Housing Forward, which oversees North Texas’ homeless response system, has been awarded a $9.3 million federal grant, the largest investment in the country aimed at building systems to end youth homelessness.
The federal government announced Wednesday that Dallas and Collin counties’ “continuum of care” system is the largest benefactor among 16 communities across the nation receiving a slice of $60 million in grants designed to fund housing programs for young people experiencing homelessness.
“Unfortunately, our youth often experience the brunt of failed systems in our community,” said Ashley Brundage, past board chair of the All Neighbors Coalition. “This award is going to help us strengthen the services that we provide to those youth, create and maintain a coordinated approach to addressing youth homelessness, and effectively reduce the number of youth that are represented in our overall homeless population.”
The Department of Housing and Urban Development has awarded the renewable grants through a program focused on youth housing programs, including rapid rehousing, permanent supportive housing, transitional housing and host homes.
Part of the grant will fund a resource center for Dallas and Collin counties’ youth aimed at reuniting children with their families and keeping them safely housed.
“Nobody should live without the basic human dignity of shelter, least of all youth,” said Peter Brodsky, Housing Forward board chair.
The resource center will also maintain a real-time inventory of bed availability to help youth in need of safe, temporary shelter.
Joli Robinson, president and CEO of Housing Forward, said the award means that the proven cooperation among public and private partners makes North Texas a nationwide model in efforts to end youth homelessness.
“Over the next few years, we’ll be leveraging the ongoing partnerships and the HUD funding in creating a more coordinated approach to ensuring all unhoused youth are quickly identified and matched to needed resources,” Robinson said.
Elevate North Texas, a youth shelter and service provider within North Texas’ All Neighbors Coalition, is one of many programs that will be a part of building a local youth response system with the federal funding.
“We know that every single night young people are going without safe, stable housing and that our unhoused youth face a multitude of barriers in finding emergency shelter and getting connected to resources,” said Jason Vallejo, founder and executive director of Elevate North Texas. “There is much work to do and this additional funding from HUD allows us to continue to do this critically important work.”
Housing Forward’s announcement came on the same day as a morning rally organized by the Dallas Housing Coalition in support of $200 million in local bond funding for housing initiatives. Coalition leaders, joined by DallasCity Council members and state representative Carl Sherman, called on the community to get involved in shaping the bond initiatives, which will go before voters in May.
