Mar 16, 2023- Dallas Business Journal- Plamedie Ifasso Family Gateway president and CEO Ellen Magnis was a little hesitant when Mayor Eric Johnson invited her to join his new task force.
“My first response was, ‘Are you out of your mind?’” Magnis said. “’Are we doing another one of these?’ He and I spent a couple of hours talking about how this would be different than other groups that have come together. He talked about his task force on violent crime, and how it was very specific, very short timeline, very small group and really wanted it to be data driven.”
Magnis is one of the co-chairs for the recently formed task force focused on homelessness organizations, policies and encampments. The group is responsible for analyzing current strategies and giving city and regional leaders a set of recommendations for reducing homelessness.
The mayor provided the co-chairs with a list of 12 questions for the group to answer in its report. The task force has a deadline of June 15 to produce its recommendations and will disband once it completes its work.
“We’ve been given a very specific set of questions to answer,” Magnis said. “He wants solutions that are based on something not just on why don’t we try this? What’s happening somewhere else that we could put here? What are we doing here that’s working that just needs gasoline poured on it, so we can accelerate it in a good way. To me, this is a very small group with a very specific task on a very short timeline.”
Alongside Magnis, Mayor Johnson also appointed Housing Forward chair Peter Brodsky and DHA, Housing Solutions for North Texas board chair Betty Culbreath to lead the task force as co-chairs. The mayor also invited:
- Obie Bussey, Adult Rehabilitation Ministry executive director
- Darilynn Cardona-Beiler, Meadows Mental Health Policy Institute vice president of systems integration and policy implementation
- Judge Glock, director of research and a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute
- Larry Gordon, Downtown Dallas Inc. chief of public safety and field operations
- Ikenna G. Mogbo, Metrocare Services chief housing officer
- Daniel Roby, Austin Street Center CEO
- Dave Woodyard, Catholic Charities Dallas president and CEO
“I’m really proud the mayor selected people who have a vested interest but are not competing for funds,” Culbreath said. “It’s a good commission with some good steady minded people whose only interest is to improve the system.”
The group will meet every Friday, and the first phase of its work is gathering data on what the landscape of homelessness looks like in Dallas. Magnis said the task force will concentrate on the unsheltered and at-shelter populations.
Once the data is collected, the task force plans to invite and interview agencies, analyze existing programs and strategies and identify housing stock availability.
The appointment of the task force comes as Dallas continues its participation in its regional Real-Time Rapid Rehousing program. DRTRR aims to rehouse more than 2,700 individuals. The program is designed to help people obtain housing quickly, connect them to support services and help individuals stay housed. So far, DRTRR has rehoused nearly 2,000 people.
The task force has a lot of work to do, and the city could see a lot of progress if it implements the group’s recommendations, Culbreath said.
“There’s a lot of work, and I know based on the criteria that (the mayor) has set forth and the answers that he wants to, some hard decisions are going to have to be made,” Culbreath said. “The truth is going to have to be told, and that’s what motivated me to get involved. So, some truths could be told, and some methodologies can be changed in order to be successful.” Click here to view the full story.