Nearly two-thirds of respondents in a poll conducted by The Dallas Express said they support limiting the homeless and vagrant population to a specific area where services are offered rather than allowing them to roam the city.
By a large majority — 65 versus 35% — respondents agreed with the statement, “Do you support a plan to require the homeless and vagrants to occupy only one small specific area of town where all the homeless services are located, instead of roaming wherever they like?”
Along Columbia Avenue, residents expressed support for such a plan after telling of their frustration with the growing number of homeless and vagrants, relating stories of verbal harassment, unsanitary conditions, and violence.
“If we locate them in a central location, that will make it more convenient for the homeless to receive the services they need and make our neighborhood more pleasant,” said resident Pablo Nieto, 37.
He said that when shopping at certain stores along Columbia Avenue, customers are faced with panhandlers. During a recent outing to a Mexican restaurant with his son and daughter, Nieto recalled trying to shield his children as a homeless man walked around without pants.
If Dallas had a one-stop homeless and vagrant service center, that man could receive the clinical help he obviously needs, said Nieto, adding he had a “very uncomfortable” talk with his six-year-old daughter after the incident.
Max Bower agrees with the idea of a central location for the homeless and vagrants to stay and receive help. He called the idea a “win/win” for his neighborhood and vagrants walking the streets.
The homeless and vagrants would receive the attention needed, and the neighborhoods along Columbia Avenue would improve, he said.
One neighborhood improvement, he said, is that fear would disappear. When asked for an example, Bower said his wife fears the stoplight at the corner of Columbia Avenue and Munger Boulevard after dark.
There is a highly aggressive vagrant who walks up to cars asking for change, according to Bower. When a driver refuses, the vagrant starts insulting them, Bower recounted, or sometimes stands in front of vehicles, not letting them move.
“I don’t think he is terrorizing this area, but giving [the man] a place where he can get the help he needs is a win for him and us,” Bower said.
For an example of how a one-stop homeless and vagrant service center might work, Dallas leaders need to look no further than San Antonio’s Haven for Hope, a 22-acre “transformational campus” that offers a plethora of services for homeless or vagrant individuals and families.
At Haven for Hope, the homeless and vagrant population has access to three meals daily, a safe place to sleep, shower facilities, and medical care. They can also receive help with mental health, substance abuse, job training, and earning their GED certificate. Haven for Hope also assists the homeless and vagrants in obtaining social security and military benefits, if they qualify.
In an interview with The Dallas Express, the organization’s Director of Communications, Terri Behling, said cities such as Dallas can mirror Haven for Hope by “bringing together community organizations that serve those experiencing homelessness and getting the ‘buy-in’ from your community.”
But the Democratic blueprint doesn’t include fixing the problem permanently. The blueprint is create the problem using things like legalizing drugs, inflation, inability to find jobs, mass illegal immigration, free phones for homeless, free needles, the list goes on and on. The telling taxpayer to pay for the infrastructure to support all of these vagrants, only to eventually let the problem get worse and the laws continue to deteriorate until these people can destroy a city with lawlessness running rampant with the ability to steal anything you want, assault whomever you want. Like NYC, LA, Chicago, Baltimore, DC, on and on and on.
I do support a place for a one-stop shop for vagrants. Bus them all to Washington, DC or San Francisco. DC and San Francisco would be an ideal place for them since DC streets are already violent and San Francisco sidewalks streets are already covered with human excrement. Nobody would notice.
Yes bus them to all these cities. Put them in the finest hotels available, and send the bill to ABBOTT! He seems to think if you can’t solve a problem, send it elsewhere and the taxpayers of Texas think it is money well spent! Haven for Hope will not save, or help EVERYONE, but have proven to be a better option than burying your head in the sand and spreading HATE!
question is, which district is willing to have all of the city’s homeless pumped into it. it is not really fair to saddle one district with the entire problem. furthermore it turns into a predatory environment when you put all the homeless in one place. what happens to an old lady from north dallas that loses her home due to a medical crisis and ends up amongst the sharks downtown?
According to this writing, it is better that all the homeless are in a single area, where I live, Coit and 75, it is terrible, they stand in front of the cars and do not care about the time or respect the traffic signals, it is terrible. It’s like someone said, Win/Win. We all win. Yes, I do support a place.
This is certainly a start. First, I’d like to see more info about the Haven for Hope. Also, find out who are these individuals, many should be in jail, others in mental care. Certainly families separated from singles, women from men. Another big question, is who to hire to help these very diverse people. It’s complicated. It’s out of control. But we must start somewhere. Dallas used to be a beautiful, safe city. That comes with respect for authority, strict rules& citizens willing to follow the rules. Can we turn back the pages of time?
I think we’ve been down that route before. It was called The Bridge. How much money was spent on it? How’d that work?
I also believe in one stop shopping and that would be a mental institution for most homeless with mental problems and jail for violent or aggressive panhandlers . for the rest a trip to a self supporting tent city on the outskirts of town where they would be put to work and monitored by social workers and cops.
For what crime will you incarcerate free people in a tent city that sounds like a pauper prison circa 1840?
This sounds like a wonderful idea as that Haven for Hope does . Of course you will still have a small percentage in other areas ,but they are mostly people that want no actual “help” because it would be to restrictive to what they actually want to do. As someone who has recently moved here and noticed the homeless and panhandler problem right away, this is a step in the right direction.
I guess that means they are going to put them all in Oak Cliff at that former hospital.
Most of this started in Jan. 2020.
How exactly do you limit the movement of FREE people in Dallas?
I know San Antonio faced a great deal of resistance to forced location limitations
I get that it’s inconvenient or uncomfortable for some, but are we really in favor of rounding up people because they are poor and forcing them to relocate to a specific area? When does the “poor” threshold change to any other feature of a group of people?
Also, any reputable poll would show the number of people polled, and give information regarding the data. Not just make up some numbers and claim they polled residents. There was no poll.