“Our members are continually exploited by individuals in this community that are unwilling to take care of themselves but expect our members to take care of them,” Hedges said. “Our members are disrespected, verbally abused and sometimes physically assaulted by homeless individuals that know one thing: If they call them out on one, they get an immediate response from the Fire Department for assistance.”
Hedges said that 33.8% of every call in Station 2’s district is related to homelessness out of 23,012 total calls in 2024. Citywide last year, 11.8% of calls were related to homelessness, an average of 7.5 calls per 24-hour shift.
Hedges provided a “small set of examples” of 911 calls to illustrate what the department’s crews experience on a “daily basis,” he said:
- In an EMS call to the Denton Community Shelter at 3 a.m., a woman’s chief complaint was that “she didn’t want to sleep around others in the shelter because they were coughing. The crew handed her a mask and cleared the scene.”
- An EMS call to find a woman experiencing homelessness “whose chief complaint was she did not have socks.”
- “Multiple calls” about a woman experiencing homelessness who continuously defecated on herself and wanted transport to the hospital “just to be cleaned up.”
- A man who requires dialysis and “calls 911 when it’s time for treatment in the hospital. He was sent to Denton from Dallas by another agency.”
- “Multiple responses” to the shelter for individuals who said “they call 911 for EMS to take them to the pharmacies to get their medication.”
The department is “highly trained” and “highly committed” to serving the city, but its members are being stretched thin by these incidents, Hedges said: “If changes are not made, something will eventually break.”…