Dallas City Hall let its own property be occupied and destroyed

If you want to understand how bad things have gotten in certain parts of Dallas City Hall, look no further than a memo filed last week by council member Jesse Moreno on the condition of a city-owned building just steps from City Hall.

What’s known as the old Family Gateway Building at 711 S. St. Paul St. has been vacant for some time and under the care of the city’s real estate team.

What no one at City Hall seemed to know, or if they knew didn’t care enough to act, was that the building was being occupied by unhoused people. The interior was gutted of its water pipes and electrical wires. Unsanitary conditions had taken hold, with human feces and urine throughout.

The building, inside and out, was strewn with trash. The exterior was pocked with graffiti. A door that should have been locked was plainly propped open. The alarm was disarmed. Police found more than 20 people, and animals, living inside.

Moreno, who represents the area, discovered this while he and his small team were trying to do what the city has been too slow to — address an entrenched outdoor encampment along Canton Street and St. Paul that fronted this building.

Any city staffer, from the homeless team to real estate to police to code compliance, should have been able to see what Moreno did — that a city-owned building had become an extension of the outdoor camp.

Moreno was measured in his memo to interim City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert. But in an interview with us, he was exasperated at what he saw as a failure of the city to secure the building and protect the safety of area residents and business owners.

It had been a valuable asset, he said. “Instead, now we are dealing with a building that probably needs to be condemned.”

Moreno, who chairs the council’s Housing and Homelessness Solutions committee, has become disenchanted with what he sees as City Hall’s commitment to a “housing first” policy for the homeless. The persistence of the Canton Street encampment likely led to the occupation of the old Family Gateway building, he believes.

But he is also concerned with the way the city is managing its real estate. City officials are considering selling excess property to help manage ballooning pension debt. But if its buildings are destroyed, what is there to sell? Recall that this is a city that moved its building inspectors into a $21 million building that couldn’t pass inspection.

Moreno also wondered what to make of the fact that city staff members told him he couldn’t join in a perimeter review of the building. If it was unsafe for a council member to walk around in daylight, how unsafe was it for people who live and work downtown?

No resident or business owner would be allowed to maintain a building in the condition that the old Family Gateway building is in. They would be slapped with fines.

But for Dallas City Hall, this is the way business is done. It has to stop.

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