Wylie Approves Jericho Village, a $7M Housing Complex to Help Collin County Homeless

Thousands of Metroplex residents can’t afford a home, and the civic leaders of a Collin County suburb are taking action. 

The Wylie City Council approved in March a rezoning to allow for Jericho Village, a 38-unit income-based, urban housing complex at 511 Brown St.

Construction of the $7 million complex will be funded in part by a $1 million donation from the Kaleta A. Doolin Foundation. 

Janet Collinsworth, founder and director of Plano-based Agape Resource & Assistance, said Agape aims to raise an additional $750,000 for the project by Sept. 1. 

“While it’s hard to believe that homelessness exists in an affluent area like Collin County, there are women and children who fall on hard times,” she said. “With the help from the foundation and others, we are investing in a future where families in need will have a safe and stable home.” 

Groundbreaking is set for the end of the year, and homes could be leased by the third quarter of 2023. The development is being marketed to “homeless, women-led families” who graduated from Agape’s transitional housing program or otherwise struggle to find a place to live due to the lack of affordable housing. 

More than 85 percent of the women served by Agape Resource & Assistance are victims of abuse, violence, or human trafficking. Rent at Jericho Village will be assessed on a sliding scale based on income, officials said. 

Homeless Solutions 

Metro areas across the U.S. are tackling homelessness with initiatives to prevent unlawful evictions, create affordable housing, and eliminate situations that cause people to become homeless in the first place. 

“In January 2020, there were 580,466 people experiencing homelessness in America,” according to a report issued by the National Alliance to End Homelessness. “Most were individuals (70 percent), and the rest were people living in families with children. They lived in every state and territory, and they reflected the diversity of our country.”

During a recent Dallas City Council meeting, elected officials discussed their concerns about the situation. The city is setting aside $17 million in its $4.51 billion budget for housing and homelessness solutions. There are currently about 4,400 unhoused people in Dallas. 

Christine Crossley, Director of Dallas’s Office of Homeless Solutions, said the city is seeing an increase in homelessness because of high rental rates, inflation, and the after-effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Our shelters do need support in ways we are working on internally, but at the same time, that does not negate the success we have had through the [Dallas Real Time Rapid Rehousing] and the encampment efforts — the commissioning, the cleanings that we’re doing — which are wildly successful in terms of, not only have we reached our goal, we’ve reached it early and we’re still going,” Crossley said. “We do have the path forward, but we also have to look at how we prevent people from coming into homelessness. I don’t think those two negate each other, but we have to acknowledge each piece separately.”

The city’s Homeless Action Response Team responds to emergencies, while other teams respond to service requests, Crossley explained. Code enforcement also is standing up teams to clean areas of the city designated by quadrant. 

“While it is getting better, it takes more movement and more staff to get better,” Crossley said. “We have the big picture in mind. We know where we’re going. You are going to see more activity before we get there. I think the thing we are all focused on is more affordable housing, because we only have so many resources and we’re already working a lot of magic.” 

It Takes A Village 

In Collin County, just 300 beds are available for sheltering the homeless, according to Jericho Village documents. More than 3,000 women and children are turned away each year from area shelters. Extended-stay hotels are being used for temporary housing and have been added to area school bus routes. 

The number of Plano ISD children identified as homeless has increased fivefold since 2009, said Kathy Beazley, who is handling communications for Jericho Village. 

“Recent statistics also show that there are an estimated 6,500 households that are one crisis away from homelessness, and almost 75 percent of these households are women-led,” Beazley said. 

Kaleta Doolin, founder of the contributing foundation, said Jericho Village will help create a long-term solution that specifically benefits women transitioning out of homelessness. 

“The foundation board feels that Jericho Village is a solution to the large and increasing need in the community,” she said. 

The charitable organizations funding Jericho Village recognize the small housing complex is just a drop in the bucket. Collin County has about 1 million residents and about 500 homeless persons, according to a January report from the Collin County Homeless Coalition. 

With limited opportunities for affordable housing, the problem, at times, seems insurmountable. Agape has been in business for eight years, providing life skills, training, and counseling to women. 

According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, North Texas ranks in the top 10 worst metropolitan areas for affordable housing. Their 2020 study showed that Dallas Fort Worth has only 21 affordable and available homes for every 100 low-income renters. Furthermore, a full-time worker has to earn an hourly wage of $25.82 to afford a one-bedroom rental home.

“Jericho Village will be an inclusive, scaled-rent and innovative solution to ending the debilitating lack of economically attainable housing in Collin County,” Collinsworth said. “Building on the success of Agape’s transitional housing program, on-site case workers will help [tenants] gain convenient access to empowerment support services including equitable access and assistance with childcare, transportation, workforce education and training, financial literacy, budgeting, and counseling. By offering mixed-income rental homes and support services, Jericho Village will provide individuals and families with the tools needed to retain or attain economic, emotional and physical stability.”