity in homeless services,
through SPARC(Supporting Partnerships for Anti-Racist Communities), a new research and
action program from the Center
for Social Innovation(C4).
Cindy J. Crain and Rev. Dr.
Michael W. Waters
In Early
February theRaikes
Foundationand the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundationinvited all of the
six cities, as well as national leaders and funders to participate in the Center
for Social Innovation's first-of-its-kind national summit on Racial
Equity and Homelessness, at the headquarters of the Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation, in Seattle, Washington. Representing MDHA and Dallas
were Cindy J. Crain, MDHA President and CEO, David S. Gruber,
MDHA Development and Communications Director, and Rev. Dr. Michael W. Waters,
Pastor of Joy
Tabernacle AME Church.
We are already putting what
we learned into action, and Cindy will share more of our upcoming plans in this
area during the State of the Homeless Address. That's just one more
reason to RSVP
today!
TheMDHA Homeless Response System Community
Dashboard Race Addendum, highlights the above mentioned overrepresentation,
and zeros in on three specific groups, veterans, emergency shelter (ES) guests
and permanent supportive housing (PSH) residents. In all three groups, it
includes overall percentages. With regards to veterans, it highlights percentages
of those housed and those newly coming into the system. With regards to emergency
shelter (ES) guests and permanent supportive housing (PSH) residents, it
highlights positive exits to permanent housing (PH), as well as negative exits.
As with the MDHA Homeless Response System Community
Dashboard last released, it includes a Housing Priority List
(HPL) tracker. This HPL tracker, however, is broken down specifically by
race. This provides a visually arresting display of the overrepresentation of African
Americans in the homeless population, over the course of the last twelve
months. As Lester R. Collins, Jr., our Continuum of Care Performance Analyst
points out, when viewed in tandem,with the standard HPL tracker,
what stands out is how little difference one sees. With the overrepresentation
of African Americans in the homeless population being so high, this is not
surprising.
This coming February, MDHA
will participate in SPARC’s 2018 Racial Equity and Homelessness Summit: Redesign with Racial Equity, in Seattle, Washington,
underwritten by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the
Raikes Foundation. Attending on our behalf are Cindy J. Crain, MDHA
President and CEO, Shanette Eaden, City of Plano Housing and Community Services
Manager and MDHA board member, David S. Gruber, MDHA Development and
Communications Director, Larry James, CitySquare CEO, and Rev. Dr. Michael W.
Waters, founder and Senior Pastor of Joy Tabernacle African Methodist Episcopal
(A.M.E.) Church. This summit will bring together SPARC communities, national
and local leaders, and philanthropic partners for an in-depth conversation
about how to center racial equity within homelessness prevention and response
systems. We look forward to sharing these innovative tools, highlighted here
today, with summit attendees.
A
recent interview on Think on KERAreally got me thinking, to belabor the
pun. The host, Krys Boyd, was talking to Margaret Biser.Biser
had written about her experiences, as an African-American guide at a
colonial plantation museum. A man called in and was
incredulous as to how descendants of slave masters could feel anything but
shame. He told of the shame he felt having discovered that he shared that
heritage. He asked for her guidance, in how he should deal with this. Biser shared that she had
discovered that not only was she descended from a specific slave owner; the man
she was descended of had a role in the slave trade! Then she drove this point
home: There is nothing we can do about the past. Our ancestors, good, bad or in
between are gone. There is something we can do about the present and the
future, and there we must act. I find this tremendously
edifying regarding the fight to end the modern homelessness crisis. We can and
should ask how our country so colossally failed our citizens, that we allowed
the modern homelessness crisis to happen. We can and should help individuals
discover how they themselves became homeless. We must reckon with the fact that
each one of us had a role to play in perpetuating, if not creating this crisis.
However, this dwelling in the past is of utility only insofar as it helps all
of us learn from it. The main question we need to
ask, again, as a society and as individuals, is what do we do now? What do the
facts on the ground tell us about what will end the modern homelessness crisis,
and make homelessness rare, brief and nonrecurring in our community.Fortunately,
we have evidence based practices to answer that question.We know diversion
works, we know coordinated access and assessment work, we know Housing First
works, and we know that there is no substitute for a unified effective homeless
response system, where we all share our data with each other and with the
public.
And, we know that the very
issues Biser discusses are relevant to the discussion of homelessness. The overrepresentation
of African Americans in the homeless population is not something we can ignore
or explain away.It
is a hard truth we must face, and all of us are responsible to fix this
problem. This is why, about one year
ago we embarked on an open-ended journey to rectify this ill. With the support
of United Way of Metropolitan Dallas’
Unite
Dallas Relief Fund, and in concert with other communities across the
nation, we embarked on SPARC. This program, Supporting Partnerships for Anti-Racist Communities,
led by the Center for Social Innovation,
has helped all of us begin to come to terms with what we need to do, as well as
act on it. Indeed, because the numbers
show us how important an issue this is, we devoted the seventh of our seven
goals in theCoC
Strategic Work Planto this issue. We recognize that unless we, as a
community and as individuals, face this issue of overrepresentation of African
Americans in homelessness, we will never end homelessness. We encourage you to review
this goal in whole in our CoC Strategic Work Plan. And again, don't just use
this as an interesting learning exercise; figure out what aspect of this work
you can get involved with, so you can become part of the solution. We all have
much work ahead of us.
Read the first blog post in
ourCoC Strategic Work PlanOnline Learning Clinic series,
Rapidly House Youth, here. Each post drills down into
another aspect of the plan, to encourage you to get involved, and help us make
measurable progress in ending homelessness. To maximize your learning and your
ability to make an impact, we recommend you carefully read the entire first
page now. Then review the entire page or pages that the individual blog post
pertains to, as you read each post.
This time we focus on Goal
I on page 2: Increase Access to Affordable Housing. The only thing
that truly ends homelessness is housing. However, like any other scarce
resource, you need a delivery system to ensure that this resource is deployed
in the most efficient manner. This delivery system is made up of all of the different
entities who are working together in our community to end homelessness. Our
role is to serve as the backbone organization that brings these partners
together, and turns them into a unified homeless response system. This is
systems thinking at its best.
Now, proper systems thinking
entails, at its very basic level, figuring out what input is needed to arrive
at the optimal output. Our homeless response system is a leader in recognizing
that one of the most important inputs in such a system, is a flexible
assistance fund, like theMDHA Flex Fund.
This is why one of the action items under this goal is to raise money for this
fund. Since its founding by MDHA and United Way of Metropolitan Dallasin late August 2015, it has
proven to be one of the most powerful weapons we wield in the fight to end
homelessness in Dallas and Collin Counties.
The idea behind the MDHA
Flex Fund is simple: A minor but impactful expenditure inhibits a person from
ending his or her homelessness. The MDHA Flex Fund pays that expenditure, and
the person can make progress in ending his or her homelessness, if not end it
altogether, in short order.
Much of what we do is, well,
complicated. I usually say that if you need our elevator speech, we better be
going up to the top floor of a very tall building! This why we have aStrategic Work Planand a Playbook. In that context, one of the most beautiful things
about the MDHA Flex Fund is its simplicity. In fact, we can even tell stories
about it backwards, starting from the end, and as long as we include a link,
you not only understand what it’s all about, but probably need a tissue to dab
your eyes:
$103.53. $103.53 allowed Jonathan
to reconnect his electricity, and avoid a return to homelessness (and
a miserable Christmas).
$120.75. $120.75 allowed Daniel
and Karla to remain housed, Abraham to pursue a job,
and Richard to become eligible for a housing voucher. No,
not $120.75 each; $120.75 total.
$95, $149, $200.$95, $149,
$200, respectively, allowed Kisha, Sarah and Laura to move from shelter
into housing.
Recently, as a requirement
of our United Way
funding, we were asked to submit a detailed report on the MDHA Flex Fund’s
impact for July 1, 2016-June 30, 2017. A few months ago,I wrote about how I love site visits, and I equally love
having to report on our performance. A report, when done well, forces you to
take a step back, reflect on how you are doing, learn what is working well and
what is not, and move forward with renewed vigor and purpose. This is why we
actually chose, in the site visit and in our reporting, to go a few steps
farther than what United Way
requires, and report on the MDHA Flex Fund in a more granular manner. We broke
down the solutions provided by the MDHA Flex Fund into 17 categories:
Even a cursory observation
of these numbers tells you a number of interesting things. Most of us don’t
realize how important critical documentsare in escaping
homelessness, yet this category is the top category in sheer numbers, while not
being that high in cost.If you took the
statement we opened with, “The only thing that truly ends homelessness is
housing,” too simplistically, you might not realizethe importance of basic furniturein ending homelessness.
This is the fifth highest category in sheer numbers and the fourth highest in
cost. And, not surprisingly, almost $30,000 was spent on categories that have
the word “rent” in them.
These numbers remind us, when we dig a little deeper, that this program is fully
dependent on the folks we call our “unsung heroes,” case managers,whom we celebrate in just a few days. The MDHA Flex Fund is
an important tool in their hands, and any tool is only as good as the person
wielding it. They also remind us that our system is most powerful when partners
join hands to work together, be it these case managers, utilizing the MDHA Flex
Fund, be it the MDHA Flex Fund and the Dallas Furniture Bank, be it MDHA and DART.
Based on the numbers we
reported, here is our current estimate for MDHA Flex Fund expenditures for July
1, 2017-June 30, 2018:
This is why it remains
vital, as this action item states, to continue to raise funds for this
important and vital tool: the MDHA Flex Fund. Through adept use of this tool,
we can and will increase access to affordable housing for our homeless friends.
It’s hard to believe that
the first time we discussed the disproportionate representation of African
Americans in Dallas’ homeless population, on this blog, was just a little
over nine months ago. Since then, we have endeavored to make the glaring racial
disparities in homelessness an integral part of every conversation surrounding
homelessness in our community.
With the help of a generous
grant fromUnited 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. The highlight that month was an
installment of our Hard Conversations series onRacism
and Homelessness. It was a packed house, in what could only be
described as a combination of a church service and rock concert, with some
serious learning and consciousness raising.
In February, C4 staff spent
a week here in Dallas
collecting qualitative data. They held focus groups with individuals
experiencing homelessness, case managers and other front-line professionals,
and mid to upper management personnel of service providers. They recorded about
twenty Story corps style interviews with persons experiencing homelessness,
where these individuals shared their life histories. Through this qualitative
research, which they are conducting in all participating cities, they are looking
for patterns in how people of color enter homelessness and what barriers
prevent them from rapidly and permanently exiting homelessness.
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.”
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. To that end, as we developed our newContinuum of Care (CoC) Strategic Work Plan,
with our partners in theCoCGeneral Assembly, we included
as an overarching goal, addressing racial disparities in homelessness and
service delivery. We encourage you, the reader, to review these action items to
see how you can help.
A key action item pertains
to one of our most important innovations in our homeless response system this
year, theMDHA Homeless Response System Community
Dashboard. It provides a quarterly snapshotof 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.
The numbers are troubling, to put it mildly: 44% white males, 44% white
females, 6% black males, 6% black females. A key action item is to build on
this, and conduct and publish an annual demographic survey of all senior
management and board officers of federally funded homeless response system
agencies. We can and must begin to move to a more diverse make-up of senior staff,
as well as lay and professional leadership, that better reflects the population
we are all here to serve.
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 Librarywill 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.RSVP today,
so you don’t miss this exciting and informative event!
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.”
