Dallas Area Interfaith, with member institution Workers Defense Project, has proposed a City ordinance that would mandate water breaks for workers every four hours, bilingual signs explaining the ordinance posted at work sites and a fine levied on employers for every day there is a violation. Said Fr. Joshua Whitfield with Santa Rita Catholic Church, "a city ordinance would be creating a culture of safety and health in the Texas heat."

Last month, 500 DAI leaders unleashed a tidal wave of pent up energy with the public launch of a campaign zeroing in on what Dallas-area residents can do about immigration reform in the Dallas area. Catholic Bishop Douglas Deshotel and dozens of clergy from Catholic, Jewish, Presbyterian and Methodist denominations blessed the campaign, kicking off a summer of action to address key pieces of the DAI immigration agenda.

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Hundreds of Dallas Area Interfaith leaders poured into Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Church to launch an immigration reform campaign to address local issues dealt with on a daily basis: wage theft, lack of water breaks and horrific apartment conditions.

Accompanied by Auxiliary Bishop Most Reverend J. Douglas Deshotel of the Catholic Diocese of Dallas, DAI clergy urged parishioners and lay leaders to focus their energy on what can be solved at the local level, given the lack of reform options at the federal level.

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President Obama plans to meet with Dallas Area Interfaith at Temple Emanu-El, where hundreds of institutional leaders gathered last month to launch their institutional enrollment outreach strategy. Chair of the DAI Healthcare Committee Gwen Lummus explained to the Dallas Morning News that "this area had the highest percentage of uninsured in the whole country. That's one of the reasons we've been working on this."

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Three hundred leaders from Dallas Area Interfaith assembled at Temple Emmanu-El in North Dallas to kick off an affordable care campaign aimed at explaining the federal healthcare exchange. Marjorie Petty, Region 6 Director of US Health & Human Services, praised DAI, asserting they "have done an amazing amount of work in just six weeks" and is "a model for others around the country."

With the aid of multi-colored booklets that clearly lay out how uninsured individuals can participate in the federal exchange, which the healthcare action team of DAI produced, leaders hope to reach hundreds of thousands of uninsured.

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