Dallas has the largest homeless population in Texas, and while a slew of programs are in place to address the matter, there doesn’t appear to be a simple or quick solution.
The city has a $46.2 million budget for homeless and housing solutions, a staffed office dedicated to helping the unhoused, dozens of partner agencies, and a strategic plan to address the issue.
And yet there still are people living in storm drains, more than 4,400 people reporting they are homeless, and thousands of educated, responsible residents on the verge of living on the streets because they can’t afford rent.
We reported recently on attorney Mark Melton’s plight to reduce unlawful evictions and the city’s overhaul of its eviction ordinance.
We told you about Mayor Eric Johnson’s statement that there ought to be a regional solution to homelessness rather than Dallas bearing the brunt of a problem that spans far beyond the city limits.
Much more is taking place behind the scenes in Dallas and across the country as city leaders struggle to provide help to the homeless and protect homeowners and taxpayers.
Office of Housing and Homeless Solutions
Since 2017, Dallas has had an office dedicated to housing and homelessness. Federal funds, bond funds, and almost 100 charitable organizations also are working to solve the problem of housing the homeless.
Director of Housing and Homeless Solutions Christine Crossley said the city has seen an increase in homeless people because of soaring rental rates and lingering effects from the COVID-19 pandemic. The Dallas Responsible Equitable Accountable and Legitimate (REAL) Time Rapid Rehousing Program has been “wildly successful,” Crossley told Daltxrealestate.com in August.
In an Oct. 24 Housing and Homeless Solutions Committee meeting, Crossley gave an update on the program, which has been operating for about a year.
“When we are housing people, we are doing it in a way that is sustainable,” Crossley said. “This isn’t a token. This is something that has a real, lasting impact. It also has to walk a fine line. We have responsibilities to not only our unsheltered neighbors but the citizens of the city who have real concerns as well. We do our best to be transparent about the processes and the time they take.”
Joli Robinson, CEO of Housing Forward, also addressed the committee, noting that more than 1,220 individuals have been housed through Dallas REAL Time in a 12-month period. Nine encampments have been shut down.
“We know that Dallas REAL Time has been pivotal in helping us to increase capacity and infrastructure,” she said. “Our front-line providers — our emergency shelter providers and those that are trying to provide shelter for individuals and families — are continuing to feel increased pressure. Some of the COVID assistance has ended. Eviction protections have ended.”
Residents are also feeling pressure from inflation and rising rental rates, she added.
Other Cities
Two U.S. cities that have innovative homeless solutions, according to Housing Futures, are Salt Lake City and San Diego.
Salt Lake leaders set a goal in 2005 of eliminating homelessness in 10 years. They made good progress, reducing the homelessness rate by 91 percent using a Housing First model, which prioritizes providing permanent housing.
“The state is small and the problem is much more contained than a densely-populated state like California,” the Housing Futures report states.
San Diego in 2010 launched Project 25, which takes the 25 most costly homeless persons off the street and provides them a home.
It saves the community $2 million a year.
“How did they measure this?” the Housing Futures report asks. “They looked at the costs of jails, prisons, medical expenses, hospital stays, and medical rides.”
Other high-profile cities with well-known homeless problems are sheltering and using federal dollars to assist with housing, but their strategies don’t appear to be making headway in eliminating the problem. Los Angeles bans encampments near schools and other public facilities, which has become a contentious election issue this year.
In Fort Lauderdale, where the unhoused flock to escape cold weather (but get plenty of rain), the city reports about 2,000 homeless people in its Broward County Point-In-Time homeless count for 2022. That’s half the number of homeless in Dallas’s PIT count. To be fair, the Dallas count covers Dallas and Collin counties, officials explained during the recent Housing and Homeless Solutions Committee meeting.
Houston’s homeless count of 3,223 individuals covers Harris, Fort Bend, and Montgomery counties, according to the 2022 PIT study.
Fines For ‘Median Dwellers”
Back at Dallas City Hall, elected officials are taking small steps to get the homeless off the streets and address public safety in neighborhoods.
A code amendment approved last week that prohibits standing and walking in medians may be a public safety measure or, as one councilman alleged, a veiled attempt to punish homeless people for being homeless.
Call it what you want, but the ordinance allowing police to assess a $500 fine against “median-dwellers” and panhandlers was approved Oct. 26 by the Dallas City Council, over the vocal opposition of District 7 Councilman Adam Bazaldua.
“I think this not only has a level of redundancy because we have ordinances already on our code to enforce people in the roadway for safety concerns,” Bazaldua said. “I also think there’s a level of disingenuous intent.”
Director of Transportation Gus Khankarli said there were 68 pedestrian fatalities last year and 53 to date in 2022.
“We have a trend here that is not very favorable,” he said.
District 12 Councilwoman Cara Mendelsohn noted that discussions about the ordinance began at the city’s Government Performance and Financial Management Committee and evolved from panhandling to a public safety issue.
“GPFM has been working on panhandling for quite some time and I’m proud to say it has launched a program that is compassionate and includes enforcement,” she said. “That is a completely separate item. This item is about public safety. The idea of this is to protect people on the median. We’re not trying to deter people from having a walkable city, but when you have a six-lane road, it is dangerous for every pedestrian to cross.”
Bazaldua doubled down on his stance that the measure is an effort to enforce poverty and criminalize homelessness.
“It is extremely disingenuous to stand here and tell us this is about public safety,” the councilman said. “This is about [Not In My Backyard]ism. This is absolutely despicable. This is not what we were elected to do. We don’t even have law enforcement resources to enforce speeding in our neighborhoods. We can’t let our kids play in our streets because we don’t have the right resources to have patrols just monitoring speeding. But we have the resources to send people out and fine people for standing in a median? This is absurd. We are wrong for this.”
