Homelessness in Texas: An Overview
The current state of homelessness in Texas is a complex issue that continues to impact major cities across the state. According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) 2019 Annual Homeless Assessment Report (AHAR) to Congress, an estimated 25,848 homeless persons were counted in Texas as part of the 2019 Point-In-Time (PIT) Count. This included 10,572 persons in families and 15,276 individuals without children. Further, the Veterans Administration (VA) reported that at least 2,700 veterans experienced homelessness in Texas on any given night in 2019.
In 2019, the counties with the most homeless persons included Harris (9,799 persons), Dallas (3,683 persons), Tarrant (1,231 persons), Bexar (960 persons), Travis (900 persons), Austin (753 persons), and Hidalgo (516 persons). The major cities with the most homeless persons included Houston (8,064 persons), Dallas (8,054 persons), San Antonio (3,664 persons), Fort Worth (2,300 persons), Austin (1,564 persons), and Arlington (1,185 persons). In recent years, the PIT count and HUD’s Continuum of Care (CoC) Reports have provided similar counts of homeless persons in major cities throughout Texas. For example, in February 2018, HUD released its CoC Reports for January 2017 (based on the 2017 PIT count). The CoC Reports provided a count of approximately 10,183 homeless persons in Harris County, 7,046 homeless persons in Dallas County, 3,429 homeless persons in Tarrant County, 3,306 homeless persons in Bexar County, 2,477 homeless persons in Travis County, 2,197 homeless persons in Tarrant County, 1,800 homeless persons in Harris County, and 1 , 797 homeless persons in Dallas City.
Historically, the number of homeless persons was highest prior to the mid-2000s recession. This started changing as local governments and various state agencies created strategies for alleviating homelessness. For example, in 2003, the Texas Balance of State Continuum of Care was created to target five regions in Texas with the highest number of homeless persons. These five regions include the Texas Panhandle, Southwest Texas, the Deep East Texas area, the Coastal Bend region, and the North Texas region. Other strategies also include the creation of HUD’s Change Direction Plan in 2000, the Texas Interagency Council for the Homeless created in 2007, and the State Homeless Strategy presented in 2018. As HUD has made additional grant funding available to support full implementation of the HEARTH Act, many Texas municipalities are also working toward implementation of the County Homeless Strategies (CHS) created in 2018. Further, in 2018, the Texas Legislative Budget Board recommended that the 86th Texas Legislature (2019) appropriate $8.1 million to the Texas Health and Human Services Commission to implement the CHS.
However, while there may be a range of numbers reported by various government agencies regarding the number of homeless persons in Texas, it is generally understood from the PIT count and other government reports that individuals and families experiencing homelessness in Texas are concentrated in the state’s major metropolitan areas. Similar to other states, more people are living in urban areas and cities than in rural areas. As a result, Texas’ homelessness crisis is especially acute in urban centers.
State Laws Impacting the Homeless
In addition to federal laws, a number of state laws may apply to the homeless and issues surrounding homelessness. The most common of these laws are much more compelling than the federal laws, because they are enforced not just with civil penalties, but also with arrest. These include laws against camping and sleeping outside, against alcohol consumption and other intoxicants, and laws against disorderly conduct. Unless otherwise indicated, these laws are enforced by city ordinances, which can differ from one municipality to the next.
Texas law currently allows cities (municipalities) to pass laws and ordinances that prevent squatters from living in empty buildings and structures. Municipalities are also allowed laws prohibiting squatters from using private property, such as shopping plazas, parks, and other private areas. However, municipalities cannot pass laws prohibiting the act of squatting itself, since that may violate the Constitution’s Eighth Amendment. Municipality laws prohibiting loitering and camping further affect the homeless, as well as typically allowing law enforcement to seize goods and personal belongings believed to be associated with having been in violation of the law (which is why it is so important to be properly represented when facing a charge brought against you). Similar to laws prohibiting squatting, laws prohibiting loitering typically consist of both a state law as well as a municipality law that enforces the state statute. In addition, Tex. Penal Code § 42.03 prohibits begging, loafing, and vagrancy. There does not appear to be any case law directly addressing the statute’s constitutionality. However, the law appears to permit arrests of the homeless and prohibits them from asking for food or money, begging for help, or engaging in other activities many municipal and state legislatures have attempted to make unlawful.
The Best Practices for Homeless Persons’ Rights program is a statewide, grassroots effort to train law enforcement and other public sector employees on the rights of homeless individuals and how to deal with complaints. The Texas Homeless Network, Glenn Ellen, and Texas Appleseed created the program, and were most recently funded by the State of Texas, Department of Family and Protective Services.
State initiatives exist within the criminal justice sector in Texas when it comes to the treatment of the homeless. These initiatives include initiatives through the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. First, the Department runs a Texas Restitution Centers program, which "provides incarcerated individuals with work opportunities and rehabilitation programs that prepare them for successful reentry into their communities." The program also helps with housing, job training, substance abuse resources, employment referrals, and mental health services.
City Ordinances: Local Variations
Most of Texas has only the rules and regulations of the State of Texas governing the homeless. For example, no state law prohibits camping on public property. But some cities—including the Texas capital of Austin—have enacted more restrictive ordinances in this area. Here is a sampling of local ordinances around Texas:
Austin
The homeless in the Texas capital city of Austin have been experiencing a great deal of upheaval in the last few years. In 2011, Austin City Council members voted to prohibit camping on public property in most cases. The controversial decision resulted in a lawsuit against the City of Austin, which found that the ordinance was unconstitutional. The city spent about $500,000 in legal fees defending the law.
After three years in the courts, the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2014 upheld the ordinance. That decision was later overturned, however, after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear it. Advocates said the Supreme Court was careful not to say whether the ordinance signed into law by the mayor was unconstitutional.
This caused the City of Austin to reverse course and change its ban on camping on public land. Starting in 2019, the city announced that it would not make homeless a crime simply for being homeless. Austin police officers have since been instructed to refer those found camping illegally to health care services and shelters, not handcuffs.
Dallas
The homeless situation in Dallas has also been the focus of much activity, particularly after five homeless individuals were killed by serial killer Tommy Lee Moore in March 2015. At the time of the murders, advocates said that almost two-thirds of the 3,173 homeless people living on the streets of Dallas, according to homeless and state officials, were women. They urged the city to funnel disaster relief funding into more permanent supportive housing and to hire additional social workers.
The Dallas Morning News stated that the chance of freezing to death on the streets of Dallas is greater than the chance of being killed by Moore, whose murders were called the worst incident of violence to ever hit the city.
In 2019, the Dallas City Council voted to remove a ban on camping on public land—essentially taking local measures similar to those taken by Austin when it became a destination on the national homelessness radar. Dallas said a decline in the number of homeless individuals and an increase in the number of shelter beds, as well as a focus on mental health treatment, justified the decision to repeal the 1988 ordinance banning camping and sitting or lying down in certain places.
San Antonio
Policies governing the homeless vary widely not only from one city to another, but also from one year to the next. The ban on camping and lying in public in San Antonio was repealed in 2015 amid growing pressure from homeless advocates to focus on outreach and treatment rather than criminalizing the homeless. That generated intercity conflict, as nearby San Marcos continued its ban on public camping past the San Antonio repeal.
In 2017, the San Antonio City Council made waves for amending a threatened site plan for a 240-unit multifamily development in a gentrifying neighborhood, citing issues with "quality of life," homelessness, and the negative impact of the project on a nearby food bank, neighbors, and elementary school.
Other Cities
El Paso’s Adopt A Needy Street program, which enlists the aid of local businesses in picking up trash in certain areas of the city, has a monopoly on the cleanup of the downtown section, as well as Interstate 10 and Interstate 110.
Fort Worth also has an Adopt-A-Corner program, in which citizens clean up litter and remove illegal trash from street corners in their neighborhoods.
The McKinney public library has started offering free access to cell phones and computers to help homeless people and other low-income individuals search for jobs.
Rights of the Homeless and Legal Protections
In Texas, the rights and regulations governing homeless persons — including those who are homeless — are compiled in Section 73 of the Texas Human Resources Code. Some of these regulations relate to restrictions on where and when persons can camp publicly, or how municipalities can regulate their public activities. Other regulations relate to access to state and local government programs, including voting rights. There is a distinction between legal protections for those who may be homeless or at risk of homelessness, and protections for individuals who are not.
Among other protections provided by the Texas Constitution, Article I, Section 3 prohibits an individual from being "disqualified from holding office until the person shall have been convicted of embezzlement of public funds, bribery, forgery, or perjury[.]" Those people who have been accused but are not yet convicted of such offenses (arrested but not yet charged) also enjoy the presumption of innocence under the Constitution.
Publicly funded supportive housing — which provides the opportunity for individuals to reside in a home or facility — often involves some monitoring or support program to prevent eviction, or assist with readjustment in society. There are voucher or financing programs that provide rental assistance for low income persons, or assist them with moving expenses. Application is often difficult as funds are scarce and are rapidly used up. The State offers financial assistance for security deposits, utility deposits and making homes accessible. However these programs, although administered by the State of Texas, are only available in select counties and for certain periods of time.
The Social Security Administration may award disability payments to homeless persons, if they meet specific conditions. SSI/SSDI benefits require an application through the local Social Security Administration office. A representative payee may be appointed to receive benefits, and provide: basic help with hygiene, obtaining a job, or replacing identity documents. Legal assistance may be obtained through the Pro Bono Program or government-funded projects or agencies. There are special programs for disabled veterans such as the Texas Veterans Commission, or for disability claims through the Immigration Legal Services Division of the Department of Homeland Security.
Supportive Services and Assistance
In addition to shelters and soup kitchens, there are numerous support services and resources available to the homeless. For example, Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston has many programs to support the poor and disenfranchised. The Coalition for the Homeless, based in Houston, is active in advocating for the rights of the homeless as well as in getting them medical treatment and job training. For specific support services in the Houston area, you may want to check the online directory provided by the Coalition for the Homeless of Harris County.
Because so many charitable non-profits operate in Texas, the directory for The Center for Nonprofit Management of North Texas is an invaluable resource. This website provides a plethora of information about the many charitable organizations in the DFW area, many of which directly support the homeless. A few of those are the Salvation Army , which has numerous facilities across Texas; Genesis Women’s Shelter & Support, which provides a haven for women and their children in immediate crisis; Covenant House Texas, which serves the Houston area; and LifeNet Dallas, which provides food, medical, and counseling support.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development has a useful guide to finding a homeless shelter. The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services has numerous services and resources for the homeless, many provided through its Community Based Child Services system (CBCS).
For veterans, there are numerous shelters and outreach centers, and the VA Texas Valley Coastal Bend Health Care System has clinics and hospitals throughout the southern portion of the state to serve veteran healthcare needs. The Department of Veterans affairs also runs a local resource center in Houston.
Current Issues and Criticisms of the Law
Despite legal safeguards, many argue that Texas laws fail to adequately protect the homeless. Critics point to the difficulty in enforcing the law, bureaucratic barriers, and what they see as overly broad and vague prohibitions. Advocates further report that high barriers with respect to documentation and income requirements provide insurmountable hurdles for many to access such services, even when they are available. Moreover, they allege that local ordinances target homeless individuals in a discriminatory manner, often criminalizing behavior that is necessary for homeless people to survive on the streets.
The involvement of federal authorities has not allayed these concerns. In 2009, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) issued a letter of findings regarding homeless and low income residents in Dallas. The DOJ found that the Dallas city ordinances targeting panhandling were motivated by an intent to discriminate, not to address a public safety issue or further a legitimate public policy. The DOJ also found that enforcement of the ordinance was racially discriminatory. Based upon these findings, the DOJ consented to enter into a settlement agreement with the City of Dallas, whereby the City would amend its ordinances and implement several injury preventive policing and training policies. These changes were made following a series of contested public hearings. However, even after the changes were instituted, advocates reported widespread violations of the settlement terms throughout the City. Noncompliance with the terms of the settlement have led to increasing tension between police and community groups working with the homeless.
In response, many nonprofit organizations have developed a series of public education campaigns around these issues, aimed at drawing public attention to the plight of homeless persons in Texas. Advocacy groups have also attempted to use test cases to challenge these ordinances as unconstitutional.
Future Trends and Policy Suggestions
Texas is a state with earnest intentions for addressing homelessness, but its culture of conservatism and libertarianism may blinker lawmakers to the broader social implications of barricading social support systems without concurrently investing in alternatives. Homelessness is a civic issue and should be treated as such, rather than continuing with the top-down approach of criminalizing social neglect and stigmatizing those affected. After decades of tattered and inadequate support systems, now is the time to radically reconceive our approach to homelessness, not continue bolstering the systems responsible for rendering those same inadequacies. Experts like Windham, as well as philosopher and author Daniel Loomis, advocate for the inclusion of social determinants of health (SDOH) to transform how we "respond to health care needs in Texas." Loomis’ arguments in favor of integrating SDOH into Texan medicine can easily be extended to other state-run services, where a social-behavioral model could help identify the red flags of an approaching crisis. For example, persons who have been arrested are more likely to have healthcare needs that could be managed with routine medical care , thus spending tens of thousands of dollars on emergency services attributable to a failure to provide routine medical care. If the social determinates of their health had been examined prior to an arrest, or during a trip to the emergency room, perhaps they could have received the chronic care needed for a fraction of the cost. Repealing the offenses related to vagrancy would be a first step in implementing the systemic changes needed to truly address homelessness in Texas. From there, now is the time to look beyond the standard limitations of the county line for an equitable solution to homelessness that all counties can participate in and derive the benefits from. As Loomis notes, "No single council will suffice to address the underlying causes of homelessness, health care inequality, or community: Full-fledged integration of behavioral and medical care; coordinated inter-agency efforts to treat patients holistically through wraparound services; maximum community involvement in the development, operation, and evaluation of programs; and, above all, a spirit of openness."
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