Remember that old series, the A Team? The catch phrase of the leader of this rag tag group of do gooders pursued by military police for a “crime they didn’t commit”, was “I love it when a plan comes together.”
We too, at MDHA, love it when a plan comes together, specifically, our Continuum of Care Strategic Work Plan, which we walked you through on our blog last summer, beginning with this post. Since early 2015, we have been working on building Dallas’ homeless response system, and we now see in our everyday work and the work of our partners, how our homeless response system has come together, to deliver results for those who matter most, our homeless friends.
Hannibal’s old catchphrase, further applies, since that just like in the case of the A Team, helping someone end their homelessness, often involves different connected steps and interlocking actions, coming together. And, it definitely takes a team, of different organizations and individuals with different skill sets for everything to come together. So, in essence, every time one of our homeless friends ends their homelessness, we can say that a plan has come together.
Every episode of the A Team featured a montage of their elaborate preparations to confront whatever foe they were facing. These preparations usually involved engineering, building, and mechanics, using the scarce resources available to them and those they were helping, at the location they happened to find themselves inhabiting.
Just like the A Team, in 2015-2017, MDHA focused on the engineering, building and mechanics of the necessary components of an effective unified homeless response system, in the context of an environment of scarce resources. And, just like the A Team, when housing someone, there is engineering, building and mechanics going on behind the scenes, using the scarce resources available to the person being housed and to the “A Team” of those helping them.
(Infographic of a homeless response system – Courtesy of MARC)
The most exciting part of every episode of the A Team, was when, in Hannibal Smith’s words, the plan came together, and they used what they had created to vanquish their foe. Similarly, since mid-2017, when MDHA shifted its focus from building a homeless response system to utilizing it to better house people quickly and permanently, we have been part of some exciting stories of homeless folks ending their homelessness, as their personal plans “came together”.
One of our emphases since 2015, in everything we have done, has been that our homeless response system be oriented towards housing as the solution for homelessness, and that this approach permeate every component of the system, especially its shelters. This is why, in early 2017, we asked pioneering world expert, Dr. Iain De Jong, to return to Dallas, and hold his international learning clinic on “Being an Awesome Shelter” right here. MDHA sponsored ten spots for our Dallas shelters, so cost would not be an issue, and they could learn, and put that approach (which in some shelters was well under way) further into practice. Then, in recent months, we conducted Housing Resource Clinics for the staff of six emergency shelters, to give them additional tools to house their guests, and we expanded housing search tools for case managers too. The stage was set for some serious housing action!
