A New Way to View Dallas' Homeless

What is easy to forget, and numbers alone can't adequately communicate, is that behind every homeless person is a human being who has lost his or her way. We wish it weren't so, but more people are living on city streets, and the resources to help them are overwhelmed.Think of homelessness as an iceberg. At any given moment, only a fraction is within sight, and that portion is itself daunting. Metro Dallas Homeless Alliance found recently that 4,140 people are currently homeless in Dallas and Collin counties. This is a snapshot and counts both people in shelters and those on the streets, but it is up 9 percent from 2017.Of those homeless, 1,098 were on Dallas' streets. And in the two counties, 54 percent were deemed chronically homeless, on the streets for more than a year. The face of homelessness also is increasingly older and poorer. These individuals tend to be sicker and more vulnerable.Although North Texas is prosperous, the volume of homeless people swamp available resources from emergency shelters to permanent housing options. Without such support, it can be nearly impossible for a homeless person to resolve the financial, substance abuse or other factors that led to their homelessness.  Continue reading...