A local condo complex is facing an ongoing issue with vagrants trespassing on the property, but residents have allegedly received little support from an unresponsive City government.
Stephen Preece works as the community manager for Piazza Siena, located northwest of Oak Lawn. He told The Dallas Express that homeless people frequently trespass onto complex property and are sometimes hostile and aggressive.
“It’s been ongoing,” he said. “And unfortunately, it has only escalated over these past months.”
Preece said he peacefully approaches trespassers and politely asks them to leave. He said some of them leave for a moment and then come right back, while others “defiantly” refuse to leave. He said one homeless individual recently “charged” at him.
“He physically charged at me, and we were just asking him to step off my property,” he said. “I called the police, and they didn’t even show up.”
Preece described another situation in which a homeless person “would try to talk to our female owners and residents, and if they ignored him, he would accuse them of being racist.”
“He made the women uncomfortable,” Preece said, adding that the issue of trespassing has gotten especially worse this year, with individuals breaking into garages, the complex’s laundry facility, and trying to break into cars.
“It really escalated this last summer where we were constantly having to keep an eye on the pool,” he said. “They [would] threaten us when we asked them to leave.”
“Literally, at least one homeless person or another was breaking into our pool every day and just trashed it … They just make a mess out here,” he said. “I’m not judging any of these folks. They live their life however they see fit … just don’t visit this on us. Don’t leave your trash on our property.”
Preece said many homeless people gather under a bridge situated beside the complex.
“They’ve got all kinds of junk under there … They start fires,” he said. “In September, a guy literally had a blaze going under one of the bridges. I called the fire department. They came out, and they were totally on his side … One of the firemen said to me, ‘What’s the big deal? He was just trying to stay warm.”’
“I said, ‘Are you kidding me? In September! I’ve got shorts on right now,'” he said.
Preece told The Dallas Express he has tried to get help from local officials but to no avail. Piazza Siena staff have appealed to the City of Dallas, the Dallas Police Department, Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Dallas), Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), and Gov. Greg Abbott.
They also took up the issue with their City Council member, Jesse Moreno (District 2).
Furthermore, Preece said they reached out to several state and federal agencies who simply redirected them to local authorities. He said DPD told them they needed to contact the Office of Homeless Solutions, which they did. However, no one from the office responded to their concerns.
“Everybody’s pointing at everybody else,” he said. “It’s really disheartening when you consider … what we pay in property taxes here.”
Preece said DPD has been of little help, often not even responding to calls concerning aggressive homeless people.
“I had one guy charge me with a tree branch,” he said. “I called the police that morning a couple of times, and they never even bothered to show up.”
As previously covered by The Dallas Express, DPD has been suffering from a staffing shortage. Preece said representatives from Dallas Fire-Rescue and DPD have cited the shortage as the reason why officers are not responding to calls more often.
“Most of the time, they don’t even show up,” he said, adding that officers who have come to the complex have simply blamed Piazza Siena for not having “adequate fencing” or signage. Preece said that even after putting up signs to deter trespassing, per the police department’s suggestion, the issue has not gotten any better.
“We have a real issue with homelessness out here,” he told The Dallas Express. “We realize this is not an isolated situation that’s just happening to us. We know that there is a rising problem with homelessness in our city and in cities all over the United States.”
“We would just ask if you call the police, they please come out [and] assess the situation,” he said.
Preece’s concerns align with many Dallasites’ sentiments, as recent polling has shown the majority of residents are frustrated with the ongoing problems of homelessness, vagrancy, and panhandling in the city.
In San Antonio, the nonprofit Haven for Hope has been credited with a 77% reduction in homelessness through its “one-stop-shop” strategy, but a similar model has yet to be fully implemented in Dallas despite favorable polling among residents.
However, this model may be coming to Dallas sometime in the future in the form of a new nonprofit called Haven for the Homeless, as reported by The Dallas Express. Still, whether the City of Dallas will partner with this new organization like the City of San Antonio did with Haven for Hope remains to be seen.
The Dallas Express reached out to the City about the situation at Piazza Siena but did not hear back by press time.
