WHAT IS DALLAS AREA INTERFAITH?

Dallas Area Interfaith (DAI) is a multi-ethnic, multi issue organization of 60 religious congregations in the Dallas metropolitan area. The purpose of DAI is to give ordinary citizens a structure through which they can negotiate effectively with the government and private institutions that affect their lives. DAI is the vehicle through which member congregations act in the interest of families and local communities, helping these congregations become an effective force for promoting faith values and democratic traditions. The organization draws its strength from its diversity. The member institutions cut across racial, denominational and economical lines. DAI is Hispanic, African American, Anglo and Asian; it is the only organization of its kind in Dallas engaged in public life.

DAI’s mission is to engage both public and elected officials in conversations and actions in order to bring about change. The main focus of the organization is to find and develop the talent of institutional leaders through a process of individual meetings, house meetings, research actions and assemblies designed to give local talent the public space to bring about systematic change within neighborhoods and communities.

Past successes of the organization include:

Leadership Development

The primary interest of DAI is recreating the relationships between communities, families and individuals, thus reweaving the social fabric of our civic life. Acting on issues serves as a focus for the building of leadership and public relationships. DAI, first and foremost, is a learning institution, a mini-University, where people learn the art of citizenship and civic culture; the art of building relationships that reach deeply into neighborhoods and that reach widely across the city and its diversity. Thousands of leaders have been trained by DAI.

Education

DAI partnered with the City of Dallas and Dallas Independent School District (DISD) to create and then later to increase funding for after school programs throughout the school district. In 1994, no public funds supported after school programs in Dallas. By the beginning of school year 1998, almost $3.85 million dollars of public money was being invested in after school funding for all DISD schools.

DAI initiated Alliance Schools (partnership of the local campus, school district and Texas Education Agency) within Dallas County. DAI, along with its sister organizations from around the state, increased the state supported grant money available for Alliance Schools from $8 million to $14 million over the biennium and will seek to maintain the funding at $10 million during the 2005 legislative session. Dallas Area Schools have received over $750,000 in grants from this source of funding.

In November 2001, DAI held a major assembly with over 1600 leaders and Dr. Mike Moses, past Superintendent of DISD Schools. This assembly not only kicked off the $1.37 billion dollar school bond, but also gave parents the power to imagine what a relationship with the school district could be. Parents who had never spoken in public addressed both the superintendent and school board members. DAI organized a Get Out The Vote campaign; the school bond passed by 78%. Based on this success and the relationship with Dr. Moses, leaders continued to organize in order to sustain the change. DAI held Parent Academies with over 1,000 parents who learned how to engage in their child’s education.

ESL/Citizenship

The Hispanic population of Dallas County doubled in the last ten years to 545,000. Many immigrants in DAI congregations and schools have been interested in becoming U.S. citizens. Before DAI began organizing an active citizenship strategy, Citizenship and ESL classes were under publicized and underutilized. The number of adults learning English and Citizenship in DAI churches and schools has almost doubled. Over 21 classes are conducted in DAI member communities with over 1,000 participants per semester. DAI was also instrumental in getting an additional local INS office opened to help facilitate and accelerate the processing of those immigrants applying for legal status.

Housing/Infrastructure

DAI, with Bank of America and the City of Dallas, created the funding to build affordable homes in South Dallas. The City set aside $450,000 for soft second mortgages (dramatically reducing the long-term cost of a house) and Bank of America created a fund of $3.5 million for mortgages. Thus far fifty (50) new homes have been built.

DAI worked with low-income families being displaced by regentrification to identify sources of relocation money. Holy Cross Catholic Church developed a series of actions designed to improve neighborhood regeneration and neighborhood policing. Teacher and parent leaders at the Martin Luther King Learning Center succeeded in demolishing a neighboring abandoned property that had presented a hazard to their children for many years.

At the neighborhood level DAI worked successfully for the Grauwyler Recreation Center in the Love Field area, the funding for Exline Recreation Center in Old East Dallas and other improvements such as street repair, drainage, cross walks, sidewalks and neighborhood policing. Because of DAI, millions of dollars have been leveraged for neighborhood development.

Living Wages

DAI designed, initiated, implemented, and completed an experimental job training strategy to train and employ individuals seeking living wage, high-skilled employment with training and jobs that offered a career path. DAI successfully placed over 250 participants in jobs that paid an average of $10.13 per hour which was $1.13 above the target.

Recent successes of the organization include:

Education

Rosemont Elementary in Oak Cliff, working in collaboration with St. Cecilia’s Catholic Church, held public meetings with school board members and elected officials about education issues in their community. The school district agreed to increase the pre-kindergarten classes and spaces from 50 children to 360 children, from only a.m. classes to both a.m. classes and p.m. classes, and from one classroom to seven classrooms.

Congregational leaders succeeded in having repairs, renovations and improvements done at the bathroom facilities at 10 DAI designated schools in DISD.

DISD committed to work with DAI to create and fund special classes to prepare High School students to take the SAT test in the following High Schools: Samuels, Spruce, Molina, Pinkston, Sunset, South Oak Cliff, and Skyline. DISD also committed to conducting educational sessions for Middle School parents to educate and inform them on the college bound curriculum that is offered in all of the DISD Middle Schools. Finally, DISD committed to establish the professional development necessary for counselors and high school personnel so that they are better prepared with information for college bound students and their parents.

English as a Second Language (ESL) Classes

DAI congregations again registered over 1,000 adults for English as a Second Language, citizenship, and high school completion classes. These classes are held in DAI congregations throughout the Dallas area.

Get-Out-The-Vote

Leaders organized a Get-Out-The-Vote drive for the November 2, 2004 election. With over 70 walkers each Saturday in October, DAI reached over 5,000 homes and had conversations with over 5,000 people.

Health Care

Parkland Hospital

In the Spring of 2004, DAI fought to make the meetings of the Board of Managers of Parkland Hospital, the public hospital in Dallas, more open to the public. These meetings, in which decisions about severe budget and service cuts were made, were being held in executive sessions away from public input and participation. The DAI action helped lead to the resignation of four board members restricting public participation. Meetings are now conducted openly and publicly.

Collin County Indigent Care

Over 250 leaders from 16 congregations in Collin County attended an accountability session about indigent health care for candidates for the County Commissioner’s Court. In September 2004, Collin County Interfaith (CCI), a cluster of DAI, also organized a major discussion about regional health care issues with Dr. Ron Anderson, CEO of Parkland Hospital, as the keynote speaker. As a result of CCI pressure, the Collin County Commissioners doubled the indigent eligibility standards for access to county health services from 25% of the federal poverty level to 50%. CCI continues to press for a regional solution to health care issues.

4/17/05