Dana Turns a House into a Home - with the Help of the Dallas Furniture Bank and the MDHA Flex Fund

Imagine waking up on your last day of homelessness. This is it. Today you are going to be housed. Your case manager picks you up, and with your few belongings you arrive at your new home. With a sense of hope and some trepidation you slowly open the door… to an empty apartment. Well, unpleasant, but no big deal, you might say; just go out and buy some furniture, right? Well, not if you don’t have money for furniture. Still, no worries, you might think, just save up a little money, and then buy furniture. Well, not if you have chronic health challenges, can’t work, and your sole income is $733 a month from Social Security. 

The Bridge, a Dallas shelter and homeless assistance center, Courtesy of The Bridge

Now, you may have to imagine what this would feel like, but Dana (name changed to protect her privacy) does not. What I just described was her actual predicament. She had worked hard with her case manager, Nicole, at The Bridge, and she had moved into a Dallas Housing Authority apartment. She was no longer homeless, but that apartment was completely bare, and she had no way of buying furniture on her own. And, living in apartment without any furniture can sometimes feel like you are barely a step above being literally homeless. As Our good friend, Dr. Iain De Jong, renowned expert on homelessness, writes: “If you leave the apartment unit blank looking, it is going to feel more like a prison cell or place where they may have squatted, than a place to call home.” Dana could certainly identify with that.

So, what to do? Fortunately, Dallas is blessed with the Dallas Furniture Bank (DFB)! As DFB’s website eloquently states, it “fills the missing gap” that resulted in Dana having an apartment, but not much more. As the website explains, “Though many of our agency partners provide housing for those in need, the resource of furniture is not provided to approximately 90% of these families. At Dallas Furniture Bank, we believe that living spaces should be filled. Furniture not only fills a house with practical comfort, but also instills a sense of hope and dignity… resulting in increased chances for self-sufficiency, higher levels of self-esteem, and long-term stability.”

Aliah Henry, CEO, Dallas Furniture Bank, Courtesy of the Dallas Furniture Bank

Earlier this year, the Metro Dallas Homeless Alliance (MDHA) struck a partnership with DFB, through which folks just like Dana could fill a furniture order from DFB, and have the cost of the order ($250, on average, including a $60 delivery fee) covered by the MDHA Flex Fund.  The MDHA Flex Fund was designed by MDHA and United Way of Metropolitan Dallas to address minor but impactful expenditures, just like this one, that can help clients resolve their homelessness. All Nicole, Dana’s case manager, had to do, was pull up a simple one page form, available in the guidebook on MDHA’s website. Under DFB and MDHA’s partnership, Dana could choose up to five basic furniture items, plus a bed frame. Nicole and Dana discussed what furniture would be most helpful to her, and Dana chose a sofa, a coffee table, a dining table, two dining chairs, and a queen size bed. Nicole filled out the form, marking down Dana’s selections, and sent the form over to Shavon, at MDHA. Shavon approved the request, and submitted it to DFB. 

Dr. Iain De Jong, CEO, OrgCode, Courtesy of OrgCode

DFB then called Dana in for her private appointment. It felt great to shop in style at their facility, and choose her very own furniture.  The furniture was then promptly delivered to her new home. Dr. De Jong emphasizes the impact that selecting one’s own furniture can have, “A lot can be said for the new tenant having a say in the furniture that goes into their unit, rather than them just being handed furniture that they had no say in… While I have seen many a chronically homeless person be overcome with emotions on the day of move in when they get their keys, I have seen more actually break down and weep with joy when the furniture that they picked out arrives, and they have a say in where it is set up in their place. Powerful.” Dana couldn’t agree more…

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.”

No Better Return

The challenge for many agents of social change today is to show that what they do is not just tell a feel good story about what they do and what they want to achieve. They need to show that what they do actually works, and generates meaningful change. The fancier way of saying this is that it is "evidence based."

The next thing you need to show is that your solution is scalable. Solutions that work in only one place or situation won't do. As Mayor Mike Rawlings said recently, "A great idea, if it's not scalable, it's nothing..."

Now, let's say you have shown that what you do is evidence based and that it is scalable. Now someone has to pay for it. Let's dwell on that point for a moment. There are many ideas for which the money is just not there. Let's be honest too, this usually means there is a lack of will, not really a lack of money. And when I am talking about money, I mean A WHOLE LOT OF MONEY! Because, if it is a real problem, for which there is a real solution, you need "real money".

Happily, as mentioned in our last blog post, MDHA's cause, ending homelessness by putting people into homes, is evidence based and scalable. On top of that, Uncle Sam (the only player, who never really runs out of money) gives Dallas (through MDHA) almost $17,000,000 a year to pay for it! Uncle Sam has all the programs raise match and leverage funds of $20,500,000 in non-federal annual funding. Furthermore, MDHA has also facilitated the Dallas Housing Authority’s housing of 3400 formerly homeless individuals and families at an ongoing annual value of over $28,000,000. That's A WHOLE LOT OF REAL MONEY!

All we in Dallas have to do is invest a few hundred thousand dollars a year to sustain MDHA, and those tens of millions of dollars are ours. Can there be a better return on your charitable investment?

DHA and the VA Partner to House Vets Experiencing Homelessness

Paula Maroney, Director of Continuum of Care –

Today the Dallas Housing Authority (DHA) along with the Veterans Affairs (VA) North Texas Health Care System is hosting an event at the Veterans Resource Center with the goal of housing 100 veterans experiencing homelessness. Early today the waiting room was filled with veterans waiting to meet with VA social workers and have their applications quickly processed by DHA. It is encouraging to see two great organizations working together to help end veterans’ homelessness by the end of 2015.