As Dallas continues to be plagued by homelessness and vagrancy, residents complain the city has become noticeably more dirty.
While authorities often treat homelessness and city cleanliness as separate issues, some Dallas advocates claim they are inextricably intertwined.
In a statement to The Dallas Express, Jake Colglazier, executive director of the local activist group Keep Dallas Safe, asserted that the City government cannot effectively maintain cleanliness without first managing homelessness and vagrancy.
“It is impossible to maintain any standard of cleanliness with vagrants sleeping on every corner,” he said. “It’s difficult and expensive to clean up a pile of trash when there is a person inside.”
Meanwhile, residents communicated that City officials have not kept Dallas adequately clean, according to a satisfaction survey conducted by the City.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, 44% of respondents said the City does a “poor” job of maintaining clean streets, and only 25% approved of the job Dallas City Council is doing.
The report also included various comments and suggestions from respondents in which several residents voiced frustrations with the City Council’s management of homelessness and city cleanliness.
“Dallas needs to eliminate the vagrants and homeless problem,” one resident said. “Downtown is filthy, and has become dangerous. … Clean up the city!”
“I also believe the city is really starting to look dirty and unkempt in some areas,” another resident noted.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, a recent analysis placed Dallas among the top 10 dirtiest cities in the United States.
The same survey also found that 75% of Dallas residents believed homelessness was a “major” problem. This aligns with polling conducted by The Dallas Express, suggesting that parents, in particular, were concerned about homelessness, vagrancy, and panhandling in Dallas.
The City of Dallas has several initiatives led by the Office of Homeless Solutions intended to combat this issue. However, it has yet to pursue the strategy the City of San Antonio employs through its partnership with the nonprofit Haven for Hope.
Haven for Hope offers a “one-stop shop” for supportive services and emergency housing on a single campus, effectively keeping the problems that stem from homelessness and vagrancy geographically bound to the area that is offering solutions.
Many Dallas residents registered their favor for such a model in a recent survey from The Dallas Express.