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Dallas City Council OKs deal for project to house homeless LGBTQ youths

The Dallas City Council approved a deal Wednesday to accept $10 million from Dallas County to revamp a city-owned hotel for regional housing and supportive services for young adults who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer without stable homes.

The agreement would see the county commit $6.5 million in federal COVID-19 relief money to renovate the former TownHouse Suites in southern Dallas near Duncanville and $3.5 million to pay for programs like workforce training and financial education to help future residents.

In exchange, the hotel site would accept LGBTQ residents between 18 and 24 from around Dallas County who earn below 30% of the area median income.

According to data from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, that’s an annual income of no more than $20,450 for one person in the Dallas metro area and $23,400 for two people.

The City Council in February approved spending $5 million in bond money to buy the 108-room extended stay hotel to turn into housing for people experiencing homelessness. The site is near Red Bird Mall and sits off a stretch of West Camp Wisdom Road that has several sets of strip malls with restaurants, auto stores and other businesses.

County commissioners plan to discuss whether to sign off on the deal in August.

The specifics on the project are still up in the air. Deputy City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert and Christine Crossley, the city’s homeless solutions office director, told the council that the city would have to put out a request for proposals for a nonprofit or other groups looking to manage a youth homeless facility and later bring that plan back to the City Council for approval.

Tolbert said they may be able to update the council on the scope of the project by the end of August.

“What we are talking about here is just the foundation of what can become this project,” Crossley said. “This is the scaffolding. It’s not any particular, specific endorsement of anybody for the project.”

She said the latest point-in-time count found around 150 people experiencing homelessness who identify as LGBTQ over a two-week period earlier this year in Dallas and Collin counties.

She said Promise House, which serves homeless and at-risk youth, over a period of eight months found 650 young adults looking for housing and 45 identified as LGBTQ. She said there are many who don’t feel comfortable or safe going to shelters.

“We know they’re out there, we just need to create more space for them to come to where they feel safe to engage with us,” Crossley said.

City officials have discussed creating a shelter or housing for homeless LGBTQ youth for several years. The city put out a request for information in April to get input from nonprofits and other groups on designing a housing facility for that population.

The request period closed last month. The project description said the city has $6 million in funding to support a real estate development project focused on helping homeless LGBTQ young adults. Tolbert said that plan could be incorporated with the TownHouse Suites site.

Council member Cara Mendelsohn voted against the proposal, arguing it was an underdeveloped plan. She suggested the city use excess sales tax money to begin renovating the hotel while the council’s housing and homelessness committee further vet the proposal. She also questioned whether Dallas should be responsible for solving the brunt of homelessness around Dallas County.

“You have to understand how completely frustrating it is that you’re asking us to agree to accept $3.5 million with no details,” Mendelsohn said to Tolbert and Crossley. “You don’t have the number of beds. You don’t have what the performance measures or the goals would be. This is not ready for us to be viewing it.”

Council member Gay Donnell Willis also said she’d be in favor of delaying the approval of the agreement so the city can flesh out more details, but the majority of the council disagreed.

Several council members said they were concerned that delaying the agreement could push back when more services can be delivered for LBGTQ youth experiencing homelessness.

“We can’t keep kicking the can down the road,” said council member Tennell Atkins, who represents the area the hotel is in. He said the city is paying for security at the site.

City Manager T.C. Broadnax said there often is a concern that the city isn’t doing enough to help people experiencing homelessness. He said there’s more urgency to help homeless young adults and children because they aren’t as visible as other populations.

He said the agreement would allow the city to secure funding for the project while continuing to vet and plan what is put on the grounds.

“At the end of the day, we’ve got homeless people in this community,” Broadnax said. “Anything we can do to support and put resources into that ecosystem is what we need to do.”

Also Wednesday:

Council member Carolyn King Arnold was elected by the council to serve as mayor pro tem and Omar Narvaez as deputy mayor pro tem.

The mayor pro tem assumes the responsibilities of the mayor in their absence. The deputy mayor pro tem is next in line.

Both terms last one year, and new picks will be selected on inauguration day of the next City Council in June 2023.

The council last year approved shortening the terms from two years to allow more people to serve in those roles and approved making the election process public.

Arnold is the first woman appointed to either position on the Dallas council since Monica Alonzo was elected mayor pro tem in 2015 and the first Black woman to hold either pro tem roles since Charlotte Mayes was selected as deputy mayor pro tem in the mid-’90s.

The selections also marked a departure from an unwritten city council rule since the ’90s where a white, Black and Hispanic elected official held the positions of mayor, mayor pro tem and deputy mayor pro tem.

As expected, the council also approved code changes to allow for the return of electric scooter rentals to the streets of Dallas by this fall.

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