Meet Texas Appleseed: Introducing AIGA Austin’s 2018 Changemaker Series Change Organizations
The AIGA Austin Changemaker Series is excited to announce its 2018 Changemaker Organizations: Foundation for the Homeless, LifeWorks Austin and Texas Appleseed.
With our inaugural ATX Changemaker Series challenge focusing on “How we might better serve the homeless population in the Austin area,” we set out to partner with these inspiring nonprofits and change organizations that serve the homeless and seek to end this cause within the near future.
Before the Change Organizations join us at our Weekend Workshop on June 9th, and collaborate with teams of creative professionals on a three month project to help advance their missions, we wanted to get to know them a bit more.
Texas Appleseed
Texas Appleseed is an organization that promotes social and economic justice for all Texans by leveraging the skills and resources of volunteer lawyers and other professionals to identify practical solutions to difficult, systemic problems.
Texas Appleseed’s short-term goal for youth homelessness is to develop a strong multimedia campaign that raises the visibility of the issue statewide. Motivating key groups like the faith community, public housing authorities, school leaders, and local employers will help bring attention to the problem, call for changes in policies and practices, and help the public understand the complexity and importance of the issue.
— Brett Merfish, Youth Justice Director
By participating in the Changemaker Series, Texas Appleseed hopes to bring awareness to their homeless youth project, have the tools they need to rally the media, the general public, and decision makers around the issue, and ultimately end youth homelessness altogether.
Q&A with the Texas Appleseed
What communities does your organization serve? (families, youth, vets, etc.)
Texas Appleseed is a public interest justice center. Our nonprofit works to change unjust laws and policies that prevent Texans from realizing their full potential. Texas Appleseed conducts data-driven research that uncovers inequity in laws and policies and identifies solutions for lasting, concrete change.
To accomplish change, we rely on a dynamic network of pro bono partners and collaborators to develop and advocate for innovative and practical solutions to complex issues. The many issues on which we work are united by the goal of greater justice. When justice is beyond reach, Texas Appleseed provides the ladder for all Texans.
Right now, what’s the biggest hurdle in the way of your mission? What are your biggest frustrations?
Our biggest hurdle with respect to youth homelessness is increasing public understanding behind the causes of youth homelessness and understanding their unique needs, specifically how critical trusted adults are in helping them find stability and transition into adulthood.
One frustration is that there is currently no accurate count of homeless youth due to a persistent undercounting of how many youth are homeless, which results in a lack of services. The undercounting is because many youth hide out of fear for their safety and do not self-identify as homeless because of the real or perceived stigma.
In addition, there are not necessarily incentives to establish an accurate count of youth experiencing homelessness. Schools are best positioned to identify homeless youth, but they lack incentives to do so and do not uniformly report the number of homeless students.
What do you wish the public knew about your work, your cause or about the people you serve?
Homeless youth fly under the radar in Texas. This lack of visibility and public awareness means many youth do not have the necessary resources and access to help. To this day, the Texas Legislature has never allocated funds specifically targeted at youth who are homeless, leaving most direct service providers are overwhelmingly over capacity and underfunded.
Schools also lack incentives to accurately count homeless youth, contributing to students’ lack of resources and underfunding. During the ‘14-’15 school year, Texas school districts identified 113,294 students as homeless. Nearly 16,000 were unaccompanied by a parent or guardian. The real number is probably far higher. A recent study estimates the number of unaccompanied Texas youth aged 13 to 24 to be closer to 400,000 a year.
Due to the undercounting of homeless youth, there are disjointed policy and funding approaches that have failed to move the needle in Texas. Youth who have a stable, permanent address have access to a grid of services and resources which are supposed to support their health, well-being, and positive participation in the community.
An address gives youth access to the school system, employment, and housing. Youth who are homeless, on the other hand, face barriers in all of these systems.
We wish the public knew the true extent of youth homelessness in Texas and how this currently invisible, but sizeable, population can be helped. We also wish the public could see that these youth are just kids without traditional support systems.
How do you overcome the many myths and misconceptions that exist about homelessness?
There are several ways to attempt to overcome the myths and misconceptions that exist about homelessness. First, it is important to allow individuals who have experienced or are currently experiencing homelessness to tell their stories and dispel any myths by relaying their own stories. It also works because people connect more to the issue through personal stories than data and statistics alone.
Many youth experiencing homelessness have dealt with many forms of trauma, including the experience of being homeless itself. Having a more complete picture of the obstacles these youth faced before and while experiencing homelessness helps people not view these youth as “bad kids.”
When you force people to think back to themselves at 16 or 17 and ask them how they might have reacted to a similar situation, it helps them let go of any misconceptions.
What’s the problem-solving process like at your organization? How much room is there for creativity and out-of-the-box thinking in your organization’s decision making?
We work together with one another to identify and define a problem. That might mean bringing in experts, gathering data and information ourselves, and discussing it as a group to come to a solution. Creativity and out-of-the-box thinking are encouraged; we have not yet implemented a Design Thinking method, but we are certainly open to it.
Have you worked with designers before? If so, what was the overall experience like and is there anything you wish designers would do differently or you would do differently?
We worked with AIGA on our I Heart Justice event to create posters promoting and raising awareness about our work. Our collaboration with AIGA allowed us to reach a different and wider audience, rather than just the legal community. We found it to be helpful and hope to continue that partnership.
If only one thing was to come out of this experience for the benefit of your organization, what would you want that to be?
We would like to have a wider audience of people who understand the experience of being young and homeless in Texas. And, of course, continuing to work with AIGA!
To learn more and connect with Texas Appleseed:
Have more questions about the AIGA Austin Changemaker Series?
Email us at changemaker@austin.aiga.org. Following @AIGAAustin on social media or join our Changemaker Series email list to stay in the loop.
