Moving folks into apartments is a wonderful thing, no doubt about it, but more important I think, and this was definitely a lesson learned both from textbook case study and real life experience with Mercury Court and several other housing developments around the city, is the need - not desire - for long-term case management and wrap around services to support these folks once they're "inside."
Sharon Tillis hits the nail on the head regarding her institutionalization and how to deprogram from it; it's a lot harder than one might think if one has never had to do it.
There is a theory out there that says for every year someone spends in prison, it takes three months to offset once that person has been reintegrated back into society. I don't think it's much of a stretch to say that this also applies to street/camp living and/or extended shelter stays.
Glad some folks in Dallas are going to bed with a roof over their heads tonight.
At affordable-housing units in downtown Dallas, move-in day brings lots of smiles
12:00 AM CST on Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Sharon Tillis had one question before she signed her lease.
JIM MAHONEY/DMN
'I've never had anything like this,' said Martesha Cox on Tuesday as she moved into the mixed-use development with units set aside for low-income residents and the formerly homeless. "I'd been in a shelter for so long living under rules that I've been institutionalized," Tillis said Tuesday as she signed her name countless times on the packet of papers in front of her. "Not having restrictions on visitors, taking a bath, having a meal that you prepared – this is freedom."
Tillis was among the initial round of tenants to move into the city's first mixed-use housing development with units set aside for low-income residents and the formerly homeless.
The 511 Akard St. location sits smack in the middle of downtown Dallas.
Central Dallas Community Development Corp. and partner Central Dallas Ministries engineered the project and will office in the building, along with several other companies and a 7-Eleven convenience store. They hope to have CityWalk completely occupied by February.
The 15-story brick building has been vacant for more than a decade but
will now offer 200 affordable housing units with 50 reserved for the formerly homeless, and an additional six regularly priced condominiums. Cities like Seattle and New York have long had this type of permanent supportive housing. CityWalk is Dallas' first.
"To be in places where you lose your dignity, self-respect and self-worth is hard," Tillis said to her future neighbors clustered inside the small leasing office. She left an abusive marriage to spend the past two years drifting through shelters and living off her disability check.
After 18 months on the CityWalk waiting list, Tillis walked into the leasing office and couldn't stop laughing.
She'd have a place of her own. And her daughter could say she was going home when visiting, Tillis said, a bit more quietly.
"I don't care if there was going to a blizzard, I would have been like Little House on the Prairie dragging my stuff," she said about Tuesday's wintry weather forecast. "This is a place you can be proud to live in. And to be downtown, that's just icing on the cake."
Martesha Cox nodded her head in agreement.
The 24-year-old pursed her lips as she listened to the agent explain the lease. She'd spent almost a year in temporary housing and couldn't recall when she hadn't been transitioning to somewhere else. Her grin appeared in the elevator on the way to her apartment. Her leasing consultant, Arnetta Townsend, helped her turn the key.
"Welcome home, Cox family, welcome home," she said.
Cox circled the room. She wandered in and out of the earth-toned bathroom, peaked at the window view in the kitchen, checked the bathroom again and then collapsed on the bed with an even larger smile.
"Is this real or not?" she asked, looking at cupboards of Tupperware, the baby-blue shower curtain, her plaid-covered bed. "I've never had anything like this."
She placed the key carefully on the night stand. Then she closed the door to her room.
