The image shows Christine Crossley, City of Dallas Office of Homeless Solutions Director, telling part of the story on a recent night at Oak Lawn United Methodist Church’s inclement weather shelter.
The development of inclement weather shelter in Dallas and Collin Counties over the course of the last 4-5 years is a story of grassroots organizing, coupled with local government at its best. It is a story of faith-based organizations living out their callings and unprecedented collaboration of multiple partners to save lives. It is a story of collective impact, many organizations working together to bring our unhoused neighbors in from the cold and ultimately end their homelessness.
Over the course of the next few weeks and months, we will tell you this story. Through the words of those doing the work on the ground, as well as behind the scenes, we will attempt to paint as rich, full, accurate, and comprehensive a picture as we can of the efforts to provide inclement weather shelter in Dallas and Collin Counties, the centrality of collective impact in these efforts, and how they fit into the goal of ending homelessness.
Specifically, we hope to:
- Clarify the role of each partner in the provision of inclement weather shelter.
- Clearly explain why each component of the provision of inclement weather shelter is important.
- Demonstrate how the provision of inclement weather shelter fosters cooperation between different partners.
- Demonstrate the indispensable role of local government, who holds the mandate of public safety, in the provision of inclement weather shelter.
- Clarify how the provision of inclement weather shelter is one of the best examples of collective impact, and how it necessitates a strong backbone organization.
- Explain how provision of inclement weather shelter adjusted to COVID-19.
- Drive home why we must leverage inclement weather shelter to end homelessness.
We will begin, this month, with an overview of description of all current efforts to provide inclement weather shelter in our counties. Every other week, we will feature videos and blog posts highlighting individual partners’ efforts and highlight these in our newsletters and social media. We will end in March with a summary of all inclement weather shelter activities and their impact, as well as lessons learned for next year.
We will specifically highlight the work of member organizations of the Homeless Collaborative of Dallas and Collin Counties, local governments, the faith community, and the behind the scenes work of the Metro Dallas Homeless Alliance.
We will seek to learn from each person we feature who they are, what their role is in the provision of inclement weather shelter, how they became involved, why they chose to get involved specifically in this, what more they would like to do to solve this problem, and how we can leverage the provision of inclement weather shelter to ultimately end homelessness.
We look forward to learning with you along the way, to highlighting unsung heroes saving lives in our community, and to advancing towards our ultimate goal, making homelessness in our counties rare, brief, and nonrecurring.
