The Challenge

The city of Dallas continues to have a homelessness problem, with nearly 6,000 homeless individuals. This year however, there was a decline of 14% in Chronically Homeless individuals in Dallas from 2009. Since 2004, the number of chronic homeless individuals has decreased 57% due to the success of the Dallas Metro Homeless Alliance and the City of Dallas commitment to end Chronic Homelessness. There were however 1,850 new homeless (32% of the total homeless population) for the first time since 2009 due to economic challenges. On any given night, there are hundreds of homeless individuals in our city jail that cost our city almost upward to $50 million dollars per year, according to the Dallas Morning News. This number is in decline each year we reduce Chronic Homelessness.

The Dallas City Council in January of 2009 adopted a Permanent Supportive Housing Action Plan that set a goal of creating 700 permanent supportive housing (PSH) units for the chronically homeless to be accomplished by 2014. This would be accomplished by either leasing existing apartments on the market and also by construction of new units and/or rehabilitation.

Due to a lack of community support for this initiative that is needed to acquire funding applications and zoning approval, Mayor Tom Leppert created a community task force to address these challenges. The established and accepted purpose of the taskforce was “To create effective collaborations between Permanent Supportive Housing Developers, Services Providers and Neighbors across Dallas to implement the City of Dallas PSH Action Plan”.

Who are the chronic homeless?

Those of the homeless population who are considered the “chronic homeless” are individuals who are: unaccompanied, disabled, have either continuously been homeless for a year or at least four episodes of homelessness in three years, and must have been sleeping in a place not meant for human habitation (e.g. living on the streets) or in emergency homeless shelters during that time. There are nearly 1,000 citizens in Dallas that are identified as “chronic homeless.”

Who are the homeless and what determines their condition?

There are nearly 6,000 homeless citizens in our city. Those persons who are considered “homeless” are: a person living in a place not meat for habitation (e.g. –car, parks, sidewalks, or abandoned building); in an emergency homeless shelter, or transitional housing.

If a person is in one of these three places, but most recently spent less than 30 days in a jail or institution, he/she qualifies as coming from one of these three above categories. It is also a person who is being evicted within a week from private dwelling unit and no subsequent residence has been identified and the person lacks the resources and support networks needed to obtain housing; or discharged within a week from an institution, in which the person has been a resident of more than 30 consecutive days and no subsequent residence has been identified and the person lacks the resources and support network.

Click here to learn more about the picture of homelessness in our city.

Click here to learn more about The Call to change the face of homelessness.