On a sunny afternoon, nearly a dozen workers are schlepping up and down the steep, rocky ravine to remove trash and items left behind by the community of people who once lived here. It鈥檚 sweaty work, heaving huge black garbage bags onto the back of a truck.
Abandoned belongings pile up in the dirt at the top of the hill 鈥� books and board games, backpacks and clothes, coolers and plastic storage bins. A blue wheelchair printed with 鈥淓.R.鈥� in red block letters sits on its side next to a pair of walkers, a pink bicycle, a big blue teddy bear, and a rusting shopping cart.
This encampment, among the trees and in the shelter of a nondescript bridge on Ledbetter Road, is now permanently closed. A city sign sternly warns that the site is monitored by the city. By the end of the day, it will be fenced off, making it difficult to get down to the area where a group of Dallas鈥� least fortunate residents once lived.
Dallas is increasingly focused on moving people out of encampments by finding them the right mix of housing and services to keep them stably housed. It鈥檚 fueled by , and driven by a complex, coordinated strategy involving many players in homeless services. But on the streets, it鈥檚 not clear that the strategy has done much to undo deep mistrust of the city鈥檚 intentions when it comes to tackling homelessness.
Unprecedented spending
The cleanup on Ledbetter Road is the end stage of a decommissioning process Christine Crossley says is the gold standard for closing encampments.
For weeks before the cleanup began, Crossley鈥檚 Office of Homeless Solutions worked with nonprofits and other agencies to build rapport with the people who lived here, getting them into the region鈥檚 network of services for people experiencing homelessness, connecting them with caseworkers and lining up housing.
鈥淚t's not taking someone that you met yesterday and sticking them in housing. It is taking someone that you have built a 4- to 6-week relationship with. You've worked on all of their barriers to housing. We make sure the housing type matches their need,鈥� Crossley said.
In response to the pandemic, Congress and the Biden Administration unleashed unprecedented spending for local governments, including massive increases in federal funds to reduce homelessness. In the Dallas area, that鈥檚 fueling a coordinated, $72 million effort to house roughly half of the region鈥檚 homeless population by the fall of 2023.
But the pandemic also made the work harder. The share of people experiencing chronic homelessness in Dallas 鈥� meaning they鈥檝e been homeless for at least a year over the past three years 鈥� nearly to over 1,000 as off-ramps to homelessness were disrupted by COVID-19.
According to the most recent count, more than 4,000 people in Dallas County were experiencing homelessness, with about a quarter of them living on the street or in encampments. As part of the initiative, the city has decommissioned nine encampments and put more than 100 people on the road to permanent housing.
Wayne Walker, who leads the nonprofit , says the stakes of this work are literally life and death. People who do not have homes and die, on average, 12 years sooner than the general population, according to the National Health Care for the Homeless Council. His organization鈥檚 workers do hundreds of encampment visits every year.
鈥淲e go to places where we find the most horrible tragedies. We find bodies. We find people that have been abused. We find people that are wounded鈥︹�� Walker said. 鈥淲e're finding people that are starving on the streets.鈥�
Walker is often critical of the city鈥檚 approach to homelessness, frequently pointing out that more of its locally generated funds go to animal services than to helping homeless people. Still, Walker applauds the city for increasing funding for homeless services and a more coordinated strategy to get people off the streets, even if it鈥檚 not enough to meet the massive gap between resources and need.
鈥淥ne way it's portrayed is the big mean city is closing these camps. But that's not what's happening. They're going there and offering these individual services. They're trying to get them housed. They're trying to get them on the coordinated access system or get them into shelters,鈥� Walker said.
Not all encampments are closed through the decommissioning process, though. When confronted with an encampment where violence is observed or reported, or where criminal or drug-related activity are present, Crossley says immediate closure is the only option, even if it does nothing to reduce homelessness.
鈥淭here is this pain point that we have that says, okay, well, that option has been taken from us. We no longer have that choice. This is going to have to be cleared out. But that doesn't mean we have anywhere for you to go. We acknowledge that this just kicked the can down the road. It's not breaking the cycle, but to allow it to remain here is so violent that we just cannot do that,鈥� she said.
The city鈥檚 hands are also tied when it comes to private property, Crossley said. If a private property owner wants to people stop camping on their land or squatting in their vacant building, the city is obligated to remove people.
In its latest budget, the city allocated $2.5 million to launch a new team focused on urgent situations involving people who are homeless. That includes breaking up encampments that have become dangerous.
Trust in short supply
There鈥檚 a lot of distrust that the city will have to overcome in its efforts. In interviews with several people who are currently or formerly houseless, every person expressed a deep skepticism about the city鈥檚 motives and its methods.
One man, who gave his name as Lonny and declined to give a last name, lives with a handful of other men in a row of tents under an overpass in central Dallas. He said the city鈥檚 efforts to help homeless people were insufficient, and often put people into housing that doesn鈥檛 work for them, so they end up back out on the street.
鈥淭hey鈥檙e gone two weeks and they come back,鈥� because they can鈥檛 get the services they need, or there are rules they don鈥檛 want to live with.
Lonny said he declined a housing offer in North Dallas because it was too far from friends and family. He鈥檚 hoping to get housing in West Dallas, he said.
Another man, Isaac, who stays in another encampment, said he was recently put up in a hotel paid for by a nonprofit, but the rules were too strict, so he left to rejoin his friends on the street.
His friend, who gave her name as Jane, says she and others have had their tents up for about a year in this spot under I-45. For the most part, the city will leave them alone as long as they keep the area around them clean, she said. But she knows the city can come any time to tell her to tear down the tents and leave.
鈥淚 get why they come. They get phone calls that it gets nasty, they have to do something,鈥� she said. 鈥淲e aren鈥檛 supposed to be here in the first place. We know that. OHS knows that. The cops, they know that.鈥�
Bobby Hollingsworth, who until this year had experienced homelessness off and on for more than a decade, said encampments are misunderstood, even by some of the people hoping to help people who are homeless.
鈥淭hose encampments are not just a bunch of homeless people living together. It's a homeless family living together. There鈥檚 always one person out there who鈥檚 going to look out for everybody else,鈥� Hollingsworth said. 鈥淎nd so I did everything in my power to keep my family together, so much so they call me the mayor.鈥�
For Hollingsworth, who cites estrangement from his family as one of the factors that pushed him to live on the streets, the guys in his encampment were his 鈥渟treet family,鈥� who bonded over being raised in Christian homes and a shared belief in God.
Frequent flashpoints come when city workers tell people to clear their belongings from an area so it can be cleaned.
This is a process where the city sends workers from the Office of Homeless Solutions along with a team of contractors who clean areas where complaints have been lodged by 3-1-1 or other means. They鈥檙e always accompanied by police.
Often, encampments will get set back up after the cleaning.
Hollingsworth says cleanings can be devastating. He lost family mementos, like his grandmother鈥檚 quilt. He has no photos of his deceased parents to put up in his new apartment because they were trashed in a cleaning. He鈥檚 known people who lost hearing aids, prosthetics and walkers. They lose cell phones and wallets. They lose the tents they sleep in, and their sleeping bags and clothes.
鈥淲hen they come through and take everything, it takes the life out of people. You took everything for no reason,鈥� he said.
Despite the city鈥檚 talk of wanting to find appropriate housing for people experiencing homelessness, Hollingsworth said he often felt the city just wanted people like him to go away.
鈥淚f you come and you throw away a man's food, clothing and shelter. What message are you giving that man? I don't want you to exist anymore,鈥� he said.
City policy is to give at least five days鈥� notice before a cleaning to give people time to move out of the area. Hollingsworth says people often don鈥檛 get that notice.
Hollingsworth says people need a lot of help. They have complex legal problems. Trauma. Mental health and substance abuse issues. Some struggle to adapt to apartment living once they move inside. Many simply don鈥檛 like or trust the shelter system, and they鈥檝e had bad experiences with the city before.
That鈥檚 what City of Dallas street outreach workers like Daniel Blow and Terri Mason are faced with when they go to work every day. They have to straddle a somewhat difficult line between building enough trust to connect people with the services they need, and delivering notice that their encampment must be moved so the city can clean.
Most days, Blow and Mason are sent out to respond to 3-1-1 service requests related to homelessness. They鈥檒l ask the folks they meet whether they can arrange rides to the hospital, to shelters where they can get a bed for the night, or to nonprofits where they can do laundry, get online or get a warm meal. They can also get people set up to start the process of securing housing, the ultimate goal for the city鈥檚 Office of Homeless Solutions.
Blow says he doesn鈥檛 find a lot of willing takers 鈥� at least, not at first. A lot of people living on the streets have had bad experiences trying to get help before, so it often takes multiple conversations to build enough rapport until Blow is trusted enough to help.
鈥淭here鈥檚 always options out there they just don鈥榯 know about. And you can鈥檛 really tell them about it because they鈥檙e still at that point where they鈥檙e hurt from the last instance. So it鈥檚 just a constant rapport until they get to the point where they can listen,鈥� Blow said.
鈥淪ome of them are just angry, immediately angry, and refuse our services,鈥� said Mason, which can be disappointing because she knows they鈥檒l benefit from the help.
Nonetheless, she says it鈥檚 important to be compassionate and nonjudgmental as they do their work, and keep trying to show that the city genuinely wants to help.
Got a tip? Christopher Connelly is 四虎影院's One Crisis Away Reporter, exploring life on the financial edge. Email Christopher atcconnelly@kera.org.You can follow Christopher on Twitter .
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