Underpasses in Council Member Jaynie Schultz’s District 11 have been attracting homeless individuals and vagrants with some regularity.
As of September 2, District 11, which is situated in northern Dallas, has had 60 homeless encampment complaints submitted in the last 30 days, according to the City of Dallas 311 homeless service calls dashboard.
The data from the dashboard indicates that complaints tend to cluster around major intersections along the district’s border with Council Member Kathy Stewart’s District 10, such as Lyndon B Johnson Freeway and North Central Expressway and Forest Lane and North Central Expressway.
“Large encampments under 635 and Coit. People peeing and defecating in the open. Trash everywhere. Major eyesore and health sanitation hazard,” reads a closed complaint initially filed on August 3.
“This camp continues to get set back up after getting it cleaned up. Is there a way to fence it off, so they can’t just set back up after it’s cleaned up?” reads one complaint associated with the address 7942 LBJ Fwy eastbound. The encampment is designated as open, having been filed on September 2.
Another open complaint reads, “Citizen has been calling for years about the homeless encampment and nothing is being done. wants to know what is the plan.”
The complaint was filed on August 30 in reference to an encampment just north of the Forest Lane/North Central Expressway intersection at 11903 Coit Rd.
One of the closed complaints regarding that intersection reads, “Citizen is reporting a homeless encampment across Coit Rd & Dollar Ln. under the underpass. there is a black vehicle that buys stuff that the homeless people steal from the apartment complex.”
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, Haven for Hope provides social services like drug counseling, drug training, and transitional housing, all on a single campus. Its “one-stop-shop” model has been credited with reducing unsheltered homelessness in San Antonio’s downtown area by 77%.
Despite polling showing that 75% of Dallas residents think homelessness, vagrancy, and panhandling continue to be “major” problems throughout the city, officials have yet to experiment with Haven for Hope’s “one-stop-shop” strategy utilized by Haven for Hope, even though polling also shows that residents would be in favor of such a project.
Some local stakeholders are looking to bring the model to Dallas, but it remains to be seen whether City officials will embrace the approach.
The Dallas Express could not immediately reach Council Member Schultz for comment over the holiday weekend.