A Place of Their Own

The day before, Banks had filled out paperwork to see if he could qualify for housing, as part of an ad hoc program the Resource Center's James Waghorne had set up. He had failed his assessment before and waited for months to get a second chance. Maybe he would make the grade this time and, as soon as there was an opening, he would have an apartment, his first home since his ill-advised move to Dallas from Oklahoma. He felt good about his chances, because it all seemed to be coming together for him. He had some money coming to him from the Veterans' Administration--not much, around three grand or so, but it would be plenty. He could get cleaned up and find a job. He could get some of his old life back. Maybe some of his weight, too.

Yes, he was getting out this time. He wasn't exactly sure when it was going to happen, but knowing that it would was enough for him. If he could spend years living on the street, he could handle a few more weeks. Months, too, if it came to that. He was going to get out. That's all that mattered. He just had to wait.

The wait was shorter than he expected. That night, a runaway truck crashed into the throng in front of the Day Resource Center. The truck hit three men: David Decker, Edward "Rick" Strickland and Banks. Decker died at the scene; Banks the next day at Baylor University Medical Center. Banks was 51 years old.

Here comes the punch line to the cruel joke: While Banks was at Baylor, Waghorne mentioned to the people who'd gathered there to pray for him--including his estranged family and Samples, who'd been looking after him for much of the last year--that Banks had passed his assessment. He had qualified for housing.

"It was like a scene from a movie," Samples says. "But even if it was a movie, people wouldn't believe it."

Under the current rules of the game, it couldn't have happened any other way. Even if there had been one, a bed in a shelter wouldn't have saved Banks. He wouldn't have been hit by that truck, but he would have ended up back on the street eventually, once he couldn't stand living in the shelter any longer and grew tired of the crowds and the rules and the limited possibilities of his life there. He still would have died. It merely would have been a slower and, in the long run, more painful death.

"I would challenge anybody to live like that for a month," MDHA's Honey says. "A lot of these people may have been successful businessmen in the past. They may have a college education. Something happened. Maybe it was a divorce they could not handle. Maybe it was the loss of a job. Maybe it was a physical impairment. Maybe it's mental illness coming on in middle adulthood or early adulthood. Things might have been going very well for these people. They ease into the homeless situation.

"I always think: What is that first night like when someone finally has to say they're sleeping on the street?" she continues. "When they've given up on the shelters, the friends have kicked them out, they have no family to go to--what must it be like that first night, when you really don't know what to do but you just cower down in an alley and put a trash bag over you to try to keep the rain off of you. And then, eventually, you start getting used to that. I don't think anybody just woke up one day and said, 'I'm not going to work anymore.' It's a journey into homelessness, and it's a difficult exit."

---

Even though most of the initial report Tom Dunning's homeless task force presented to the city discussed the need and the advantages of SROs, the idea has yet to become a front-burner topic at City Hall. You could say the members of the city council are wary of even broaching the subject, as one source claims, based on conversations she's had with council members about building SROs in their districts.

"If you want to freak them out, just go down there in a session, step up to a mike on Wednesday when there's time for open comment and start asking about SROs in Dallas," she says. "It's like rats running out of a burning building. They're afraid that this tool, if you will, this strategy will scare off any potential investors."

You could also say the current focus on the strong-mayor initiative has precluded such a discussion even taking place. But the truth is, most people simply don't understand what SROs are. "I think the problem is jargon, social-work jargon," Honey says. "What does transitional housing mean? What does permanent supportive housing mean? I mean, I think people understand what emergency shelter is, so they understand what the homeless assistance center means."

Even members of Dunning's task force weren't clear on the concept when they first convened in September, but they're all behind it now. That doesn't mean they expect everyone to get it right away. It's going to take time.