Mental Health Slums: Improving squalid conditions a shared duty - Dallas (TX) Morning News

Opinion:
hursday, August 16, 2007

In Dallas, we often focus on the next fancy office tower or residential high-rise. Such enterprises are naturally exciting, but the truth is, we need greater attention to the residential needs of the poor, the dispossessed and the mentally ill.

The lack of affordable – and decent – housing lacks sex appeal, but it is a major challenge for the city.

Lee Hancock's Page 1 story Sunday about mentally ill residents living in horrifying conditions around the city is a perfect example.

No toilets. Bad wiring. Kids preyed upon. Those were part of the squalor found in homes and apartments thanks to a deceitful landlord and sloppy work by the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The mess started after ex-Dallas police officer Ryan Jones' nonprofits took advantage of those suffering from mental illness. His organizations drew numerous citations from the city, but their doors remained open.

How the operation even got started is unfathomable. No HUD staffer ran a background check on Mr. Jones or his outfit before they received about $1 million in federal money. A review would have uncovered that he was a felon and on probation at the time he sought money from HUD's housing program for people with disabilities.

Crying foul now can't reset the clock, but we hope it causes someone at HUD to look twice at the next application for this program. We also hope the outrage prompts HUD's inspector general to investigate and draws the eye of HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson, who once ran Dallas' housing agency.

The city also has a lesson to learn. Mr. Jones' operations drew many code complaints but remained open. Tougher city enforcement is one way to get the attention of other Ryan Joneses.

The state shares responsibility, too. Before the 2009 session begins, the Legislature's health committees should work on legislation – and funding – to require the Department of Aging and Disability Services to license and police homes like these. Flophouses like the ones Mr. Jones operates are part of the "mental health slums" that exist because Dallas –and other Texas cities – lack enough good, affordable housing for people in serious need.