Today, I talk about homelessness and the pandemic with Carl Falconer and Dawn Gilman.
 
Carl Falconer, a native of South Dakota, is an eight-year U.S. Army veteran. He holds a Bachelor's Degree in Psychology and a Master's Degree in Public Administration from the University of North Florida. Falconer has worked with persons experiencing homelessness and mental illness in the Jacksonville, Florida area since 1994, from street outreach, to emergency shelter, to housing programs, most recently as a Regional Director with Lutheran Services Florida Health Systems, which manages behavioral health care for people facing poverty, in Northeast and North Central Florida. Since late 2018, he has served as President and CEO of the Metro Dallas Homeless Alliance (MDHA), the Federally designated lead agency of Dallas and Collin Counties’ homeless response system. Notably, he has already led the system in reversing a multi-year trend of rising homelessness. His D-ONE Plan plots the course to ending homelessness in Dallas.
 
Dawn Gilman joined the Changing Homelessness team in 2007 and has served as CEO since 2009. Under Mrs. Gilman’s leadership, Changing Homelessness has grown from a single employee into an agency employing more than 33 staff members. This growth has increased both capacity and funding to end homelessness in northeast Florida. The agency currently has a $6.4 million budget with approximately $4 million as pass through to sub-grantees. This funding provides housing, case management, prevention, and other supportive services to end homelessness. The community has seen an 80% decrease in Veterans Homelessness, 57% in chronic homelessness, and a 30% decrease in overall homelessness from 2009 to 2018.