It’s no secret that Dallas has a homelessness problem that is quickly getting out of hand. Every week, residents watch hopelessly as more and more encampments pop up in their neighborhoods, and throughout the city. Residents are forced to bear the burden; many are too scared to let their kids play outside alone anymore, and some have even had their homes and vehicles broken into and robbed.
Keep Dallas Safe has been diligently trying to find answers to the problem.
For months now, the Keep Dallas Safe team has attempted to contact Dallas City Manager T.C. Broadnax and other city leaders inquiring about their implementation of Penal Code 48.05, the ban against public space camping. Each week, we have been largely stonewalled; neither Broadnax nor our elected officials have been responsive. For the few that do respond, their reply is always, “Sorry, I am out of the office right now.” We have reached out to everyone we can think of, hoping that one of them will listen, but we are ignored each week.
Why have they refused to answer us? Why have they repeatedly failed to answer a simple question about a basic city service?
This is one of the many reasons why the performance of T.C. Broadnax as City Manager has recently been called into question. Not only has he refused to engage in a transparent and honest discussion about addressing the homelessness problem and the safety issues it directly causes, but as the city manager, he has personally overseen a persisting pattern of non-compliance with ban on urban camping.
This is NOT how all cities handle homelessness. Queue Cowtown.
Keep Dallas Safe contacted the city of Fort Worth inquiring with the exact same question: How is the city addressing homelessness? In a stark contrast to the silence we received from Dallas, Fort Worth responded almost immediately, gathering all the information we asked for within a matter of days.
In Fort Worth, citizens have access to an app called MyFW. Through this app, residents can easily submit a complaint regarding an encampment to the city. Once submitted, their complaint is sent to the Homeless Outreach Program and Enforcement Team (the HOPE Team), the Police Department, and the Code Compliance Department. Once the appropriate department has received and filed the complaint, they send a Code Compliance officer out to the location to determine the appropriate course of action. They then proceed to take the necessary steps to reach a solution. During this entire process, the status of the complaint is made available through the MyFW app, allowing the resident to track it in real time and see that their concerns are being heard.
When city leaders are serious about maintaining public safety for their residents, they do what Fort Worth has done. They set up a system for addressing the concerns of residents and do not hesitate to deliver on their needs.
Meanwhile in Dallas, we cannot even get a response from our city leaders, let alone a real solution to the problem. For example, the city manager is so out touch that while we have repeated ask for a solution to crime and homelessness, the response he has provided is a completely out of left field ordinance that amounts to nothing but a revenue source for the city, doing nothing whatsoever to address crime.
Dallas residents deserve a lot better than this, we deserve a system that is as transparent and responsive as the one Fort Worth has adopted. We deserve a city manager that will comply with the law and ensure that the public can feel safe in their own communities. At a bare minimum, we deserve a response as to why state law is not being enforced.
For too long, Dallas residents have suffered from the lack of transparency and leadership from elected officials like T.C. Broadnax. Enough is enough, the people of Dallas need answers and solutions now.