‘She’s a Force For Good’: Housing Advocate Ashley Brundage Tapped to Lead Dallas Habitat for Humanity

A well-known housing advocate is taking her talents to Dallas Habitat for Humanity.

Ashley Brundage takes the reins May 13 as the organization’s chief executive officer. 

Brundage has worked for United Way of Metropolitan Dallas for almost two decades and most recently made headlines as the founding board chair of Dallas Housing Coalition, which fought for $200 million in bond funds to provide affordable housing for all residents. 

Ashley Sheetz, chair of the Dallas Area Habitat for Humanity board of directors, said she’s thrilled Brundage is joining the team. 

“She is a force for good with a proven track record of convening groups, building strong teams, and leading with collaboration and innovation,” Sheetz said. “She is the exact person we need to take our organization into its next phase of growth and impact.”

Dallas Habitat For Humanity

Brundage said she spent the past several years building up her advocacy profile. When the job at Habitat was posted, it “hit all the right notes,” she said. 

“I wanted to explore it further to take housing and my career to the next level,” she said. “Every time I talked to the board and the search committee, I got more and more excited about the opportunity.” 

Dallas Habitat helped launch the Dallas Housing Coalition as one of its first donors. The DHC split off and became its own nonprofit. Brundage will continue as board chair.  

The new Dallas Habitat CEO said her passion for ending homelessness by providing affordable housing doesn’t stem from a personal experience, but rather she sees it as a social justice issue and a racial equity issue. 

“Since I started my career, which was actually with United Way Tarrant County, I was immediately involved in the work around ending homelessness with their Continuum of Care,” she said. “I could never really understand why folks weren’t pairing ending homelessness with building more housing and more affordable housing. I kind of pushed forward on that fight for the last 19 years around why it’s important to have affordable housing. That’s the only way we will ever end homelessness in our community.” 

Working for Habitat will give her a different platform to address Dallas’ affordable housing crisis, Brundage said. 

“Instead of using housing as a foundation to [achieve] the goals United Way had in education and community health, I can really take it to the next level and do different development projects,” she said. “I can help Habitat think beyond the single-family home and how we as an organization can step further into advocacy with our voice as a leading organization addressing the affordable housing crisis.” 

Housing in Dallas

A CandysDirt.com reporter spoke to Brundage on Friday after she’d already talked to several news outlets about her new gig. 

“You ask different questions,” she said with a laugh. 

We wanted to know if she’ll continue to work on the 2024 bond, which goes before Dallas voters on May 4, and what she thinks about the ForwardDallas comprehensive land use plan. 

The DHC has moved into a “Get Out the Vote” space in advocating for all 10 bond propositions. 

Bryan Tony, another founding member of the DHC, pointed out last week that while $26.4 million is slated for the Housing proposition (Prop H), advocates also are supporting an additional $36.6 million in the Economic Development proposition (Prop G), designated for projects in support of housing. 

“Combined, we perceive the total allotment being dedicated to housing purposes as $63 million,” Tony told CandysDirt.com. “As a coalition, we will be holding the City accountable to the best, most efficient, and equitable uses of those dollars, particularly in the Eco Dev proposition, to ensure we are providing units for the households who need it most with lower [Area Median Income].”

As for the ForwardDallas comprehensive land use plan, Brundage said she’s supportive of the planning process.

“I think it’s important for us to think about our future as a city,” she said. “As different opportunities start to arise in different communities that will impact what they look like, the planning document will help guide those decisions. It’s unfortunate that there’s a lot of misunderstanding around what ForwardDallas is and that, once passed, it’s going to trigger a bunch of changes in the community. That’s not true.”

Addressing Affordable Housing

In addition to her work with United Way, Brundage also held leadership roles with Dallas Rental Assistance Collaborative, which provided $40 million in rental assistance to over 7,500 families, and North Texas Cares, a collaborative effort that distributed $58.7 million in grants to more than 1,000 nonprofits across 16 counties. 

She knows her way around an affordable housing crisis and says there’s no silver-bullet solution.

“I think we have to look at the various tools that we have to impact affordability across the community,” she said. “One is just increasing supply across the board, from market rate to affordable housing to deeply affordable housing. We need the full spectrum of options for folks so people can get into a home they can afford with their income. I think we need to see a lot more government subsidies for deeply affordable housing. We just need more money.” 

Deeply affordable housing at 30 or 40 percent of the Area Median Income “is not something that pencils out when you’re putting a deal together unless there’s some sort of subsidy to fill that gap,” Brundage said. 

“We need the bond funding,” she said. “We need vouchers. We need Rapid Rehousing. We need all those different subsidies. We also need philanthropic funding.” 

Fundraising will be an integral part of Brundage’s role as CEO for Dallas Habitat, and with the connections she’s made over the past 19 years, she’s already off to a great start. 

“By listening to and working alongside communities, nonprofits, donors, and corporate and public partners, the Dallas Habitat team and I look forward to serving our mission and our families,” Brundage said.