“We are determined that every person experiencing homelessness will have access to an appropriate pathway out of homelessness. Pathways will be scaled to meet demand and targeted to meet the needs of specific populations, accountability and success will be demonstrated using data, and engagement and transparency will be central to our collective efforts. Through collaboration we will make homelessness in Dallas and Collin Counties rare, brief, and nonrecurring. Together, we can do this.”
This was the quote we shared with you from Ashley Brundage, our Homeless Collaborative (CoC) Board Chair, following that body’s inaugural meeting in late February. In the board’s second meeting, members took decisive action to help make this a reality.
It would be fair to say that stunning members into silence is an unusual occurrence for any board of directors, much less when it is in response to the request of the chair to create an ad hoc workgroup. However, that is exactly what happened at this meeting.
As we have shared on our blog and in our CoC General Assembly Newsletter, the $1.9 trillion stimulus package, the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), signed into law by President Biden in March, could be a game changer in the fight to end the modern homelessness crisis. Though the amounts of funding coming to Dallas and Collin Counties which will be devoted to housing and homelessness are still being fleshed out, it was the estimate of these numbers that stunned board members into silence.
“$1 billion for Dallas County… $250 million for Collin County,” Brundage said, carefully emphasizing the b in billion. Brundage was not sharing this news to simply stun board members into silence, but to urge them to approve the formation of an “Ad Hoc Regional Housing Workgroup to strategically plan for use of the ARPA dollars that will be used to create a rehousing surge and dramatically reduce chronic unsheltered homelessness in Dallas and Collin Counties.”
This is a once in a lifetime opportunity. One day, we hope, we will look back at this moment, if not as the beginning of the end of homelessness in Dallas and Collin Counties, at least as the end of the beginning of making homelessness rare, brief, and nonrecurring.
