Business and property owners expressed concern Thursday at a public meeting at Dallas City Hall that people without homes were camping near roads and in their neighborhoods. They called on the city of Dallas to expand its efforts toward lasting solutions to homelessness.
Members of a task force appointed by Mayor Eric Johnson told an audience of about 30 people that a key solution is hiring more outreach staff to engage with unhoused residents and provide them with housing options and services. He said it was true.
Task Force Leader – Ellen Magnis, President and CEO of Family Gateway. Peter Brodsky, Chairman of the Board of Housing Forward; Betty Culbreath, DHA North Texas Housing Solutions Board Chair, released recommendations on homelessness, organization, policy, and encampment known as his HOPE report.
Brodsky said that when discussing interim solutions, the task force agreed that authorizing camps as a strategy is inhumane, and that through building relationships with outreach workers it is possible to eliminate detention facilities. He emphasized the need to close the camp.
“When you have that level of mental illness, that level of drug use, that level of poverty concentrated in a place that doesn't have electricity or toilets, it becomes the city's responsibility,” Brodsky said. “There will be a lot of crime. It could turn into a nightmare.”
Brodsky emphasized the difference between camp decommissioning, where outreach workers help move people into permanent supportive housing, and camp closure, where the city closes the site without providing housing.
“To do that, we really need to increase the workforce on the streets,” Brodsky said. “When this decommissioning effort started, the bottleneck was the number of housing units available. Now that's not the bottleneck. The bottleneck right now is street activity.”
Dallas City Council at Wednesday's meeting approves an agreement to grant Housing Forward $2.3 million to hire 16 additional street workers to eliminate encampments and reduce unsheltered homelessness. It is planned.
Dallas City Councilman Jesse Moreno, chairman of the Housing and Homelessness Task Force, convened a meeting Thursday to hear community feedback on the city's strategy.
“Homelessness is a humanitarian and health and safety concern that we must address,” Moreno said. “When unsheltered populations suffer, residents and sheltered individuals suffer as well. Voters often see us talking about solutions and policies without taking action.”
According to data from Housing Forward, unsheltered homelessness in Dallas skyrocketed from 2014 to 2020, increasing from 242 to 1,619 people, an average annual increase of 37.3%, significantly higher than the U.S. average of 4.3%. exceeded.
However, since 2020, Dallas' unsheltered population has declined by an average of 9.9% per year. The city saw a decline of 14% in 2023, and the US average growth rate was 4.3%.
Brodsky said his top three recommendations are increasing shelter capacity and permanent supportive housing options, accelerating affordable housing development, and increasing behavioral health and substance use resources. He said the aim is to expand access.
Magnis said it's important to have a strategy to close campgrounds to comply with the state's 2021 ban on camping in public places, and that short-term measures are not supported by long-term solutions. He said that it must also be accompanied by
“There is no silver bullet. There is no single solution,” Magnis said. “It takes a very thoughtful approach to address this on many different levels.”
Brodsky said the task force's recommendation to expand treatment for mental health and substance use issues comes in light of the homeless response system's history of not prioritizing it.
“The North Texas Department of Behavioral Health is doing a good job today,” Brodsky said. “Where we are making much more progress is coordinating the homeless response system and the behavioral health system.”
Louis Dalzet, CEO of the Metroplex Citizens and Business Association, said he supports efforts to increase treatment for mental health and substance use issues to help people who are unhoused.
“A while back, one of my friends was in Dallas and on his way to a 7-Eleven near the American Airlines Center, he was assaulted by an obviously disturbed homeless woman,” Daruse said.
Housing advocates also supported the task force's recommendations to build more affordable housing in a city where rents and mortgages have soared over the past three years.
“We know that high housing costs and low incomes directly contribute to people's vulnerability to homelessness,” said Brian Toney of the Dallas Housing Coalition. “We believe that homelessness directly impacts the way our cities are built and run. The solution to homelessness is affordable housing.”
The mayors of the three cities that border Dallas spoke at the meeting, calling for action on strategies to remove homeless encampments along roadsides.
Farmers Branch Mayor Terry Lin said the city shares a 6.5-mile border with Dallas, and attempts to clear encampments with Dallas' help often have no luck.
“Several homeless people were killed on the Interstate 35 service road,” Lin said. “I hope that through your efforts, we can find common ground where we can work together to move this people forward.”
Addison Mayor Bruce Arksten asked the city of Dallas and the North Texas Toll Road Authority for help clearing encampments near roads.
“There's a camp set up on the sidewalk.” [at the Arapaho Road intersection]. It’s been there for months,” Alfsten said. “This is a safety hazard, and we are frustrated that the Tollway and the City of Dallas are not working together to address this.”
Carrollton Mayor Steve Babick spoke about the need for a regional response to clear encampments and long-term solutions to house people.
“We know we've had success in both Dallas and Carrollton in terms of getting them in and cleaning them,” Babic said. But in reality, homeless people are simply sheltering in place. They're on the move, going all the way around to Plano, into Farmers Branch, into Carrollton, and back to Rosemead Park. Therefore, a permanent solution must be taken. ”
