Jason Vallejo, right, is director of Dallas Hope Charities, and Cline Taplin, left, is the new nonprofit’s development director. (David Taffet/Dallas Voice)
Church creates nonprofit wing and hires staff to operate its charitable work
DAVID TAFFET | Senior Staff Writer
taffet@dallasvoice.com
Cathedral of Hope senior pastor the Rev. Neil Cazares-Thomas announced at the church’s Sunday, Aug. 12 services that the church’s new Dallas Hope Charities has opened a shelter for homeless LGBT youth.
The shelter is among several projects Dallas Hope Charities is now operating. Those projects include BACH — Breakfast at Cathedral of Hope — that feeds several hundred people every Saturday, which just marked its 10-year anniversary. On Mondays BACH provides a hot lunch and then sends attendees home with a bag of groceries.
For a number of years, church members have been tutoring students across the street at Maple Lawn Elementary School through another of CoH’s programs. And at the start of each year, the church holds a school supply drive for the students at Maple Lawn.
But now these programs have spun off into an organization called Dallas Hope Charities that is also tackling the problem of homeless youth.
The church has been looking at a way to address LGBT youth homelessness for a while, but after last winter’s youth homeless count, CoH officials knew they needed to act fast. City officials counted about 200 homeless youth on the streets of Dallas last winter, and more than a quarter of them identified as LGBT. Another 13 percent refused to identify.
And that total count doesn’t include youth who were “couch-surfing,” who were living somewhere indoors, but without stable shelter or who were in parks or on streets and simply missed.
Jason Vallejo is the new director of Dallas Hope Charities. He said plans for the shelter began when they found a trans kid in need of housing and identified a property they could use to provide that shelter.
“Things are falling into place,” Vallejo told Dallas Voice about a month before the announcement. “The dream is to have a drop-in center with access to resources” that could be turned into a dorm at night.
But to start, Vallejo said, they’ve secured a property with two beds.
The shelter has a house manager. A counselor will offer support, and a case manager will provide guidance, working with the youth to set weekly goals. Youth at the shelter will be mentored on things like filling out applications and learning how to budget.
For now, the shelter is for LGBT youth 18 and older, and the commitment between Dallas Hope Charities and participating youth is for one year. The property owner gifted the church three months free rent, and the shelter is staffed by volunteers.
Once a youth at the shelter has a job, they’ll be required to put 20 percent of their earnings into savings and help pay for food. Trans youth will get help with changing gender markers and obtaining correct ID.
Cline Taplin, development director for Hope Charities, said operating the organization as a nonprofit separate from Cathedral of Hope makes it easier to find funding beyond the church. So far, he’s writing grants, looking for individual donors and working with corporate donors to help fund the shelter and other projects.
Some funds are already coming in: Park Cities Ford, located adjacent to the church on Inwood Road, will make a $40 donation to the youth shelter for every person who takes a test drive on Oct. 17. Big Al’s Smokehouse BBQ, next door to the dealership, will donate of portion of its proceeds that day as well.
In addition, the organization has been approved as a partner with the North Texas Food Bank. That will help feed youth at the shelter as well as hundreds of people who come to BACH for Saturday lunch.
As for the location of the shelter, Cazares-Thomas said, “In a perfect world, the shelter would be on [the CoH] campus.” And eventually it may be.
He said DHC is talking to Resource Center about the possibility of jointly building senior housing as well in a space along Cedar Springs Road between Resource Center and Cathedral of Hope. He said the Los Angeles LGBT center has a program that brings seniors and youth together that benefits both groups.
Cathedral of Hope is coming up on its 50th anniversary, and Cazares-Thomas said he wants that to be a significant milestone.
“What do our values tell us to do?” he asked. “How can we be relevant in the world today?”
He said his goals include paying off any debt the church has and beginning an endowment for future generations. He said Dallas Hope Charities’ goal is to have an impact beyond the worship community and benefit Dallas and beyond.
Vallejo said, “This will be the first entirely LGBT-focused shelter in Dallas.” Promise House shelters quite a few LGBT youth and has one house that is LGBT-specific. He said San Antonio has an LGBT shelter and Lucy’s Place in Little Rock is for LGBT youth. Ali Forney Center in New York shelters as many as 500 LGBT youth in houses scattered around the city.
Vallejo seemed to be the perfect fit for church officials looking for someone to head up the new nonprofit. Vallejo said he empathizes with youth who are suddenly unwanted by their families and unwelcome in their community.
He explained that he was the outreach pastor at a megachurch in South Texas. But when he met his husband at church and came out, “I no longer had a job,” he said.
Vallejo said he visited Cathedral of Hope five years ago. It was during that visit that he and his husband were able to take communion together for the first time. They moved here two years ago when his husband got a job as development planner for the city of Murphy.
Vallejo’s goal for Dallas Hope Charities is to serve more and more people. Last year, the church served 20,000 meals and gave away 5,600 bags of groceries. By the halfway point this year, they had served more than 13,000 meals.
The meals program is expanding beyond BACH. Taste of Hope now prepares meals and takes them to people living on the streets. So far they’ve served 200 meals that way.
And one of the church’s oldest projects — the AIDS Crisis Fund, which dates back to the mid-1980s — is still operating. It’s an emergency fund for church members affected by HIV that might help pay a utility bill or for car repairs, especially when that church member is dealing with a sudden health crisis.
Vallejo stressed that Dallas Hope Charities is doing nothing that competes with other, already established, organizations. When one youth leaves Promise House, another quickly fills the bed. He said his shelter is simply adding a few beds hoping to get a couple of the more than 200 homeless youth off the street.
