A homeless response initiative was announced on June 14 in an informal staff report to the mayor and city council. The initiative will install informative signage with information on how to donate to the homeless or others in need.
Homeless Response Initiative: Promoting Responsible Community Giving, the title of the informal report, is meant as an effort to deter panhandling and promote donations or involvement through organizations like United Way Denton County and the Denton County Homeless Coalition.
“The city and other nonprofit agencies in collaboration working together have promoted this information,” Megan Ball, Homeless Programs Manager and former United Way of Denton’s manager of rapid re-housing programs, said. “It’s just an easier way to get the information out and to let people know if you want to help, you can do it this way and this is the way that will directly impact those who are in need.”
Engage Denton and the Denton Police Department’s Homeless Outreach Team identified signage locations based on requests and outreach efforts. These locations include Interstate 35 near Loop 288, I-35 at 380, U.S. Route 380 at Loop 288, I-35 at Mayhill Road and Loop 288 at the entrance to the Walmart parking lot.
“It’s mostly signage related to where we know there’s a lot of traffic, high traffic, a lot of places where people may be requesting assistance through panhandling, which is not something we’re trying to say that they can’t do because it is protected under the constitution,” Ball said. “But we are just trying to inform the community of other ways to give and direct people to services.”
The DPD received 82 calls regarding panhandling from Jan. 1 to June 21, according to an email from Amy Cunningham, public information liaison for the City of Denton.
The signs will direct people to the City of Denton website to learn how donations to the Denton County Homeless Coalition assist at-risk households and how the city invests in homelessness, but donations through the QR code on the signs will go directly to United Way of Denton County.
“We looked at similar signs in other cities as a starting point and developed something that we felt reflected Denton’s culture and history of giving and helping our neighbors,” said Courtney Douangdara, deputy director of community services for the City of Denton, in an email to the North Texas Daily.
Ball said the signage is not subject to change from the design provided in the informal report.
“If there are any changes to signage, it would be mainly because of areas where we don’t have ownership, like [the Texas Department of Transportation] owns some of the roads and places in the city as far as like overpasses and things like that,” Ball said. “So, we would have to go by whatever signage they would want to use because it’s not city property, but anywhere on city property is going to look like that.”
The informal report noted the Denton County Homeless Coalition’s Barriers Fund as a target for promoting fundraising efforts with the signage. Denton County Homeless Coalition initiated the Denton County Homelessness Barriers Fund in 2018, but United Way of Denton County manages the fund as a fiscal agent.
“Our Barriers Fund is our fund of last resort, so a lot of the agencies who collaborate have access to that fund, and they can help their clients gain or maintain housing through the fund,” Elena Shehan, chairwoman of Denton County Homeless Coalition, said. “But it is largely dependent on local donations and then municipalities donations, and currently it’s closed because we don’t have enough funding available to be able to open it and accept requests.”
Shehan, who is also the grant coordinator for the city of Lewisville, said that since 2018 the Barriers Fund has housed 983 people locally in Denton County and has served 645 households. Shehan said this was a success from coordinated entry and coordinating services introduced in 2016 and 2017.
“We created this assessment with our lead agency to be able to determine priority need and who needs housing and how much of a priority is each person’s housing stability, whether or not they have a family or are disabled or a variety of other questions in there,” Shehan said.
As of now, the city plans on signage implementation only in the current locations identified, expanding community outreach and expanding homelessness prevention methods.
“We are always wanting feedback from residents and community members and wanting to know issues they are facing and how we could address them,” Ball said. “This is a pretty complex issue, and one strategy is not going to solve it. It takes multiple strategies, just keep people informed on all the aspects that we’re working on to try and address it.”
