Dallas Housing Coalition: Putting Grassroots to Work

I'm your host, April Towery. city hall reporter for CandiesDirt. com my guests today are Ashley Brundage and Brian Toney. thank you for being here and tell us who you are and what you're doing.

Sure. Thanks for having us. I'm Ashley Brundage. CEO of Dallas Area Habitat for Humanity and board chair for the Dallas Housing Coalition.

My name is Brian Toney. organizer of the Dallas Housing Coalition. And public policy consultant through my firm, BGT Strategies. what is the Dallas Housing Coalition?

we're a membership based non profit, whose mission is to advocate for the creation and preservation of attainable housing in the city of Dallas for all. you came about a year and a half ago? We launched in June 2023 at a press conference at Golden Gate Baptist Church and the Golden Seeds Foundation in the Bottoms neighborhood around a 200 million dollar campaign for bond funding for affordable housing and homelessness solutions. why launch this housing coalition?

In my experience living and working in Dallas for the last eight years, there were a lot of, momentum around the comprehensive housing policy adoption in 2017. a lot of work being done by Mike Kowski, opportunity Dallas, and then a lot of that fell apart, when Mike moved outta town and back to dc. He's still doing amazing work at the federal level. working at the real estate council the chamber and other nonprofits around Dallas affected by housing affordability there wasn't any coordination between those groups.

we started with a blank one pager, no logo on it, simple text. Like we need to start communicating when you start advocating with a unified voice. the housing coalition came from that ashley you came on In its infancy as the board chair, maybe it wasn't called the board chair at that time, Yeah, it was good timing in the community. to form the coalition There was a lot happening coming Out of covid more people paying attention to the housing crisis we were facing even knowing we were in a crisis before covid, you know There was just more eyes on it because of the rocketing prices we started planning in the fall of 2022 it was my timing's getting messed up and The city had started talking about that.

They were planning on the next bond opportunity I was working with the city as well on their new comprehensive housing policy 2033 so there was a lot of community meetings happening around that where Not only were community members and nonprofits asking for some sort of coalition, some sort of unifying voice around housing, the city was asking for that. city staff and elected officials, as part of this planning process for the housing policy framework, wanted to see a coalition come together that would hold the city accountable to the work they were doing and the numbers and the plans through that policy.

more and more I was out in the community talking about this work. Brian was talking about the coalition funded through Dallas Habitat we ended up on the same side of a lot of arguments kind of tag teaming like what we do now, right? talking about the different issues. he asked if I would be one of the lead voices for the coalition.

once we decided to form into a formal nonprofit asked if I would be the board chair. Y'all have gotten a lot of momentum. A lot of people, know who you are, want to be part of it. you're at just about every council meeting.

City plan commission meeting zoning ordinance committee meeting. you're there and you are the go to folks you mentioned. let's talk about the bond first. how you formed for the 2024 bond advocating for 200 million dollars for housing.

all the bond propositions passed in May, do you consider that a success? you still need more? What are your thoughts on how the bond shook out? it was a huge, success, When we first convened the coalition, we asked what are the two most important issues you're facing?

Number one was public funding. and support, meaning communication, public awareness about affordable housing and political will. number two was zoning reform. we knew we had the bond as our first, big rock that we could push on together.

Dallas had never funded attainable housing through a bond program before, where other cities in Texas, like Austin and San Antonio, had already taken those steps. we have a huge housing shortage in Dallas, if it's a priority to be an inclusive and affordable city we need to put public dollars behind it. Propositions G, H, and I were all approved with over 70 percent of voter approval, which showed that voters also agree that housing should be a priority Why you talked about zoning reform an overhaul of the development code occurring right now.

of the criticisms around the bond was that there weren't specific, measures those dollars could go toward, talk about why it's important to have infrastructure in place before a developer builder wants to construct housing Yeah, definitely separated the housing conversation from what Dallas is traditionally funded, like parks, libraries, cultural facilities, public safety, new police academy. Those were all able to point to where dollars go, but we face that obstacle because the development process takes longer.

It takes years for a developer to acquire land, Get the approvals from the city of Dallas architect design engineering and in a lot of places like you're mentioning, there's no infrastructure. Currently, there might not be streets sidewalks that, a private developer could then go and build housing on. And so, that was what proposition age focused on for single family homeownership development. at the time, and, uh, they've since said year one, they're prioritizing, more rental units for lower than 50 percent barium ion income.

we'll continue to monitor the equitable distribution of those bond funds over the next five years. we didn't get enough funding, in the ultimate application, we'll be back Advocating for more funding, in the next bond program. Okay, when's, when will the next bond program be? It'll be up to city staff Usually five to seven years.

Uh, other cities have done stand alone housing bonds. So if Dallas wanted to and had the bonding capacity to do a stand alone bond, perhaps in partnership with another public entity, like DART or Dallas College, they could do that and say this is just a one time allocation. And this question is for both of you. Why do you care?

assume, each of you live in homes and, afford them. so why does this matter to you in terms of, creating housing that's available to everyone? I think for me, when we talk about having homes that everybody can afford in our community, it's one of the biggest social justice and racial equity issues of our time, Everything we do depends on having a stable, safe, and secure community. a place we can afford to live, right?

We need that home. We need that roof over our head. We need to know where we can bathe and sleep Without that, you can't be successful in your job You can't succeed in school. If you have no place to study.

everything that we do in life depends on the stability that we experience in our home. that even includes our health care and saving money, If we are spending too much on our home, then we're not able to save for emergencies or we're not able to save to send our children to school. so just the basics and the foundations of life, I think depend on that stable place to live. I think we as a country have done a lot of harm to African Americans in particular, but all people of color through red lining and all of that comes back to homes and where we decided people could live in the past.

we have a lot of work to rectify that. we need homes people can afford, different price points, options across the entire city community and region. But we need to preserve affordability in different sectors of town, homes, fall into disrepair because seniors can't afford upkeep we need to face what we've done um, and help make the future better for all For me and many others housing is personal. I grew up with a lot of privilege, a two parent stable middle class household in northeast Tarrant County.

Hurst Ulis Bedford, if anyone knows that area, I was able to walk safely to and from a public junior high, to and from my high school, L. D. Bell, to enroll in an international baccalaureate program, which set me up with success with great teachers and curriculum to go to TCU on an academic scholarship, study political science, economics, learn about supply and demand, get my first job in education policy at the Dallas Regional Chamber while living in an apartment in Uptown with two roommates along the Katy Trail and a short commute to work.

working in education, you see what affects students and families, like housing transportation and the quality of their neighborhoods. I went to the Real Estate Council and began working for TREC, gained knowledge about city planning and the City of Dallas's processes, and acquired my first home, a townhome, in the Bryan Place neighborhood in 2019. I was able to do that because I didn't have student debt and lived with two housemates to help pay for my mortgage. I still have a housemate now, five years later found on Facebook Marketplace.

this is the reality of many people's experiences in my generation and other cities housing is a hugely important issue. you can't have that opportunity if you don't have stable housing. it's so important, for Dallas to embrace that and think, beyond ourselves as a community, what type of city we want to be. I just learned you don't drive a car.

how has that opened your eyes to how difficult it is to get around? The city. I went car free in September of 2000 and 23 made that conscious decision, uh, that I would no longer own a car. I live in Bryant place, a mile north of downtown.

There's a target down the road. There's X all park, which is a beautiful park. Uh, I can be in, uh, fair park on Washington Avenue. go north to Greenville to deep down downtown and uptown.

And, um, that's kind of 15 minute, neighborhood and, and, Walkability is something urbanists talk about, it's an enjoyable lifestyle, I've learned to navigate DART, the buses, the trains, take rideshare or, catch a ride with friends it's been a much happier, less, anxious, experience for me, is it less expensive than having to maintain a vehicle? I believe it's less expensive. both financially and, mentally. you said something that brought up a question.

how does providing housing for all intersect with homelessness? I watched a meeting. Dallas Area Partnership. why is it important to, move forward the agendas of Housing First, Housing Forward.

Is Housing First and Housing Forward the same thing? Housing Forward is an organization. Housing First is a policy. to push that ahead, because we know it's working, So, for those of y'all that don't know, the Dallas Area Partnership to End and Prevent Homelessness is a partnership between the City of Dallas and Dallas County.

a few of us that sit around the table there that represent, various systems of either the city or the county to focus on ending homelessness. It's duplicative of what Housing Forward has with the Continuum of Care, the All Neighbors Coalition Board of Directors. put into place in 2017. It came after the 2016 City of Dallas Homelessness Commission It was one of the recommendations we've been sitting around the table since 2017.

not doing anything just talking lots of meetings Recently in the mayor's hope task force. the Recommendation was for the DAP to be eliminated to no longer function anymore and now Councilmember Mendelsohn has released a memo recommending the same why is this important around housing and homelessness? homelessness is a housing issue, we would not have homelessness if everybody could afford a place to live. Housing First is a policy to move people from where they are experiencing homelessness, whether that's in a shelter or on the street, we need to move them from that place into housing, and then wrap them around with all of the supports that they need to stabilize and succeed in the future, um, and eventually not have to rely on a subsidy capable some people are, chronically disabled and they're going to be on a voucher or something forever, but most people who experience homelessness can self resolve once they've been put into a place and supported for a minute to get back into a job or to help, relieve whatever bills they might have had pile up because they weren't able to save for the emergency they experienced, Housing Forward has been decommissioning encampments, especially the largest within Dallas.

they have street outreach workers who are going out every single day and meeting with the folks in the encampments they're working with and talking to them about getting them into housing, helping them find a unit they have either a voucher or a rental subsidy to cover the rent for that person to move into an apartment. They have a landlord engagement strategy identifying units where landlords are willing to take people with vouchers exiting homelessness you and they also have risks mitigation processes in place so they can help incentivize those landlords to house our people that are exiting homelessness.

and we're seeing it work. in less than a hundred days, we housed over a hundred people. we closed down three of the major encampments. on the board of housing forward, and the board of the all neighbors coalition.

we're seeing success is being demonstrated in itself, housing people from the streets into an apartment is being successful. We're rehousing people. The biggest problem we're experiencing as A community is more people falling into homelessness faster than we can rehouse everybody because we don't have the affordability factor here, Like, we just don't have enough home options that people can afford to move into. and that's hurting us.

We are seeing some groups advocating to move people from encampments into a sanctioned encampment or build another emergency shelter because they think it's inhumane for anybody to sleep on the streets, which yes, Nobody should experience that ever. However, spending millions of dollars to create another stop point for people who are in homelessness versus millions of dollars to build affordable housing, you are not solving the problem. You're just creating another delay in the process.

So where are the most visible? So the, the three camps that we recently closed down, the most visible encampments, were right around downtown Dallas. in the middle of downtown Dallas, where most people are driving into work and seeing those encampments on a regular basis. Now that we've closed those down, do you remember their locations?

City Hall, Library. The library had already been shut down, We're starting to expand our radius and look for the next visible ones We don't talk about which ones we're targeting publicly while we're doing it because we don't want to Cause more attention focused on the people who you know, we don't need to exploit their situation We We are trying to build relationships build trust and show them we mean what we say. We are putting you into a home. Because our people who are the most chronic, who have been on the streets for the longest, have been disappointed.

They've been made promises that then people haven't kept. so we're having to go in and say, no, this time we mean business and have the money to do it. Do you encounter a lot of people who are unhoused that would be happy to stay that way? No.

the myth of being service resistant is exactly that, a myth. The thing that people prefer is independence. So people prefer to sleep on the streets versus going into a shelter because most shelters have so many rules on what they can and can't do what they can and can't bring and when they have to be there and when they have to go to bed. And we are adults.

We are adults. They just happen to not have a home and don't want to go by somebody else's rules. I get that, So they're going to sleep in a tent on the street until they can figure out what's next for them. Um, you will have some folks who have severe mental disabilities extremely hard to move into a home, to convince them to move into a home.

But it's not because they are preferring to be on the streets. It's a literal disability. Study show a high correlation between cities with a higher cost of living and rates of homelessness. So that's where we're heading if we're not serious about affordable housing.

Direct correlation. you guys are data driven with your coalition if you're watching this, You can see their reams of, paper let's crunch numbers. what are the stats on, the housing that we need in Dallas? I'd go to three sources that have been great recently.

there's no shortage of data. number one is Child Poverty Action Lab. They've done two rental housing needs assessments in the last two years. This year's numbers showed we're short 39, 900.

units for families making less than 50 percent area median income for a family of four. That's 48, 700. many single parent households making around that can't afford or aren't able to find housing where they're not spending more than 30 percent of their income on housing, which makes it really difficult to put food on the table provide health care and afford transportation to a job that may not be in your neighborhood. So that's why we have to create more housing, especially at that 50 percent and below area mean income level.

we do have enough housing for, folks who might be making more than that. But the pressure on the low end means there's a lot of overcrowding, substandard housing, and we don't have enough supply of housing for people of all income levels of all stages of life that lead to rental prices, housing costs, home ownership opportunities being more expensive because there's still a lot of people making more than the area median income. Or, getting their degree from college and starting a family.

Then there's also BC Workshop. They've done a State of Dallas five year comparison report that found that we're short 16, 000 affordable single family homes for people who can afford a home. There's 16, 000 units of housing that we're missing for the home ownership side. we've lost a lot of housing built between 1940 and 1990.

38,642, fewer homes compared to 2016 for families making between 25 and $35,000 a year. And then third is Builders of Hope, anti Displacement toolkit. Looked at numbers from 2012 to, this year and projected to 2032 based on current trends. in 2012, a typical home, for a family earning $42,000 per year could afford 40 per 44% of homes sold that year.

Now they can only afford, with adjusted, inflation to $64,000 per year. Can only afford 12% of homes in 2032. That's projected to be 2%. So we're going down for our typical families making 42, 000, 64, 000, whatever they're projected to make in 2032, 80, 000, but only can afford 2 percent of homes for ownership.

And can we add to that, that income level that we're talking about is really important because when you look at the DFW region, the majority of the people are making about 40, 000 a year. The majority of our population, are service workers and counter workers, or they're working in warehouses, they are the people helping our cities run, right? And if they can't afford to buy or rent their home in this city, then our region is going to start to lose people. We're already seeing people move out.

It's not just about our first responders and teachers anymore, they're This is impacting everybody at all levels, and we have got to start building more affordable home options, whether to purchase or rent it doesn't have to be an apartment or single family home. Not everybody wants to buy a single family home and maintain a yard, but they could purchase a condo if they existed, or a townhome, or a dorm. Duplex, we have to create, different options opportunities and price points.

Just like if you were going to a mall to buy some clothes, we need to be able to go and buy the house that we want and that we can afford. How do we get there? There's been scrutiny from, a developer Maggie Parker, who, is bringing 200 townhomes, To southeast Oak Cliff there's always a line of people concerned about traffic. and these are for sale homes.

everyone was excited that they're for sale. but you're going to have opposition to more housing. Near neighborhoods, um, that makes it difficult for. Developers the city only has so much capacity through their housing programs.

the. Most recent report said they can do maybe half of what's needed in a 10 year period. we need partnerships. However, partners are finding it difficult to build in Dallas.

what's the answer? we're trying to make it easier. we can do is preserve our existing housing stock better, which is Part of the recommendations of the Builders of Hope, anti displacement toolkit, as well as things like rental, legal protections for tenants, property tax relief funds, home repair programs, so people can afford to stay and have the right to stay in their communities. on the building side, we need to make it easier do business with the city, if they're gonna have some sort of subsidy to build affordable housing.

It needs to be financial or regulatory. Those are the two levers that the city of Dallas can pull on. We talked about the financial with the bond, public finance corporations and housing finance corporations that have tax abatements for developers in exchange for affordable housing, and then there's regulatory, things like density bonus programs where we'll allow you to build less parking, to build a higher height, in return you set aside five to twenty percent of your units or homes being built to families making, lower than the median income.

So that's a way that we can, without any cost to the city, build more housing of higher end and get some affordability built into those developments. We're looking at parking code reforms right now. There's opportunities for more building code reforms that would make it easier to build smaller apartment complexes, up to four units, attached townhomes, legalizing missing middle housing. instead of just Large homes on large single family lots or luxury multifamily.

We have that missing middle, uh, of townhomes, duplexes, walk up apartments, many things attached and detached accessory dwelling units that were built pre 1940, but we've had such restrictive zoning requirements put in place since then that we haven't been able to afford or build as much housing what is next for you guys in 2025? if people were not able to go to your Dallas housing summit recently, where they can find that video in those videos. meeting notes. Sure.

right now we're uploading all our summit slides. On November 21st, we attracted over 280 attendees to our housing summit at the Bill J. Preece Center hosted by Dallas College. We had presentations on anti displacement, financing strategies for mixed income development, how do you make the case for housing, including some research with Dallas residents on how to build more support for housing, tenant protections, and housing solutions.

The keynote panel video, recap video are all available on dallashousingcoalition. com. as far as what's coming up we have a state legislature that's convening on January 14th. We are already in contact and starting to work with our state legislators to make them aware of how housing Affordability needs to be addressed at every level, local, state, federal.

building code, parking, and legalizing missing middle housing, reforms. we're going to continue to host events, quarterly, that are open to the public, either free or nominal costs for people to attend. We're looking at doing different community talks. we did that during the bond.

We'd like to bring that back next year so we can have more residents and grassroots neighborhood associations. Thank you Engaged with our coalition, now 270 members free to join, sign up for our emails, but might also be introducing a nominal membership cost and making that accessible to people of all income levels and, company sizes, and then, announcing a full time staff person. So we'll see, hopefully in the next month or two. You got any final thoughts, Ashley?

Well, thank you for joining us. This has been Dallas Dirt. We will see you next time.