Before many people had finished their first cup of coffee today, Dallas police were already moving through homeless encampments across the city, carrying out enforcement actions that left outreach workers and bystanders shaken. Witnesses in downtown neighborhoods described a ring of patrol cars, yellow tape cordoning off areas, and people being lined up and placed into vans near a key service hub.
Elizabeth Jordan, founder of the nonprofit The Human Impact, said she arrived around 8:30 a.m. to find more than a dozen Dallas Police Department cruisers and a pop-up tent marked “Community Operations Division” near the 1700 block of S. Good Latimer Expressway. She told reporters that officers were moving through tents and underpasses, rounding people up and taking some away in white vans, according to The Dallas Morning News. “To line people up in a row, it’s such a humiliating, dehumanizing way to treat other people,” Jordan told the paper.
In an email to The News, DPD spokeswoman Allison Hudson said the department “was not aware of any DPD activity at The Human Impact” and that “there is no DPD-led operation taking place at that location.” Hudson added that “DPD’s Homeless Outreach Team is out in several areas of Dallas conducting routine outreach and enforcement efforts” that are “centered on connecting people experiencing homelessness with services, while also addressing public safety and quality-of-life concerns,” according to The Dallas Morning News.
How the Homeless Outreach Team operates
The department’s Homeless Outreach Team is a small pilot unit that pairs officers with outreach specialists. The team makes repeated contacts, offers shelter options and, in some cases, takes people into custody for outstanding warrants or refusal to leave, as reported by NBC 5. NBC 5’s reporting notes that the team has been operating as a pilot under Chief Daniel Comeaux to identify encampments and connect people with services before any enforcement steps are taken.
Rising complaints and city response
Complaint volumes have climbed in recent years, with the city logging about 8,000 311 encampment complaints in 2021 and roughly 11,000 in 2024, a nearly 45% jump. Business owners and city council members have pushed for more consistent follow-up, according to FOX 4. City officials say high-priority reports are routed quickly and that cleanup and outreach involve multiple departments working in sequence.
Advocates call for housing, not sweeps
Advocates and outreach workers said the scenes of mass detentions risk criminalizing people who are unhoused and argued that the city should focus more on permanent housing and long-term case management instead of repeated encampment clearings. The City of Dallas’ Office of Homeless Solutions says it coordinates street outreach, temporary shelter activations and a 311-based response process to address encampments, according to the Office of Homeless Solutions…