{"id":437600,"date":"2025-12-10T10:16:13","date_gmt":"2025-12-10T10:16:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/437600\/"},"modified":"2025-12-10T10:16:13","modified_gmt":"2025-12-10T10:16:13","slug":"dallas-has-an-imperfect-homeless-plan-the-plan-still-needs-funding-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/437600\/","title":{"rendered":"Dallas has an imperfect homeless plan. The plan still needs funding now"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Dallas City Council was expected to vote Wednesday to invest $10 million in Housing Forward\u2019s Street to Home<\/a> initiative to combat homelessness and support an ongoing effort to reduce the homeless presence downtown. <\/p>\n

But a request from council member Cara Mendelsohn threatens to postpone the vote until next year, something we worry will set back downtown at a critical moment. The City Council needs to muster a two-thirds majority to override Mendelsohn\u2019s delay tactic and approve the funds. <\/p>\n

For several years, our board has questioned the city\u2019s approach to its unsheltered residents<\/a>. Encampments persisted around the city despite an avalanche of resident complaints. Housing advocates and city staff were slow to acknowledge how bad things were. A lack of enforcement allowed disorder to fester all over and especially downtown. <\/p>\n

But City Hall and Housing Forward, the nonprofit charged with coordinating Dallas and Collin counties\u2019 response to homelessness, revised<\/a> their approach earlier this year. They intensified efforts to close encampments<\/a>, crack down on sleeping in public and other nuisance violations, and better coordinate care for the most severely impaired unsheltered residents of downtown. Dallas has not ended homelessness downtown or anywhere else, but the new strategy is showing results.<\/p>\n

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Mendelsohn\u2019s memo requesting to defer approval of funds supporting that work included no reason why, although she has been a sharp critic of the city\u2019s reliance on Housing Forward. Other council members and Sarah Kahn, president and CEO of Housing Forward, said Mendelsohn has not explained her objections. <\/p>\n

According to Peter Brodsky, chairman of Housing Forward, city officials asked the group to estimate the funding needed to prevent unsheltered people from living on the streets in and near downtown before FIFA fans arrive next summer. The estimated cost was $28 million. The plan was to ask the city for $10 million, Dallas County for $10 million and to raise $8 million through philanthropy, Brodsky said.<\/p>\n

New people slide into homelessness every day. For the Street to Home strategy to work, police and security officers and street outreach<\/a> teams need to find a shelter bed for any homeless person willing to go. That requires developing appropriate housing plans for people already staying in the shelter. Housing Forward stressed they assess shelter clients\u2019 needs and match the homeless with services and housing. <\/p>\n

Housing Forward\u2019s approach to homelessness isn\u2019t perfect. But no one else has the answer either. And even if they did, there aren\u2019t adequate resources to house and treat everyone on the streets.<\/p>\n

We do believe the city needs to expand its strategies and to try other means of removing people from homelessness. We also believe that public camping cannot be tolerated. But we also need more federal, state and local resources to treat, shelter and house the homeless.<\/p>\n

Right now, Housing Forward has the most complete plan in place to get that done. The city needs to support that work now, especially for downtown\u2019s sake. <\/p>\n

We welcome your thoughts in a letter to the editor. See the guidelines and <\/b>submit your letter here<\/b><\/a>.<\/b><\/p>\n

If you have problems with the form, you can submit via email at <\/b>letters@dallasnews.com<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Dallas City Council was expected to vote Wednesday to invest $10 million in Housing Forward\u2019s Street to…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":437601,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5135],"tags":[5229,4219,1596,14052,6083,7265,517,358,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-437600","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-crime","10":"tag-dallas","11":"tag-downtown-dallas","12":"tag-editorials","13":"tag-homelessness","14":"tag-mental-health","15":"tag-texas","16":"tag-tx","17":"tag-united-states","18":"tag-united-states-of-america","19":"tag-unitedstates","20":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","21":"tag-us","22":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115694757268497812","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437600","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=437600"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437600\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/437601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=437600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=437600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=437600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}