Homeless encampments in northwestern Dallas are threatening to turn Trinity River’s Elm Fork into a garbage dump, having allegedly been allowed to grow for years without anything being done about them.
Located around I-35 and Loop 12, the site has reached a point where something needs to be urgently done, reported The Dallas Morning News.
Rain only seems to exacerbate things, explained Rick Buckley, CEO of Greenspace Dallas.
“The heavier the rain, the more it flushes out their belongings,” said Buckley, per DMN.
“It’s a constant battle trying to keep the trash out,” he said, referring to Elm Fork. “We need more help from the City.”
According to a poll conducted by The Dallas Express, more than 75% of Dallas residents are dissatisfied with the state of homelessness, vagrancy, and panhandling in their neighborhoods and throughout the city.
Cities such as San Antonio have seen success with a “one-stop-shop” approach to combating homelessness, providing an array of services under one roof to help those in need. One such “one-stop-shop” model, San Antonio’s Haven for Hope, has been credited with a 77% reduction in unsheltered homelessness in the city’s downtown area. The one-stop-shop model has polled favorably among Dallas residents but has not yet been established locally.
Garrett Boone, the City’s Greening Czar, accompanied a reporter and photographer with DMN to the unkempt part of the Elm Fork.
“It is unconscionable for the City and all of us to not do something. It’s frustrating the City doesn’t seem to have the resources to stop the flow,” said Boone, per DMN.
According to Boone, when he asked City officials about the situation, he was told that the City was doing everything it could to resolve the situation.
“Ideally, you’d have teams of City staff monitoring this regularly. Just like you’d have the City staying persistent about cleaning out the trash,” Boone told DMN.
Many of the occupants in the encampment reportedly said they moved there after being driven away from the Medical District.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, polling shows that residents are generally upset with “the amount of trash, litter, or junk” in Dallas.
Responding to the City’s seeming inability to keep Dallas clean, local groups and residents have been putting together clean-up events. The Metroplex Civic & Business Association (MCBA), for instance, launched its own adopt-a-block program.
“If the City is not taking charge of this [and] keeping our roads and streets and sidewalks clean … it’s our community, it’s our responsibility at the end of the day,” MCBA CEO Louis Darrouzet said in a previous interview with The Dallas Express.
