09/08/04  Homeless Czar

In announcing the new plan and czar for the downtown Dallas homeless center, the Dallas Morning News opines that "for various reasons, homeless people gravitate to central business districts."

Why is that?

Because that's where the free food and shelters are.

Because the Dallas CBD is the only place in town where you can have a soup kitchen or a shelter without a special use permit.

In any other part of the City, such a building would be considered a noxious use.  If nothing else, this is poor city planning.

By concentrating such activity downtown, Dallas writes off a large section of its most valuable property.

Street people will gravitate to any place where there is food, shelter and some semblance of safety.  These necessities can be found in enclaves throughout the City. There is no unique necessity to lure them downtown.

Other cities have addressed the same problems by moving homeless support centers out of their downtowns into lower value industrial zones. Dallas made a half-hearted effort to find such a site, met with neighborhood opposition, and quickly retreated back to downtown.

This is no cause for celebration.

(This letter was also published in the DMN's Letters to the Editor, 9/7/04.)