Dallas plans to spend $5 million to transform another hotel into transitional housing for people experiencing homelessness.
The measure will be put to a vote on Wednesday, according to the Dallas Morning News. If it passes, it will be the fourth hotel in Dallas utilized for homelessness services.
The TownHouse Suites, a 108-room extended stay hotel along Independence Drive in southern Dallas near the Duncanville border, is set to be purchased with cash from a 2017 bond. The nearly 82,000-square-foot site is bordered by three other hotels, at least one apartment complex and Interstate 20.
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The city plans to add the hotel to Dallas’ homeless shelter options through collaboration with other local resources, says Council member Tennell Atkins, who represents the area where the hotel is located. The city is looking to contract with a nonprofit to help people who stay at the hotel with support for mental health or substance abuse as well as job placement services and to help get and keep permanent housing elsewhere, he told the Dallas Morning News.
Funding for the project comes from a $1.05 billion bond package approved by voters in 2017 in an effort to improve streets, parks, homelessness assistance, public safety facilities and other city amenities.
Approximately $20 million from the bond package was designated for permanent and transitional housing for people experiencing homelessness, but it only started committing money toward those projects last year.
So far, city officials have approved at least $12.6 million for four projects that provide a variety of overnight shelter and transitional and permanent supportive housing.
In addition to the purchase of University General Hospital last month, about $3.3 million was delegated for the transformation of the former Gateway Hotel in North Dallas into the 180-unit St. Jude Center Park-Central. The city also committed $2.8 million for buying and renovating two more hotels: Hotel Miramar in Kessler Stevens and the Candlewood Suites in Far North Dallas.
The initial five-year plan for spending the money was extended to September 2023 due to the pandemic.
[Dallas Morning News] – Maddy Sperling