Who's Afraid of the Big, Bad Homeless?

• Hmmm not a bad idea to turn the tunnels into shelter...it's cool down there right???

• You're funny

• LOL

• If you like poetry what does it matter? Hello? So they are their own bookstore and convenient too! Another way they are being entreprenuers...a little lying but they are surviving LEGALLY. I love poetry.  :)  You do have to watch out about buying dart train tickets from the homeless though!!  What out about pulling out your money. Just sayin.

• I love this program...The Streetzine offers for the homless to get back into the work force...but also, I LOVE STREETZINE! It's a very interesting newspaper, lots of articles about the neighborhood, the homless and actual bios and stories of individuals who are homeless too.  I support Streetzine!

• its not true that the street poets are copying other people's stuff....that is just some made up crap (just like Schutze thinking the streets are empty)...for an extra buck or two, you can get a free recital along with it.

• Street smarts suggest you don't treat homeless people as less than human. Dehumanizing people encourages them to reciprocate. I've had many an encounter whereby I tried to wave off a sob story and they take great offense. It's always best to listen and then tell them you're broke too.

• Meant to hit reply, not Like. Anyway, as I said - to each his own. But why is giving up and moving to the suburbs the only option? The only way to make a neighborhood better is to become more involved in it and help create a catalyst for change. I guess it's just easier to give up and move to Frisco.

• It's because they sleep in the stairs that go down at City Hall. Most shelters close at 5 pm leaving many of our homeless out in the cold.

• My my daily dog route takes me from the Metropolitan to Main Street Garden Park. Monday-Friday evening I rarely see any homeless people. It's true I usually see a couple at the park hanging on the benches but they're no different than the clean people doing the same thing. It's the weekends that I always find the following like clockwork: 1 homeless sitting outside CVS 1 homeless black guy who has a pregnant wife (at the library) and wants food for her. He loves the ribs at Sol... 1 homeless person outside fish market wanting to sell you the Homeless Times. Random homeless people that are waking around town asking for nothing. Personally, I don't see the big deal. Homeless people are just like us but with really bad chologne.

• It's also really easy to not listen to the stories.

• Operated by First Presbyterian across from the Stewpot.

• Saying no to panhandlers is easy. It's stopping to have to listen to their fake back story about why they just need a few more dollars that wears you down. You can give a couple bucks to the first guy, but by the fourth guy you just want to get to somewhere indoors. If it's a crowded sidewalk scene you feel is the dearth of downtown, one can mingle in the area of the DART western transfer station and west end light rail station. It's a hive of activity that Jim craves in that area. There's even a new McDonald's snd 7-11. I'm sure the landlords of the expensive apartments adjacent are racking in the cash from the critical mass.

• "I admire a guy who can survive without working and stay drunk all day on other people's money." You also admired that kid from your neighborhood that grew into a young man but didn't outgrow his narcissistic need to tag other people's property. Why? Because it helps you score cool points to say, "I'm not scared of the homeless. I like things dirty. If you don't, there's always North Park." Guess what? Most people aren't afraid of the homeless. They're annoyed and disgusted by them. When I worked downtown, I bought the newspaper some of them produced and sold. Sometimes I bought the same issue twice. Because those guys were at least making an effort to do something productive. Most people don't want to live in gritty, high-crime areas. Yet you wrote you were almost nostalgic about the days of old when you would hear gunshots in your neighborhood. Why? To burnish your street cred? Or your liberal cred? If you really miss those days, you can move to a gritty, high-crime area where gunshots are still heard. Think of the cash you could bank if you sold your house in the gentrifying neighborhood and bought one where nobody with a decent income wants to live. I'm all for a vibrant downtown. But let's not pretend we have to embrace grittiness in the name of authenticity. Downtown Dallas wasn't that way in its heyday.

• Well, apparently you haven't been to the area around the main library and city hall. The homeless folks are all over the place. In fact, they own it. But I must say, they never hassle me or panhandle me, except for one homeless guy threatening me in a library restroom. (Now I make sure my bladder is empty before I go to the library.)

• People are not going to be on sidewalk in 100 degree weather.I have never been in the tunnel and not going.City streets were full when there were stores,restaurants,employment,and other people needs downtown.We had a large underground restroom facility and cold water fountains down there.People moved out and ran to all these shopping malls and Burbs so what did Dallas expect.I saw it when North Park opened and there was no public transportation to get there.What did that say,no car,no enter.Dallas has always separated its people by class,money,color and every thing else that make great Cities Great, then cry about it.In New York ,as you said the homeless are not seen to many people on street.The same in DC and other Cities with active downtown areas.

• Prevention yes, jobs paying a living wage yes, affordable housing yes - it is getting harder and harder to do this especially with the current economy. And of course you have the usual NIMBY problems no matter where you try to provide housing. Also, many of the chronic homeless are really not able to work and will never be able to hold a job. That is usually due to mental illness or other mental deficiencies. They are not all drunks. Have you ever met a seriously mentally ill person who would acknowledge they are ill? Unfortunately our current system does not allow us to force anyone into housing or to take medication.

• The long line is people waiting to get in the food bank upstairs. It is operated by the Methodist Church downtown.

• Where is downtoen? Oh, that's right, it's over in the Dutch District ;)

• You need to go to main street garden again. It does have homeless/meth-heads. I spoke with the attendent at the lillypad in mainstreet garden and they NOW to lock their bathrooms now because of vandilism and people doing "stuff" in there that they shouldn't be doing in there. They were not locking them last August. While there, look at the unofficial postings about loitering that is another telltail sign that there is an issue. A few weeks ago a coulple meth-heads wanted to join our frisbee game. Homeless appearing person's also hangout by the Farmer's Market, Pegusus Plaza and bus station. You'll see them more as the days get warmer.

• Sadly, as the census has shown us- you know, facts and all- most people in the DFW would prefer the suburbs. That's why I keep harping that Dallasites have a generally suburban attitude. Even if you like the "nitty gritty city", or like Schutze, likes to be in the city, well, he's still in a pretty suburban neighborhood, just like the rest of us.

• It doesn't matter, perception is reality and there are thousands of daytime downtown people who happily get into their cars and drive OUT of Dallas to go home where they couch their kids soccer teams, shop at the Wal Mart and live out their happy lives away from what they perceive is a dangerous way to live in downtoen.

• You're right... "some" people in those areas are afraid. But here in the DFW, it's most people.

• He's not an old fart but some dumb 14-year-old kid ranting about how the illegals are raping your grannies.

• You're kinda making my point... that people in Dallas walk places but ONLY because they have to. As I said, Dallasites have very suburban outlooks, even the progressive "urban" ones...

• I'd be all for it, if it didn't mean having to give up the Dallas Observer Employees golf course.

• Or those that help prevent people from becoming homeless and transition the homeless into jobs and apartments, like Crossroads Community Services.

• To each his own - some of us like the nitty gritty and want to make it more livable for those who have homes and those who don't. Just remember that the suburbs are what they are because of the city that spawned them. It's kind of like the middle aged child who takes care of their aging parent. It also explains why the burbs need to do more to support public transit and Parkland.

• This whole discussion makes me wonder what happened to the Observer's downtown office (are the You+Dallas people working there now?) and whether it would be possible to move back in the area sometime in the future.

• i've never given them money, because i generally believe its not their work. but then again, they are doing something more interesting to contribute to the street scene

• I don't trust the "poets". They just photocopy someone else's work and tell you it's theirs.

• really? a bunch of times i've been downtown i've run into guys with little booklets apparently of their poetry or wanting to recite one of their poems to me. i rarely see people playing instruments though.

• Haw haw it looks like my comments cut some disingenuous white liberals a little close to the bone!

• Who cares about Republicans? Or the Democrats for that matter. I think it's pretty clear that government has shown it can't effectively address the issue. If you really want to help the indigent, donate to one of the many charities that exist to help the homeless or better yet start your own.

• Does that mean I'm supposed to stand on the curb and wave my phone over my head?

• Hailing a cab? They have apps for that now.

• I've worked downtown for 5 years and can tell you that most of the people in my office won't venture out more than a block from my building. But I've gotten a few of them to walk further out, and they actually start to notice things like the Statler Hilton and Main Street Garden. One of them even posted on her Facebook wall that the Statler had a new buyer. And she didn't know what that was until a few months ago. Anyway, I may be in the minority but I think we have a pretty awesome downtown that is slowly but surely filling with people who feel the same way.

• You're probably right about most people, but I live about 10 blocks from the Abrams/Gaston intersection, and I walk to a lot of places in that area. I see a lot of others doing the same, although they might be doing it out of necessity more than choice. My g/f and I even hauled off and walked all the way down the Santa Fe Trail and had dinner at the Allgood last night in Deep Ellum. Walking back is a good way to justify the chicken fried steak and apple pie I ingested.

• I don't know about street poets, but I've given money to people playing instruments. Downtown needs more artists, homeless or otherwise.

• Its not the homeless that are the problem per se, its the the panhandlers. Wanna know the difference, offer said person a snack from your lunch bag, if they take it they are homeless, if they get pissy and dont want it, they are panhandlers. Beggers cant be choosers, and yes im talking about the eff head who frequents ross and pearl weekly

• Should have been on Matilda street Saturday night. You could have hailed a cab, and about 17 of them would have pulled over. Of course that only happens on St. Patrick's Parade day, New Year's Eve and Halloween, but still....

• Ask 'em. I think you'd be intrigued by the answers.

• Repubs won't have it. Are you kidding? Taking care of those that can't take care of themselves? What do you think we're running here, some sort of civilized society? Better to let them rot on the streets, After all, I think that's what they preach about on Sunday mornings in all those monster churches, where they happily give money to some guy that stands up and rants for an hour...

• Here's a dollar, go away.

• I lived in Chicago, a city with a big downtown (The Loop, also a radio station) and a generally urban vibe throughout the city, where you can walk to the store or a restaurant or bar. Hop on a bus or the El to get around, and hail a cab if need be. Ever tried to hail a cab in Dallas? I'd like it to be "real city", like it was pre-WWII. Until we change zoning laws and start charging for parking everywhere, people won't get it.

• Why are you reading Unfair Park, you old fart?

• It is a known fact that most bums are Republicans,and they get that way because Republicans just drink too much. Waaay too much. Republicans need to dial waaaay back on the booze.

• or, as my kids would say, "why don't you marry it?"

• So, Jim, if you love downtown so much, why haven't you sold your home and moved downtown?

• I go through the Farmer's Market part of Downtown more often than through town proper. There are LOTS of homeless near the Market, and we know why. But, my last few forays into Downtown I did see few homeless along Main.

• Yes, I have. I go about once a month. I always take DART rail and then walk to where I'm going. Maybe it is how I carry myself. Maybe it is how I look people in the eye. But, they don't bother me.

• I pity the homeless and chronically mentally ill who are, on top of everything else, indigent. Their lives are stolen in a blur of treatable but profound illnesses. How many various programs are we funding to help these people? The programs aren't working. They are money flushed away with no lasting impact. The homeless still roam the streets. I completely agree with something I saw on PBS over a year ago on the same topic: it seems we as a society need to come to the realization that many people will never be independent. They need permanent housing and mandatory meds. A bed, a desk, and a tiny bathroom. Food and meds on the first floor. If they find some sort of job, great, but don't count on it and certainly don't kick them out if they get a job. Mandatory meds, in exchange for housing and food, are the only chance these people will have. We just need to bite the bullet and do it. If only I were a billionaire...

• If anyone here REALLY wants to see a good cross-section of the homeless in downtown Dallas, go to the 500 block of Park Ave, any day of the week around 8:00am. There is a long line of (apparently) homeless folks, stretching around the corner onto Young st. Every day. I would guess the number to be over 100, +/- 10%.

• Jim, I side with you on thinking of the homeless as people, but despite what some people may <i>say</i> about the homeless, what Dallas <i>does</i> to provide them with assistance is a different thing. And on that front, I don't see how anyone could fault this city's compassion. I'm not entirely sure why we have to deliver that compassion through downtown facilities and services, but that's a different issue.

• Good. But very, very contrary to my last dozen trips to Farmers' Market.

• But, no one can deny, you'll see lots of minorities around the city court bldg. They're on DART and all over South Dallas. Minorities are all over! I mean homeless, homeless.

• I've actually found the more obnoxious panhandlers are reasonably well-dressed. They hit you up at the Exxon across from DO office at Maple and Oak Lawn or at Lemmon and Wycliffe with some story about how they just ran right out of gas and need a couple bucks to get to Frisco for a family emergency. They are not ranting and hearing voices, and they definitely aren't wearing 5 days worth of grime and dirt.

• Answering your question:  as long as there are plenty of naive pollyanna white liberals in Dallas who get a feelgood DoGooder boost for their egos by hanging around wasting their precious time listening to ranting bums and hoping that the bum will drunkenly channel the next next "Black Elk Speaks",  and as long as there are plenty of other disingenuous white liberals to constantly publicly congratulate each other on how "enlightened" they are, your plan will work out JUST FINE.   

• A true Texan would think of Townes Van Zandt.

• have you BEEN downtown since 1998?

• I used to live a couple houses down from Sylvan and I-30. I loved it. I could see downtown from my front yard. I loved the diversity the neighborhood had to offer. I liked shopping in the Davis area and eating in the Bishop's art district. The hobo's lived across the highway and seldom ventured into the neighborhoods. I could ride my bike across the Houston street bridge on Saturday, ride full speed through downtown on empty streets and stop for an orange at the farmers market. Only a few times in the 5 years I lived there was I approached by an agressive pandhandler. I just said no agressively back and they moved on. The corner hobo's stayed on the far side of I-30 and seldom came into the neighborhood except to walk around (It's pretty, I liked walking around there too). A couple of times a guy or gal would decide to camp out on the creek across from my house and bathe in the creek. All it took was for me to go over and ask them to move back to the other side of the highway (kinda mean? maybe). My wife hated it. She hated getting asked for her" digits" at the gas station or being approached agressively at her car for money in the grocery store lot. It made her nervous to pull up to the house at night and get out, not knowing who may be walking around the neioghborhood. She did not like the nitty gritty city. She won. We moved to the norhern whitebread burbs. Know what? Not that bad out here. There are things to do, some area restaurants that are not chains, low noise, rapid (if overzealous) police response times and decent government. Know what else? Good roads, cleaner air, responsive city services and pretty good public schools. Just sayin. Know what? the bunrbs

• I walk all over downtown each day at lunch and there just aren't nearly as many homeless as people seem to think. I've only been doing it for a couple of years so maybe there were a lot more homeless in the past but the scope of the problem is totally exaggerated now. Blaming the homeless for downtown being deserted is just a cop out. Have you ever been to New Orleans or San Francisco? They have tons more homeless and their downtown areas are far from deserted. Let's face it, a large portion of the suburban population is afraid of downtown and there's nothing you can do to change their minds. There will always be homeless in the downtown areas of every major city, so either you need to deal with it or stay out of downtown.

• But I've also seen homeless people ride the DART from Fair Park Station all the way to Parker Road and back to Fair Park Station just to give them something to do I guess. There really is no way to avoid "the crazies." Sometimes I wonder what homeless people think about us....

• How about DART Rail that is like a Tunnel on wheels lots people use to get on and off on Main Elm and Commerce now they get on and off in areas that are on out side edges of the central Business District . Do we need to stop that as well?

• Walk the streets of any dense, urban city (say, for example, Chicago or New York) and you will see poor people and the homeless and crazy all mixed in with professionals and students and everyone else. Some people who live in those regions are "afraid" of walking in their city centers just as some people here are afraid of downtown Dallas. Ignore them. There are plenty of white-washed suburbs where they can hole up. Continue doing what we can to attract more people of every possible stripe downtown, and good things will happen. There are plenty of urban-minded people in Dallas who are ready to do their part.

• You ass-hole. All I asked you, when you passed me on the street out in front of the Observer, was if you had the time.

• How bout tucking away all the homeless by turning the tunnels into 1 big shelter and then bring all the clean and pretty people above ground to walkabout?

• What is most interesting here and in yesterday's thread about the tunnels is the number of pepole who sound like they do know what's going on downtown and who defend downtown. I don't want to over-interpret, but isit possible we are finally getting at least a cadre of truly urban people here who get downtowns and who are starting to feel protective of this downtown?

• Nah. I was thinking of CEOs.

• I haven't really seen many homeless people in Deep Ellum lately, either. hrmm

• I haven't seen them in East Dallas - there used to be one guy in a wheelchair with amputated legs (or it appeared that way ala Eddie Murphy), but I haven't even seen him in a long time.

• I'm an atheist, so your disingenuous appeals to Christianity are impotent as far as I am concerned. Progressivism is just as stupid a religion as the Christianity that schutze is always whining about.

• 'I admire a guy who can survive without working and stay drunk all day on other people's money.' Being the typical liberal you are-- you would admire a bureaucrat!

• Hey dipshitschutze, some if us are elderly women and men. We dont have the strength or ability or bone density to defend ourselves (without weapons). I've been violently attacked downtown 3 times, twice by homeless bums and once by a pack of youfs. Also, many of us have actually grown up and realized that the inebriated ramblings of bums are not actually funny and that they really don't have any magic bum wisdom to share. You let your hatred for rich white people to blind you to the horrible facts of reality that do not conform to the strictures of your faith-based Progressive Orthodox Church.

• what about the street poets?!

• I have to agree with Downtowner. The last time a homeless person in downtown Dallas asked me for money was in 1998. I have had more panhandlers ask me for money in North Dallas than I have in the downtown area. Also, if people actually looked at the numbers, people would see that most people who are homeless, are only that way for a short time. Very few people are chronically homeless. And, the chronically homeless usually have mental problems and/or addictions that cause them to be that way.

• I only give money to people selling the Street Zine downtown. Those men and women are responsible and truly trying to better their lives (at least you know they aren't spending their earnings to get high because they have to buy more papers the next day). If everyone else supported the Street Zine vendors, it would make the "bums" who just ask for money look like lazy fools.

• Dallas has always been a very suburban city in terms of design and nature, and a thriving downtown and top 10 designation was sort of an anomaly for a "sunbelt" ity as we are. I'm pretty sure we invented sprawl, at least we are certainly the poster-child for it. That said, lots of people, even "urban" city dwellers in east Dallas who still must utilize a car to get over to the corner store for a pack of smokes, have a very suburban attitude about Dallas in general and downtown and homeless people in particular. My s/o- who I packed up out of her North Dallas house and moved into mine within spittin distance of Fair Park- can't get to downtown without a map, even though it takes less than five minutes to drive there and it's even better to get to on DART... She's skeptical of DART. She's terrified of the Dallas Public Library- the one-shoed homeless guy with his left hand jammed down his shorts while holding another, completely mismatched shoe in the right hand, "skeeved" her out. Her first time there was four months ago and we won't ever be going back. Noe mind you, we don't live in Plano and she has lived in Dallas ever since she moved to the region 10 years ago. As in, in the City of Dallas. North of the High Five, but still, in the City. I was in St. Louis recently and I marveled at how many people walked to the corner store. Or neighborhood pub. Or cafe. Because there they all were, on all the corners, within neighborhoods, with houses. Kinda like what you's over in the State Thomas area..... where you CAN live there (in a $300K townhome) and go walk to the corner for a beer, or stop in for a bottle of wine, or grab a bite to eat. But that's only this one teeny little area of all that is Dallas where the rest of us get in out car to drive 10 blocks to the nearest "neighborhood store". We are still a very suburban city.

• For some people, coming in close proximity to even 1 homeless person is just too many. But I agree about downtown actually having relatively few homeless people. They're just always around (don't they have anything else to DO?) and downtown is mostly abandoned by the rest of us who could make the homeless seem like a tiny fraction of the critical mass. And to reply to Phelps, I don't think people are afraid of the homeless, I just think we'd rather not see them. I mean, all things equal, I'd rather not be reminded that some people are having a horrible go of life.

• "Afraid of the homeless" sounds like the sort of strawman that would get thrown out to avoid the issue of why the tunnels are better than the streets, even if they aren't good by themselves. It's like like throwing out racist or warmonger or something -- it's ignoring someone's stated reasons to make them seem like a bad person for disagreeing. DPD has been on a pretty aggressive campaign to roust the homeless out of the CBD anyways (whether it offends anyone's religion on if they <i>should</i> be doing that, they <i>are</i>.) Am I afraid of the homeless? Only in that the true street homeless are almost exclusively there because they are addicted to some sort of substance, are mentally ill, or both. And they are a small portion of the homeless -- most homeless people who aren't addicts or insane are in some sort of shelter or program, and you wouldn't even know that they are homeless unless they bring it up. So do I avoid insane addicts? Sure. Is that some sort of phobia? I doubt it, but I've been wrong before.

• Couple of other observations: People riding their bikes, and places like City Tavern and Sol Irlandes jam-packed with people (especially for a Tuesday). Other times, I've noticed people taking photos of the downtown buildings, more than I've noticed before. It just looks like people are starting to rediscover downtown and enjoying the streets again.

• "The only reason the homeless are so visible downtown is because nobody else is down there to make a crowd. Find a way to fill downtown with people, and the homeless among us will be much less visible." There aren't even that many homeless people downtown anymore! At least along the Main Street corridor. I went for a walk from the Kirby Building to Main Street Garden around 9pm and this is what I saw: -People walking their dogs -Women walking alone -Kids playing soccer in the park -A couple of Downtown Dallas Safety Patrol security guards -ZERO homeless people. If they were homeless, they did not look it. People who say they avoid downtown because of the "bums" have not been up in the street level since 1999.

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