Coppell Chronicle Vol. 4, No. 26
City Braces for Potential Influx of Homeless • Neighbors Strongly Oppose Short-Term Rentals • Coppell ISD Cuts Distinct Gifted Courses • Council Declines ‘11th Hour’ Budget Tweaks
This is the fourth and final edition featuring a contribution from intern Samantha Handshy, who is furiously packing in advance of her freshman year at UT-San Antonio. While preparing to move to her new home away home, she filed an article about people who find themselves without a home.
City Braces for Potential Influx of Homeless
With growing numbers of people living on the streets in neighboring cities, Coppell officials are engaging with Metrocrest Services to ensure homelessness does not become an issue in our town.
On July 23, Director of Program Development Melanie Meijering talked to the City Council about Metrocrest’s work in the Coppell area. She said the Carrollton-based charity worked with 547 homeless people in the last calendar year; six were known to be “Coppell specific.” Meijering also said a total of 775 Coppell residents were served in various ways.
“Whether that was food pantry, whether it was rent and utilities, it could be that they were coming in for financial counseling, for jobs, and it could be that they were people that were living on the streets,” Meijering said.
Meijering told the council it is important to understand that “homelessness is not a lifestyle; it’s an emergency.” She said 30 percent of Americans can’t cover a $400 emergency expense, and 78 percent of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. “So it doesn’t take very much for them to end up living in their car or living in the streets,” she said.
The impending arrival of DART’s Cypress Waters Station along East Belt Line Road will connect Coppell directly to Dallas, where at least 5,000 people are living on the streets every day. Although it is unknown whether the Silver Line trains will lead to a new dispersion of homelessness, it has continued to be a concern.
“People will say, ‘Well, we [Coppell] don’t have a problem with homelessness,’” Meijering said, “but it only takes one person that’s living on the sidewalk or sleeping on the sidewalk to alarm people, because it’s scary, it’s unknown, and people don’t know how to deal with that.”
Meijering’s presentation was not the only time homelessness was discussed at a City Council meeting this summer. On June 11, Mayor Wes Mays attended a meeting of the Metroplex Mayors Association, where he learned there are more than 400 encampments within Dallas’ city limits. Later that day, Mays told the council that he and Carrollton Mayor Steve Babick volunteered to act in an advisory role on behalf of outlying cities.
“I look forward to working with the mayor on seeing what we can do to mitigate any type of homeless migration from downtown Dallas to our community as DART begins to roll out,” Mays said.
On July 9, Mays reported on his June trip to Missouri for the United States Conference of Mayors’ annual meeting, where homelessness was also a major topic.
“The large-city mayors are really struggling with this,” Mays said. “We are concerned, as Dallas approaches the homeless problem there, that we may see some overflow, and we are continuing to talk to our neighboring cities about that.”
In March of 2023, Meijering participated in a program at the Cozby Library and Community Commons regarding homelessness in Coppell ISD. Jennifer Villines, who was the district’s Director of Student and Staff Services at the time, said Coppell ISD’s homeless population peaked at 70 students during the 2022-2023 school year. Some were residing in hotels near DFW Airport, but Villines said there were documented cases of students “sleeping in Andy Brown Park.”
Coppell ISD Director of Communications Amanda Simpson said the district had 76 students who qualified for services under the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act during the 2023-2024 school year.
(See “Even in Coppell, Homelessness Persists” in Vol. 3, No. 5.)
Following Meijering’s July 23 presentation, Council Member Biju Mathew — who serves on Metrocrest’s Board of Directors — asked her to explain how the charity works with the Coppell Police Department concerning the homeless.
“What we do with all of the cities that we serve is if there is a concern and the police officers want some help, we will go out and meet them with the folks where they live, and see what we can do to help get them off the streets,” Meijering said. “We also have officers that will bring folks over to Metrocrest … so we can start engaging in that kind of relationship.”
Volunteers are essential for all the good Metrocrest can provide around the community. Meijering said there are 14 volunteers who help with homeless outreach each week, including four Coppell residents.
“We couldn’t do the work that we do without volunteers, and that’s something that we’re always looking for,” Meijering said. “Who’s willing to go out there and just say, ‘Hey, I see you as a human. What can we do for you?’”
If you want to work alongside Meijering and Metrocrest, you can click here to learn more.
Neighbors Strongly Oppose Short-Term Rentals
More than 40 people showed up for a meeting of the Coppell Planning and Zoning Commission on Thursday, when there was only one case on the agenda — a short-term rental permit for a house on Oakbend Drive.