A new Dallas neighborhood in the Jeffries-Meyers area near Fair Park is being built on land previously occupied by homeless and vagrant encampments.
The Dallas Housing Foundation, which is spearheading the project, held a groundbreaking ceremony late last month. The nonprofit was founded in 2019 by developers Scottie Smith II and Kevin Hemphill “to help promote home ownership in communities that have been historically underserved and forgotten, by providing affordable and sustainable housing within that community.”
The Dallas Housing Foundation builds and sells three-bedroom and four-bedroom homes targeted at families with a household income of 80-120% of the area median income.
The City of Dallas made a deal with the foundation to build duplexes in a vacant portion of the Jeffries-Meyers neighborhood. The Dallas Express reached out to both the Dallas Housing Foundation and the City of Dallas for details about this deal and its cost to taxpayers but received no response by press time.
All the homes built as part of this project will be sold for under $300,000, according to Smith.
“We’re not merely building houses,” Smith said at the groundbreaking. “We’re building a community, a community that will thrive on the strengths of its residents, who will bring their unique stories, talents, and aspirations to create a tapestry of unity and shared purpose.”
However, the project has faced several challenges since it began — notably, vagrant encampments that plagued the site.
Smith said there were a “handful” of homeless encampments at the property when the project began in 2019, then “we blinked overnight,” and there were 200 vagrants on the property.
“It might’ve been more,” added Hemphill.
The location became the site of the first large encampment decommissioned by the Dallas REAL Time Rapid Rehousing Initiative in 2022. Roughly 50 individuals were living at the site when the encampment was decommissioned.
The city’s homeless and vagrant crisis has similarly burdened development elsewhere across Dallas.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, business development near Dallas Love Field Airport has faced persistent issues linked to vagrancy. Citra Care CEO Nick Karr said his company hired private security because of safety concerns caused by unpredictable vagrants.
A recent satisfaction survey from the City of Dallas revealed that 75% of residents believe homelessness remains a “major” problem.
Furthermore, polling from The Dallas Express has shown that parents, in particular, are significantly concerned about homelessness, vagrancy, and panhandling.
The City of Dallas has employed several strategies in its efforts to address homelessness, most of which have prioritized the “housing first” approach exemplified by this latest undertaking. However, it has yet to consider the approach taken by the City of San Antonio through its partnership with the nonprofit Haven for Hope.
Haven for Hope offers a “one-stop shop” solution that provides housing and supportive services in a single location rather than dispersed throughout the city.
This strategy is favored by Dallas voters, according to polling conducted by The Dallas Express.
