Give Stray Dogs to Homeless People and Help Solve Two Problems, Says Dallas Council Member

New Dallas City Council member Kevin Felder has an idea he believes could help solve two of the city's most intractable problems at the same time."I want to train the homeless people on how to catch and train dogs," said Felder, who represents parts of southern and eastern Dallas. "We can marry the two together: we can take care of the homeless issue by giving them a place to stay and then giving them purpose. They don't have purpose."They would have purpose, Felder said, if they had a dog."The homeless will relate to the dog because they know what it's like not to have a home," Felder said.Felder now has city staff exploring the idea -- with formerly homeless residents, not those currently living on the streets -- for a possible pilot program. While Felder said the idea "just came" to him, the details of the plan are not all that different from other approaches used in prisons and jails, such as the Dallas County jail. But the approach has rarely been tried with people recovering from homelessness."We need to try some things out of the box," Felder said. "If we keep doing things the same way, we'll get the same results. We need to do something different."  Continue reading...