Dallas Homelessness Committee Explores New Shelter Options — Including Tiny Homes
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A special called meeting of the Dallas Housing & Homelessness Solutions Committee will be held Tuesday afternoon to receive presentations on shelter and service options that could help the city get a handle on its homelessness problem.
Council Member Cara Mendelsohn (District 12), the committee’s chair, called for the meeting. Officials will hear from representatives of a tiny home community project, an emergency shelter builder, and a hospice care provider for people experiencing homelessness. Make of that what you will.
Tuesday’s special called meeting follows a controversial pitch to relocate The Bridge Homeless Recovery Center out of downtown. While the proposal drew some scrutiny, it put a spotlight on homelessness in the city center. Downtown has borne the brunt of homeless visibility in recent years, spurring recent initiatives on the part of officials and stakeholders to get a handle on the situation.
It looks like the committee is going to get pitched on building a tiny shelter site for the homeless. Pallet Shelter, a Washington-based firm that constructs prefabricated, rapidly deployable shelters as a response to homelessness or disasters.
On top of producing such units, Pallet Shelter helps local governments and nonprofits establish “shelter villages” that include hygiene facilities, communal spaces, and on-site access to social services.
A slide from Pallet Shelter’s presentation suggests there will be some discussion of site selection, code compliance, zoning, and funding sources. Another slide compares the cost of its village model against alternative services.
Committee members will also hear from Our Calling, a faith-based organization that’s currently building a tiny home community in Ellis County comprising 500 units. The group also maintains OurCommunity, a zero-barrier outreach center for homeless services, just outside downtown Dallas.
Our Calling’s tiny home community appears to resemble The Bridge relocation proposal (though it should be noted that The Bridge has gone on record that it had not been a part of discussions to move its operations), which called for a centralization of homeless services on a single site with a lot of acreage.
The Visiting Nurse Association will also be briefing the committee on its Hospice House project. The site will serve terminally ill patients who can’t safely receive care at home or who might not have a home.
With support from the Meadows Foundation, the Visiting Nurse Association will renovate a donated home in the Wilson Historic District into a five-bedroom residence licensed as an assisted living facility. Hospice House hopes to open by late 2027.
If any of these homeless solutions sound interesting to you, you can tune into the committee meeting at 1 p.m. on October 7 on the city’s live stream.
