City staff and local police officers cleared a vagrant encampment last week to make way for construction on Interstate 45.
The longstanding encampment cleared by the City was known as Coombs camp, as reported by KERA News. It was located at the spot where Coombs Street passes under I-45 in Council Member Adam Bazaldua’s District 7.
The City of Dallas Code Compliance Department previously provided trash bags, brooms, and trash cans to the people living in the Coombs camp in an effort to keep the area clean.
In a statement sent to The Dallas Express, the City said this was a “short-term strategy to continuously engage” the vagrants until they could be assisted further through the Dallas R.E.A.L. Time Rapid Rehousing (DRTRR) program.
The City also said many organizations working with those in the encampment “reported success, as some site residents decided to leave the streets, seek shelter, and take the assistance they previously refused.”
But the City could no longer employ this strategy when asked by the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) to relocate all vagrants remaining at the site. Construction on I-45 started on June 3.
“We must close the site due to the ongoing TxDOT construction, which deviates from our original plan to clean the encampment until we are able to rehouse those through DRTRR,” the City told The Dallas Express. “We are working closely with our partners to provide as much support for residents as is possible and will maintain communication with each participant until we are ready to move forward with our initiative.”
Former Coombs camp resident Randall Curtis told KERA News that the City “gave us plenty of notice” for the encampment cleanup.
Jonathan Guadian volunteers for Say It With Your Chest, a local advocacy nonprofit that works with the homeless.
Guadian argued to KERA News that clearing vagrant camps is often an irresponsible act of displacement.
“Whenever the city does end up displacing them from their known residency, then they will often get lost in the system,” Guadian claimed. “We have heard cases of some people who were very close or at the top of the list to finally receive some form of housing, and when they miss their appointments with the city, they end up having to start that process entirely over.”
City leaders, however, including Mayor Eric Johnson, have acknowledged that homelessness and vagrancy affect not only those without homes but also other Dallas citizens.
“Dallas is a city of love and empathy,” Mayor Johnson said in his State of the City address last year. “But we’re also a city that cares about health and safety and respects our residents who simply want to walk to work or into one of our public libraries without being accosted and without fear.”
In February, Mayor Johnson announced the formation of a task force to address homelessness, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
That task force’s report of recommended solutions to the City’s homelessness and vagrancy crisis is due next week on June 15.
Polling conducted by The Dallas Express has consistently shown that municipal voters in Dallas believe vagrancy remains a serious problem in the city.
Additional polling indicates that a potential solution favored by Dallasites is a “one-stop shop” model in which all homeless services are provided in a single location rather than being dispersed throughout the city. This approach has proven successful in San Antonio through the city’s collaboration with the nonprofit Haven for Hope.