When Adriana Trejo and her two kids moved into their Dallas apartment, they didn’t need for a moving truck—their furniture consisted of two mattresses and a small sofa. Trejo had saved enough for first and last month’s rent, but the budget left little room for anything else. She was prepared to make do, but then Dwell with Dignity selected her for an HGTV-worthy makeover.
Interior designer Lisa Robison started the nonprofit in 2009 to serve families experiencing homelessness because she believes in the “transformative power” of design. “Oftentimes it’s people who can least afford it who can benefit from it the most,” Robison says.
Dwell with Dignity has since partnered with social services agencies, design firms, retailers, major fundraisers like the Kips Bay Decorator Show House, and more than a thousand volunteers to furnish and decorate three hundred–plus projects. The nonprofit employs two full-time interior designers; one oversees commercial projects that align with their mission (think the waiting room at a community center or a kid’s play area at a women’s shelter), while the other focuses on residential spaces for families like the Trejos.
As in a typical design meeting with a client, the team asked Trejo and her kids questions about their vision for their space, their favorite colors, and their hobbies. Then, in a matter of weeks, Dwell with Dignity turned their three-bedroom apartment into a fully stocked home, complete with custom artwork, flowers on the coffee table, and a month’s worth of food in the pantry. Trejo’s favorite part wasn’t the monogrammed sheets and pillowcases from Peacock Alley or her son’s basketball-themed room (he was so proud he invited all of the neighborhood kids over to see). It wasn’t even having a room all to herself after months of living in a car and transitional housing. Trejo’s favorite part was the dining room table.
“We were able to sit down and have dinner together as a family and talk about our day,” Trejo says. “I didn’t grow up like that and so to be able to do it with my kids—it’s an experience that I’ll never forget.”
Family dinners aren’t the only thing a well-furnished home makes easier. In addition to being a welcoming place to gather for holidays, birthdays, and playdates, it can be the key to ending a cycle. “When it’s just four walls and a roof, it’s easier for someone to fall back into homelessness,” says Teresa Charnock, executive director of Dwell with Dignity. “Let’s say their car breaks down, but they just spent all their money on a mattress. They don’t have the funds to fix the car they use to get to work, so they lose their job and now they can no longer afford rent.” One of the nonprofit’s biggest indicators of success, Charnock adds, is that one hundred percent of the heads of households have remained employed for twelve months following a home installation.
Dwell with Dignity only serves families with children, and adults are required to complete life skills programming through one of the nonprofit’s many social services agency partners. This differs from what’s called a Housing First model. According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness, “Housing First does not require people experiencing homelessness to address all of their problems including behavioral health problems, or to graduate through a series of services programs before they can access housing.” The idea is that with housing taken care of, it’s easier for individuals to focus on other aspects of their lives such as employment or well-being. Proponents argue it’s more efficient and leads to cost savings since housed individuals are less likely to use taxpayer-funded emergency services, such as hospitals.
Houston adopted a Housing First strategy back in 2012—a move that’s reduced the rate of homelessness by 63 percent and attracted the attention of policymakers in states like California. Other cities in Texas have followed suit. Austin is home to Community First! Village, a subdivision of tiny homes founded by nonprofit Mobile Loaves & Fishes, which furthers the Housing First model by cultivating community through on-site amenities such as a ceramics studio and a hydroponic vegetable garden. San Antonio’s approach includes elements of both housing and community building, plus a focus on a very specific subset of design.
In 2021 the City of San Antonio created an executive-level position that only a handful of other cities in the United States have: a chief housing officer. The mayor appointed Mark Carmona, the former president and CEO of Haven for Hope, an innovative one-stop resource center that combines shelter dwellings and social services offices to improve access and efficiency.
“When I got to [Haven for Hope], it was more of a behavior modification approach, and I switched us to more of a trauma-informed, recovery-based approach because the data supported better outcomes,” Carmona says. A big part of that shift was trauma-informed design.
“The physical space is extremely important, especially if somebody has dealt with trauma,” he says. “It’s not just about how we respond and approach an issue but about what the environment looks like. Is it inviting? Do you feel like you’re in a safe space where you can talk to people?”
Trauma-informed design is rooted in a few key principles: collaboration and community, choice and empowerment, safety and trust, and beauty and joy. In practice, this could mean using light or color to create a soothing ambience or having a courtyard that doubles as a green space and a protected respite for those who aren’t yet comfortable sleeping indoors. There’s one principle, however, that is often overlooked in existing housing solutions.
“People in poverty or experiencing homelessness very seldom have a choice,” says Scott Ackerson, director of Social Impact Studio at WestEast Design Group. The San Antonio–based interior design and architecture firm tasked Ackerson, a licensed social worker, with addressing this issue of choice. One of the first decisions the firm made was to not design any traditional congregate shelters.
“Often [as a society] the conversation starts with ‘let’s find an old, cheap building and stick some beds in it and call it a shelter and say that that’s good enough for them,’” says Ackerson, adding that this type of housing can exacerbate trauma. “You never let down your fight-or-flight because you’re living with anywhere from twenty to four hundred other people all having their own issues. As a result, a lot of people won’t access shelters. They’ll stay on the street.”
Like Austin, San Antonio is moving toward a planned community model. Towne Twin Village, built on the site of a former drive-in movie theater, is the city’s first single-site, permanent supportive housing project. It features a mix of apartments, RV trailers, and tiny homes for a previously underserved demographic: individuals fifty years or older who have experienced homelessness for at least a year and have a disability (accessible design features are another key component). Thanks to a partnership with WestEast’s Social Impact Studio and IKEA, Towne Twin Village is also now home to a first-of-its-kind small home, built with trauma-informed design principles in mind.
For over a year, teams iterated on different designs and conducted focus groups with residents. The five-hundred-square-foot home, which cannot be classified as a tiny home since it exceeds four hundred square feet, was installed on-site in October. It’s now a living experiment and could inform how IKEA and other companies provide housing solutions in the future.
“As a society, we often don’t talk to end users about what they want. Instead, we design based on perceived needs versus what their needs actually are,” Ackerson says. In talking to residents, he learned that they preferred a shower-tub combo for the novelty factor (mobile showers are often the only option when living on the streets) and the restorative, healing effect of a bubble bath. Residents also wanted more space to entertain.
There’s also a desire for connection—it’s the same sentiment shared by Trejo, the single mom of two in Dallas, some three hundred miles away. After four years in the Dwell with Dignity–designed apartment, she and her family moved to be closer to Viva La Brow, the salon she now owns in North Dallas. Trejo sometimes volunteers at the nonprofit’s fundraising events, which includes Thrift Studio, an annual designer showcase. She’s even helped with an install for another family.
“I remember that feeling of coming home and just feeling like you could finally breathe. Every day since I’ve looked at life differently,” she says. “Now, we’re in a place where we’re able to help other people, too.”
