It’s hard to believe, but our February 29, 2020 E-Newsletter does not even mention COVID-19. It contains an invitation to get your tickets for a State of Homelessness Address with 300 attendees, asks for sponsors for a Landlord Appreciation Luncheon with 110 attendees the day after tomorrow, and encourages you to invite us out to present, in person, to your group about homelessness. What a difference one month makes!
COVID-19 has presented tremendous challenges for everyone’s daily life. There may not be another group, outside of healthcare professionals, for whom COVID-19 has presented a greater challenge than for our homeless friends. Dallas area media have provided some excellent coverage of these challenges. Here is just a sample of great pieces, from just this last week:
As this coverage reflects, our partners across the homeless response system, especially at Dallas County, the City of Dallas, Parkland Health, shelters and housing programs have been doing nothing short of heroic work to help our homeless friends in this time of crisis. As the system’s backbone organization, we have provided support whenever and wherever we can.
Homeless response systems around the country and across the world have been facing similar challenges, and doing similar work day in and day out. Some of the most important work being done is on the policy and advocacy level. Most notable to us are the efforts of the National Low Income Housing Coalition and the National Alliance to End Homelessness. The tireless work of these and other organizations and advocates led to the inclusion of meaningful funding in the CARES Act to help providers all over the country help our homeless friends.
Nationally and here in Dallas, COVID-19 has lent a sense of urgency to to the need to not just help our homeless friends, but end homelessness. Researchers have long held that warehousing those experiencing homelessness in crowded shelters was not a great idea. Time and again studies have shown that is, in fact, cheaper to house people than to keep them in homelessness. Still, the Dallas community, like many others, has resisted providing the resources to house those experiencing homelessness, going so far as to let $20 million raised through a bond election in 2017 go unspent. As former Dallas city council member, Mark Clayton, said, “Everyone wants to help the homeless, except in their own neighborhoods.” Perhaps, the thinking was that leaving those experiencing homelessness in crowded shelters and on the streets would never affect any of us, directly. With COVID-19, it is and it will.
Towards the end of the State of Homelessness Address, our President and CEO, Carl Falconer, said that Dallas must apply important lessons from the Coronavirus pandemic. “It is teaching us,” he said, “to look out for everyone in our community. It is teaching us that as a community we can and will go to great lengths to keep each other safe. It is teaching us that our community is only as strong as the weakest in our community. It is teaching us that we are all connected. It is teaching us that a home is more than four walls and a roof; a home is healthcare, public safety, family, community.” We must act now to make this a reality for everyone.
Bookmark our COVID-19 page on the MDHA website, and follow us on Facebook for resources and to learn more about the work being done in Dallas and beyond.
