logo
    • Magazine
    • Membership
    • Donate
  • Racial Justice
  • Economic Justice
  • Climate Justice
  • Health Justice
  • Leadership
  • CONTENT TYPES
  • Subscribe
  • Webinars
    • Free Webinars
    • Premium On-Demand Webinars
  • Membership
  • Submissions

Supportive Housing in Dallas: Taxpayer Savings, Sustainability, and Healing

Melissa Whatley
August 24, 2015
Share
Tweet
Share
Email
Print
Housing-Human-Right
Image Credit: ONE DC

August 19, 2015; Huffington Post

“Everyone deserves a place to stay,” says Ron Stretcher, and even if you don’t agree, Stretcher says Dallas County has something for you, too: taxpayer savings of over one million dollars. While nonprofits in every city struggle to serve their homeless citizens and end chronic homelessness, Dallas is partnering with the Corporation for Supportive Housing (CSH) to open The Cottages at Hickory Crossing.

Supportive housing is not a new topic to NPQ. In May, NPQ reported that San Francisco is creating supportive housing by redeveloping the Civic Center Hotel. That article referenced some of the obstacles with the San Francisco project, including a two-year timeframe to even begin the construction required for the project. The Dallas project, although many years in the planning phase, seems to have avoided this fate. They broke ground in April 2014 and residents will start moving in this coming November.

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the NPQ newsletter to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

By signing up, you agree to our privacy policy and terms of use, and to receive messages from NPQ and our partners.

And as NPQ reported in March 2015, New York City’s supportive housing learned some hard lessons about social services, the component that makes supportive housing really work. In Dallas, according to CSH, “six of the highest performing nonprofit and governmental organizations” were brought together by the Communities Foundation of Texas to create and maintain this supportive housing project. Dallas appears to be armed and ready with long-term case management and other social services that promote dignified living among the chronically mentally ill.

According to the CSH website, the goal of this complex is to “successfully house people who live with a mental illness and/or substance use disorder and cycle through jail due to a lack of stability that supportive housing can provide.” What makes this complex unique is that, according to CSH, this AIA Dallas Design Award winner will include green space for recreation, solar energy, and rainwater collection. Sustainability is often synonymous with words like “viable” and “continuous,” another way that cost savings are reflected in The Cottages at Hickory Crossing.

Many cities have a history of attempting to solve homelessness with techniques that, although well intentioned, often oppressed despondent people. You might recall the days of the blue boxes in Orlando when panhandlers asking for money were required to stand within blue squares painted on the ground or risk being arrested. Supportive housing seems to be today’s answer to past mistakes. Although the concept of supportive housing isn’t new in the nonprofit industry, bringing it to fruition and sustaining success is a reality that has eluded some who have tried this before. As we continue to watch these attempts to end chronic homelessness build on and learn from one another, Dallas might be the place that creates success through a sense of sustainability and empowerment.— Melissa Whatley

Share
Tweet
Share
Email
Print

Become a member

Support independent journalism and knowledge creation for civil society. Become a member of Nonprofit Quarterly.

Members receive unlimited access to our archived and upcoming digital content. NPQ is the leading journal in the nonprofit sector written by social change experts. Gain access to our exclusive library of online courses led by thought leaders and educators providing contextualized information to help nonprofit practitioners make sense of changing conditions and improve infra-structure in their organizations.

Join Today
logo logo logo logo logo
See comments

You might also like
Edgar Cahn’s Second Act: Time Banking and the Return of Mutual Aid
Steve Dubb
We Owe You Nothing: The Movement to Cancel Student Debt Gains Ground
Rithika Ramamurthy
Charitable Tax Reform: Why Half Measures Won’t Curb Plutocracy
Alan Davis
Green New Deal or Stale Old Tax-Break Scam? Getting Electric Vehicle Incentives Right
Greg LeRoy
Goodbye “Race Neutrality”—The Case for Race-Conscious Economic Policy
Dedrick Asante-Muhammad
Graduate Student Workers Are in the Frontline of the Growing Labor Movement
Rithika Ramamurthy

NPQ_Summer_2022

Upcoming Webinars

July 14th, 2 pm ET

Combating Disinformation and Misinformation in 21st-Century Social Movements

Register Now
You might also like
Edgar Cahn’s Second Act: Time Banking and the Return of...
Steve Dubb
We Owe You Nothing: The Movement to Cancel Student Debt...
Rithika Ramamurthy
Charitable Tax Reform: Why Half Measures Won’t Curb...
Alan Davis

Like what you see?

Subscribe to the NPQ newsletter to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

See our newsletters

By signing up, you agree to our privacy policy and terms of use, and to receive messages from NPQ and our partners.

Independent & in your mailbox.

Subscribe today and get a full year of NPQ for just $59.

subscribe
  • About
  • Contact
  • Advertise
  • Copyright
  • Careers

We are using cookies to give you the best experience on our website.

 

Non Profit News | Nonprofit Quarterly
Powered by  GDPR Cookie Compliance
Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

Strictly Necessary Cookies

Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.

If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.