THE HELPING HAND INITIATIVE

THE HELPING HAND INITIATIVE

To

The Dallas Chamber of Commerce

For

Business Gives Back Competition 2015

Presented by:
Chad Smith Asif Sayeed
Jose Sanchez Harold Park

1 | Page
 December 4, 2015

Table of Contents
1. INTRODUCTION.................................................................................................. 3
1.1 Objective of Proposal..................................................................................... 3
1.2 Why in Dallas?............................................................................................... 3
1.3 The Effects of the Proposal............................................................................4
1.4 Summation of the Proposal............................................................................ 4
2. BACKGROUND.................................................................................................... 6
2.1 Demographics................................................................................................ 7
2.2 Economic Cost to the City of Dallas...............................................................8
3. Proposal........................................................................................................... 10
3.1 ABC.............................................................................................................. 10
3.2 ABC.............................................................................................................. 10
3.3 ABC.............................................................................................................. 10
4. Staffing............................................................................................................. 11
4.1 ABC.............................................................................................................. 11
4.2 ABC.............................................................................................................. 11
4.3 ABC.............................................................................................................. 11
5. BUDGET............................................................................................................ 12
5.1 ABC........................................................................................................... 12
5.2 ABC........................................................................................................... 12
5.3 ABC........................................................................................................... 12
6. AUTHORIZATION.............................................................................................. 13
6.1 ABC.............................................................................................................. 13
6.2 ABC.............................................................................................................. 13
6.3 ABC.............................................................................................................. 13
References............................................................................................................. 14
1. INTRODUCTION

1.1 Objective of Proposal

We, as representatives of Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. are partnering-up with

Salvation Army, to lend a helping hand to the homeless in the City of Dallas.
Chipotle is a chain of restaurants that is headquartered in Denver, Colorado
and also boasts international presence. By 2013, Chipotle had over 1,700
locations in the U.S. and had a staff of over 45,000 people, as reported in a
2015 CNN report. Salvation Army is a Christian denominational church and an
international charitable organization, with reported membership of over 1.5
million people.
This proposal, intended for the Dallas Chamber of Commerce, consists of

A year-long plan for food drives

Donations (of a certain fraction) of all collections from gift cards spent
towards this program
Both these plans directly benefit the homeless shelters in the Dallas area.
This proposal has the prospect to help the City of Dallas by adding funds to
their homeless budget from the donations (of the gift card collections), and
also freeing-up some of their resources that would have been used to feed
the homeless; as the food drives would mean that the freed-up resources of
the City can now be used elsewhere to help the homeless in Dallas.

1.2 Why in Dallas?

We at Chipotle feel that its our responsibility to take care of the people who
do not have a shelter over their head or do not know where their next meal is
coming from. In Dallas, the presence of homeless can be felt by anyone who
frequents the downtowns or some other specific areas of the city. We want to
bridge that gap between homeless and the better-off people, who have their
basic human needs of shelter and food secured. Since we conceived this idea
at our regional quarterly meeting, we thought we would kick start this as a
regional program to help the homeless in Dallas. Dallas, being one of the
major cities in the U.S. also boasts a significant number of members active in
the Salvation Army, which contributed to our decision. The successful
implementation of this plan relies heavily on the involvement of the Salvation
Army.
 If this program proves successful then we would be given a Public Relations
(PR) boost and would then be able to expand to other cities in TX, and
eventually may be able to run this program nationwide. Chipotle takes pride
in all its philanthropic endeavors. We have many philanthropic programs
around the nation which not only benefit the people of those cities but also
help our business in gaining a good relationship with our customers. The
Dallas Chamber of Commerce can do further research on our active
community involvements and be rest assured that we take all our charitable
programs quite seriously. (Further reasons to Why in Dallas? would be clear
in Section 2.2)

1.3 The Effects of the Proposal

We are confident that the City of Dallas would be able to feel the direct
effects of this program. Not only would this program provide the homeless
with food from the food drives, the proposed gift card spending by consumers
at any of the Chipotle stores within the Dallas area would contribute towards
a fund for the homeless. From this gift-card fund, we expect to keep 50% to
cover our additional operating costs that we would incur once we use up
initial investment from the Dallas Chamber of Commerce. We would then be
able to thrive on that 50% gift-card regular collections, while strictly donating
the other 50% of the fund to the homeless.
It is estimated that a person will donate about 5 pounds of food on average,
with 1 can equivalent to 1 pound of food. USDA estimates that 1.2 pounds of
food is a meal. Since Chipotle would be taking over the duty of feeding a lot
of the homeless with estimated donations of food, the city would be free to
spend the homeless meal money elsewhere like to help improve services that
may provide daycare, work training, or even rehabilitation for alcohol and
drug abuse. Dallas has about 20 homeless shelters out of which only 10 serve
as actual shelters for short-term stays. Upon donation of 5 cans, customers
would automatically receive a $5 gift card to Chipotle. When spent, the City
of Dallas would get an additional $2.5 per gift-card towards the citys
homeless budget.
If proven successful and implemented on a permanent basis, the city could
be receiving funds and the homeless could be receiving canned foods from
this program for the foreseeable future, which could relieve some of the citys
resources, and further help to curb the homelessness problem in Dallas.
1.4 Summation of the Proposal

Chipotles The Helping Hand Initiative aims to create a feasible plan to take
care of the homeless in the area by picking up a portion of the cost the city
spends on the homeless. With this program, Chipotle would be picking up the
cost of feeding some of the homeless people in Dallas, by virtue of all the
canned foods collected from customers, which would be distributed by the
Salvation Army. Furthermore, customers would be receiving $5 gift cards
when they reach the 5-can floor required to obtain a gift card. Half the
proceeds from the collection of these gift cards would go straight to the city
towards their homeless budget, which the City of Dallas can spend (towards
homelessness) however they see fit. If implemented properly and upon
proving successful, this program has the potential to relieve the city off some
of its responsibilities, as we are very confident that our partnership with
Salvation Army will provide more than satisfactory results.
2. BACKGROUND
Homelessness in Dallas has been prevalent for a long time, just like other
major cities in the U.S. The homeless gather around the Downtown District
(DD) since its where most of the service providers are located. The city
suffers not only from social problems but also from economic problems as a
result of homelessness.
2.1 Demographics

A 2014 Point-in-Time Homeless Count and Census by the Metro Dallas

Homeless Alliance (MDHA) gives us some interesting statistics on the
homeless. These statistics are straight out of the highlights from the MDHAs
Census report and prove that homelessness is indeed prevalent in Dallas and
a growing problem.
Those who are counted as homeless by the MDHA are the people living:

on the street
in abandoned buildings
in emergency shelter
in transitional housing

Compared to previous counts by the MDHA, these key highlights show some
of the trends found by the study.

By the numbers:

3,314 homeless counted in 2014

2,972 homeless counted in 2013
502 homeless youths, including runaways
65 percent drop in the number of chronically homeless since 2004
60 percent increase in homeless families since 2010
13 percent of homeless population who are veterans
22 percent of homeless who say theyre working right now
24 percent of homeless who are ex-offenders

As described in the study,

The Chronically Homeless Individual is an unaccompanied homeless adult
individual (persons 18 years or older) with a disabling condition who has
either been continuously homeless for a year or more OR has had at least
four episodes of homelessness in past three years.
The census states that though the number of people who are chronically
homeless has decreased (less people are now sleeping outdoors or in
abandoned buildings) to 413 in 2014 from 568 in 2013 (a 65% drop), more
people actually became homeless in the same period. As stated,
The total homeless population number of 3,314 increased to 11.5% in
2014 from the 2,972 counted in 2013. This number does not include
those living in permanent supportive housing.
 The census states that, between 2005 and 2014, the number of people
staying in permanent supportive housing increased by 1,197% with a
reported 2,050 adults and children living in permanent supportive housing in
2014.

Illustration 1: The chart demonstrates the progress being made to end

homelessness in Dallas County

Chipotle recognizes the needs of the homeless in the City of Dallas. While not
directly contributing to the shelters, Chipotles proposed plan helps feed the
homeless and contribute collections from gift-cards to the homeless budget
of the City of Dallas, who will ultimately decide how to spend the collection in
order to best serve the homeless.

2.2 Economic Cost to the City of Dallas

We refer to a 2004 report titled Homeless as an Impediment to Urban

Revitalization: the Case of Dallas, Texas by Bernard L. Weinsterin, Ph.D. and
Terry L. Clower, Ph.D. to look at some of the economic costs of homelessness.
We purposefully chose the 2004 report so as to capture the effects of
homelessness to the city before a 10-year plan to curb homelessness was
implemented in Dallas in 2005.
Homelessness has huge costs to the city of Dallas. In 2004, Dallas had a
reported homeless population of about 6,000. Governmental, charitable, and
other faith-based organizations spent over an estimated $50 million to
provide the homeless with services. The thousands of volunteer hours are
worth mentioning too. (Tsiaperas, 2014)
Homeless presence in downtowns can drive away potential customers. A
survey of business owners from downtown showed that the business owners
had to beef up security and hire extra help for cleaning as homelessness was
having a negative impact on businesses. The retail respondents in the survey
indicated that sales were declining due to proximity to the homeless.
According to The Dallas County Appraisal Districts (DCAD) examination of
downtown properties, prevalent homelessness in a particular area tends to
negatively affect the value of properties in the area. For example, southern
sector of downtown had significantly cheaper property values than the
norther sector, just because the southern sector saw a huge concentration of
homeless people.
Dwindling property prices mean that the city always loses out on potential
tax revenues. As a consequence of the much weaker property values in the
southern half of downtown, the City of Dallas, Dallas County, and the Dallas
Independent School district reportedly missed out on $2.4 million per year
due to valuation disparities from a lack of development in the southern half
of the Downtown District. As a result, the southern half remained under-
developed to the point that it could support an additional 2.2 million square
feet of commercial space which would have created about 5,000 new jobs
and about $6.6 million per year for local taxing entities. This tax revenue
could then have been further used for development of the area. The job
creation would have seen further spending by the people. The city was
suffering as a result of homelessness.

Chipotle offers compassion to the homeless but also acknowledges that

homelessness is having negative effects on the City of Dallas. Chipotle wants
to do what it can to help. We have decided we can take small steps, and start
by keeping the homeless fed, and contributing funds collected from the
Helping Hand Initiative towards the homeless budget to further help the
homeless. (Metro Dallas Homeless Alliance, 2014)
3. Proposal

3.1 ABC

3.2 ABC

3.3 ABC
4. Staffing

4.1 ABC

4.2 ABC

4.3 ABC
5. BUDGET

5.1 ABC..

5.2 ABC..

5.3 ABC
6. AUTHORIZATION

6.1 ABC

6.2 ABC

6.3 ABC
References
Bernard L. Weinstein, Ph.D., & Terry L. Clower, Ph.D. (2004). Homeless as an
Impediment to Urban Revitalization: the Case of Dallas, Texas. Denton:
Center for Economic Development and Research, University of North Texas.
Bernard L. Weinstein, Ph.D., & Terry L. Clower, Ph.D. (2004, Aug). Homelessness as
an Impediment to Urban Revitalization: the Case of Dallas, Texas. Retrieved
from https://ideas.repec.org/:
https://ideas.repec.org/p/wiw/wiwrsa/ersa04p625.html
Metro Dallas Homeless Alliance. (2014). 2014 Point-In-Time Homeless Count and
Census. Dallas: Metro Dallas Homeless Alliance.
Tsiaperas, T. (2014, August 28). Number of chronically homeless in Dallas County
drops. Retrieved from The Dallas Morning News:
http://www.dallasnews.com/news/metro/20140828-number-of-chronically-
homeless-in-dallas-county-drops.ece