Dallas Commission on Homelessness Charrettes

The Dallas Commission on Homelessness tapped community engagement firm Public City to gather qualitative feedback on perceptions around homelessness by members of the Dallas community.  

Public  City  facilitated  four  charrettes  around  Dallas.  Community  charrettes are forums  created  using  a  design  thinking  methodology and  stem  from  a  concept  borrowed  from  the  world  of  architecture  and  urban  planning.  Typically, a  charrette  is  a  short,  collaborative  event  in  which  many  stakeholders  work  together  to  tackle  a  problem  shared  by  the  community.  The  word  charrette  is  French  for  cart  (or  chariot)  and  refers  to  the  cart  that  would  come  by  to  pick  up  architecture  students’  work  before  exhibition  at  l’Ecole  des  Beaux-Arts.  The  story  goes  that  some  students  would  hop  onto  the  cart  together  in  an  intense  sprint  to  the  deadline  and  were  said  to  be  working  en  charrette.  

The  goal of these charrettes  in  this  instance  was  to  elicit  responses  around  individual sentiment  towards  homelessness.  The  charrette  was co-designed  by  SMU’s  Director  of  Innovation  Kate  Canales and  Public  City,  and  took participants  through  a  series  of  exercises  to  offer  qualitative  feedback  to  the  Commission on  perceptions.