December 10, 2020 – The Dallas Morning News – Sharon Grigsby
Seldom under a bridge or on a street corner, they huddle at night inside their cars at big-box parking lots and community parks. At least there, they can mostly control their environment.
Other times they couch surf in crowded homes of family and friends until they can cover a few weeks in a sketchy motel. Or they sign up for a “first month free” apartment — then leave when the rent kicks in.
They wash your hair at the salon or bag your grocery purchases. Their kids wear the same clothes to school day after day. They are the first to arrive and the last to leave.
This is homelessness’ most secretive strain: The many families among us who don’t have a roof over the head of their children. With the federal eviction moratorium expiring at year’s end, even more of them are about to be dumped out on the streets.
The scenes outlined here aren’t from impoverished neighborhoods, but rather from Far North Dallas, including those parts that stretch into Collin and Denton counties. Families like these live in most every community — and they need housing support to get back on their feet.
Thanks to the compassionate constituents of City Council District 12, and its representative, Cara Mendelsohn, homeless families are likely several weeks away from getting that help as a shelter opens especially for them.
We all claim to want to help the homeless until the talk turns to sheltering them in our part of town. No NIMBY button is hotter than talk of “those people,” code for anyone who doesn’t resemble the established community.
But those alarms didn’t clang in District 12.
Mendelsohn, whose resume includes 15 years of professional and volunteer jobs in shelters and homeless advocacy, worked for months to educate constituents and win them over to the idea.
The City Council on Wednesday unanimously approved the $6 million purchase of the modern and well-maintained 50-unit Candlewood Suites, a sound wall away from the George W. Bush Tollway, the dividing line between Dallas and Plano.
The funding will come from the city’s more than $230 million in federal COVID-relief dollars.
“We’re a caring and generous and educated community,” Mendelsohn told me as we walked through the hotel, which is turn-key ready for its new role. “It will definitely benefit the families in need, but it will also benefit our other residents. They can give back right in our own community.”
This is as good a location as you’ll find in District 12 to help families make the transition from homelessness to self-sufficiency.
The hotel is just off Preston, where a bus line can get adults to the Addison Transit Station and a nearby park offers space for kids to run and play. Nearby groceries, convenience stores, a Lowe’s and dozens of casual and fast food choices offer the prospects of jobs within walking distance.
A nonprofit will soon be named to operate the shelter long term. The space initially will provide homes for those medically affected by COVID, for instance, a family in which the adult’s job might mean exposure to the virus.
Citywide, about 1,600 families identified as homeless last year: Sleeping in vehicles, facing immediate eviction from home or hotel, or running out of time in a shelter. Another 1,000 families were in precariously deteriorating situations: Doubled up with other families or unable to meet the next rent.
Remember that those numbers represent only the families who made themselves known; advocates say the total is likely four or five times that high.
Mendelsohn’s District 12 is an odd mashup of counties and school districts: 50% is located in Collin County and the other half is split between Dallas and Denton counties. The majority of students attend Plano ISD; others attend Richardson or Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISDs.
All the Plano and Carrollton-Farmers Branch campuses in Mendelsohn’s district are Title I schools, meaning large concentrations of low-income students.
“Homelessness is all around us” and rapidly increasing in the Collin County portion of District 12, Plano ISD administrator James Thomas told me.
As coordinator of student, family and community services, he is the PISD homeless liaison. This semester, his team has identified 51 homeless students in District 12. Last year at this time, he had found 79.
Thomas believes the pandemic’s remote learning option is preventing the discovery of kids in need. “We are way behind in locating those kids,” he said.
Pride keeps many families from reaching out for help. If they do speak up, Thomas said, often it’s “Yes, we’re at Walmart sleeping in the parking lot, but we are not homeless.”
That’s why Thomas can’t wait for the shelter to open. “To have those kids know they aren’t sleeping in a park, they do have a place to do their homework, a roof over their head and enough food. This will help everyone in Cara’s neighborhoods.”
Ellen Magnis, CEO of Family Gateway, told me her nonprofit intends to apply to operate the District 12 property in order to expand its homeless family services in Dallas County.
Her team’s top priority is to keep families out of shelters — for instance, providing eviction-prevention resources — but sometimes that is the only answer. When we talked a few days ago, Family Gateway was paying for 40 families to shelter in hotel rooms in addition to those in its 35-room facility.
She said the District 12 location is ideal because it’s a part of the city without any services. “We need a bigger footprint so we are where people need us.”
She said the reasons a family winds up on the streets are far different than what pushes a single person there. A common theme is generational poverty and trauma from violence and abuse. Domestic violence also leads to homelessness.
Many homeless families include a chronically ill child or one with mental or physical disabilities. “Even if you are stable, resourced two-parent families, those are huge challenges,” she said. “If you are single parent and making $15 an hour and no medical benefits, you’ll lose your job when you have to go pick up your child the fourth time from school.”
These are some of the facts — told with a lot of heart and her own personal experiences — that Mendelsohn and other experts shared with District 12 residents in virtual meetings, town halls and newsletters throughout this year.
Among those sure to be among the first to lend a hand at the new shelter will be Matt and Alison Jacob and their three kids.
“Any notion that the Far North Dallas area would be immune to homelessness would be a fallacy,” said Matt Jacob, who attended four of Mendelsohn’s meetings on the topic.
“I’m adamant that we need to do what we can, both as a community and individual families, to help to ultimately solve the problem.”
Matt and Alison are longtime volunteers with the homeless. Their children, who are eighth-, fifth- and first-graders, love to help fill bags containing hand sanitizer, water, snacks and socks to share with those in need.
Jacob believes putting the shelter in District 12 will help dispel negative attitudes. “It becomes an issue that hits closer to home because the facility will be in our district,” said Jacob, communications director for North Texas Conference of the United Methodist Church.
Another resident, Bill Hoyt, whose home is also just a few miles from the hotel, is among those whom Mendelsohn described as initially skeptical about her plan.
Throughout Hoyt’s seven years in the district, he’s consistently dealt with the neighborhood quality-of-life problems caused by homeless encampments.
But conversations with Mendelsohn have led him to become increasingly concerned about the plight of the homeless. “I think we need to take care of them. We can’t arrest our way of this.”
Hoyt, a retired military man, is now cautiously optimistic. While the District 12 shelter is geared toward families, he hopes that as shelters open in other council districts, single men and women will find more beds as well.
“We have a huge homeless problem in both our district and in the city as a whole,” he said. “Other districts now need to step up and put shelters there too.”
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