West Dallas leader James Armstrong takes on housing and homelessness at City Hall

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James Armstrong has a rare opportunity before him to implement the changes he’s been imploring City Hall to make.

As of this week, Armstrong’s new job as the City of Dallas deputy director of housing and homelessness gives him the power to fix the systems he has critiqued.

“We have done some amazing things in West Dallas, and I have been lucky to be part of it,” he says, “and now West Dallas gets a seat at the table — not just to implement change in 75212, but to implement change across the city.”

Armstrong credits Builders of Hope’s efforts on homestead preservation and the housing policy recommendations in the anti-displacement toolkit as the result of conversations he had with his late “big brother” Raul Reyes Jr., Los Altos leader Ronnie Mestas, lifelong resident Pat Stephens and other West Dallas neighbors.

“Dallas has never had a community developer leading housing initiatives from City Hall,” he told us before starting his new role. “I see it as is a continuation of what started at Builders of Hope. The perspective I’m bringing to City Hall is that neighborhood perspective.”

That’s often the missing perspective in city government, Armstrong says, despite the fact that “what we’ve seen at Builders of Hope is that real change happens at the neighborhood level.”

“The neighborhood will help you craft your vision,” he says.

In his seven years at the helm of affordable housing nonprofit Builders of Hope, the West Dallas native has pressed the City of Dallas for policies and resources to help residents of neighborhoods like his. The work culminated last year in “The Right to Stay” anti-displacement toolkit, outlining key paths forward.

For Armstrong, “it really is the opportunity of a lifetime for me to have been on the forefront of researching community needs and implementing at a community level, but not to have crossed the finish line in Dallas.” Now, he says he’ll be able to drive change from “within the system of City Hall.”

“Neighborhood leaders don’t get that opportunity,” he says.

The position was an offer he couldn’t refuse, and yet he was hesitant. Armstrong loved the culture at Builders of Hope — something of which he spoke fondly during his farewell celebration last week — though he notes that he “never wanted to be in a position where I was coasting or the role was comfortable.”

He says he felt confident leaving partly because the organization had “built a strong bench of leadership” through his colleagues Christopher Lewis, recently named interim president and CEO, and Stephanie Champion, another West Dallas resident who oversees community development and policy, plus the leadership of board chair Alta Mansch, also a West Dallas neighbor who directs Tolleson Wealth’s operations and compliance.

He also cites conversations with two other people “that really got me to take the leap.” The first was with another West Dallas native turned housing leader, Cynthia Rogers-Ellickson, who will retire at the end of the month after nearly 20 years at the City. The second, he admits, was more of a “one-sided conversation” with Reyes, who died suddenly a year and a half ago.

“I’ve been thinking through: What would my big brother want me to do?” Armstrong says. “This work can be exhausting, especially when you fight and you kick and you try to create this change and you feel like an outsider — and municipal government can make people feel like outsiders.

“I felt from our last conversations at the hospital, that he would say, ‘This is the next level for us.’ Conversations with him, it was all about strategy — How do we move the agenda forward? How do we position things in such a way that brings the intended result? He was always about protecting and advancing and remediating systemic issues and uplifting the neighborhood.”

Armstrong says he will continue to live in West Dallas, to pastor Community Fellowship Church in West Dallas, and to be a regular presence at neighborhood meetings and gatherings. 

“My goal is to be just as present in neighborhood meetings as I am now. That’s not gonna change because that’s just who I am,” Armstrong says. “West Dallas and South Dallas can expect to see me on the ground and working alongside them to advance and increase their capacity.”