DALLAS -- Dallas will give Housing Forward $3 million to secure apartments around the city to make it easier for people experiencing homelessness to move into them.
The Dallas City Council unanimously approved the agreement Wednesday for the nonprofit to use the money to pay for rental application fees, security deposits, incentives for landlords and other efforts meant to lower barriers for people without stable shelter.
Christine Crossley, the city’s homeless solutions director, said Housing Forward would aim to get at least 10 to 15 units a month across different buildings and negotiate 12- to 24-month rental agreements for each. Renters would have the option of staying in the apartments longer than that if they are able.
“If we have this, we have the ability to engage a projected 200 additional landlords and bring on an additional 360 units annually,” Crossley said.
Housing Forward helps oversee homelessness service response in Dallas and Collin counties. The group didn’t respond to a request for comment Wednesday about the agreement.
But the deal caused confusion for some council members because the agenda item was labeled by city officials as a master leasing program. Typically, that involves a city or another entity leasing an entire building or group of apartments, then subleasing those units to tenants. It can be a way to help control rental rates or ensure housing vouchers are accepted.
The City Council approved setting aside $3 million in the budget last year to go toward a master leasing program. Council member Cara Mendelsohn said she felt this program wasn’t what was advertised and duplicated other ongoing efforts to help house people without stable shelter, like Housing Forward offering $1,000 to landlords in exchange for renting their units to people enrolled in the Dallas R.E.A.L. Time Rapid Rehousing program.
“I’m going to vote for it because if you had asked me for more money for rental assistance, I would have said yes,” she said. “But the problem is, we still don’t have a master lease program.”
Mendelsohn said she only got a draft copy of a 180-page contract with Housing Forward on Wednesday morning and asked for the council vote to be delayed until August so the deal can be further vetted. Her motion to delay the vote failed.
Several council members and City Manager T.C. Broadnax said they didn’t believe delaying the vote would be in the best interest of people in need of homes now.
“You can call it what you want,” Broadnax said. “I call it a place for people to be able to stay that work with us and through our program that we’ve touched on the street, and the only thing they’re waiting on is a home and a place to stay.”
Crossley said the city wouldn’t lease a whole building because it may be illegal to concentrate voucher-holding renters in one place.
“The city are not landlords. Housing Forward is not a landlord,” Crossley said. She also said the deal would enable people to rent units in their own name and allow them to build up rental credit.
Deputy City Manager Kim Bizor Tolbert said Wednesday that the R.E.A.L. Time Rapid Rehousing program, a regional effort that started in fall 2021 led by Dallas and Housing Forward to house more than 2,700 homeless people into apartments by this fall, is near its goal.
She said nearly 2,100 people have gotten apartments through the program as of Friday. But, Tolbert said, another 844 people have qualified and are on a waiting list to get housing.
