Why homelessness is going down in Houston but up in Dallas

[TexasTowelie]

by Juan Pablo Garnham, Texas Tribune


Back in the 1990s, Houston's urban core looked very different than it does today, with restaurants and coffee shops mingled among a burgeoning number of high-rise residences downtown. The city's bayous hadn't yet been beautified, with the clean biking and running trails that now wind through parks.

Back then, the bayous were a refuge for the city's homeless residents. And downtown, a multitude of organizations served food or offered beds, often without a lot of coordination with one another.

“Everybody was walking down the streets of downtown to get to the soup kitchen or to the day shelter,” Thao Costis, president and CEO of the homeless outreach organization SEARCH, remembers. “Church groups would have clothing or a fast lunch for them. It was very reactionary to these basic needs.”

But things have radically changed. While redevelopment has maybe made homelessness more visible to the urban core's new residents, the numbers show a 53% decrease in the Houston area's homeless population since 2011. This is according to the Point-in-Time count, a census that is done at the end of each January across the country, including in 11 urban areas of Texas. Although it is extremely difficult to count the homeless community in a precise way, experts agree that this process gives a good snapshot that allows people and governments to analyze general trends, and Houston’s numbers look exceptionally low.

Read more: https://www.texastribune.org/2019/07/02/why-homelessness-going-down-houston-dallas/