Dallas City Council member Cara Mendelsohn — who chairs the city's Housing and Homelessness Solutions Committee — says the city hid its homeless community from FIFA World Cup visitors and pushed unsheltered individuals out of downtown with no enforcement.
The comments were part of a Facebook post made on her official District 12 profile late last week.
Mendelsohn wrote that she cared deeply about homelessness but also voiced frustration that some people experiencing homelessness push back attempts to help.
"If you are homeless in Dallas, and aren't willing to go to any shelter or program, be reunited with your family, go to in-patient detox or mental health care, there has to be a forced removal and some kind of consequence," she wrote. "People can't take over public land and make our medians their toilet. It's not safe and sanitary for Dallas residents, businesses, or the homeless."
In the post, Mendelsohn said she received notice that a “bucket” of human feces was found dumped at the intersection of Frankford Road and the Dallas North Tollway.
She later clarified in a follow up post that a city contractor sent out to clean the debris said it was sausage and ribs, not human feces.
“The city isn't enforcing state laws and local ordinances,” Mendelsohn told KERA. “It is unsafe and inhumane to ignore that people are living unsheltered.”
There were 44,545 calls regarding homeless encampments between Oct. 1, 2020, through Sept. 30, 2025, according to the latest data from Dallas 311.
In that time there were more than 1,200 observations of "non-offense" deaths reported to the city, meaning people who died in non-residential settings like:
- Highway, street, alley
- Public or private outdoor area
- Parking lots
- Field or woods
- Vacant single family residence
- Vacant or occupied commercial property
- Lake or waterway
- Apartment parking lot
- Gas station
- Convenience store
Several Texas Penal codes and Dallas City codes prohibit camping, obstructing roadways, sleeping in public places, and urinating or defecating in public.
Mendelsohn said in her post that the city needs to encourage people to move to shelter and, if necessary, enforce the law to make that happen. She says the answer should be as unique as the individual's situation or crisis that led them to become unsheltered.
"The cruel action is to look away and ignore their plight," she said. "Whether it is 106 degrees or below freezing in Dallas, living unsheltered is not humane for people or pets."
This is not the first time Mendelsohn alleged the city was turning resources to address homelessness for the sake of FIFA. During a December council meeting, she wanted to defer approval of $10 million to the nonprofit Housing Forward because there was no individual briefing of the item prior to its approval.
At the time she called the funds "cleanup money" for FIFA.
"It's the creation of a short-term illusion that an issue is solved or doesn't exist," Mendelsohn said during the meeting.
Other council members like Jesse Moreno and Zarin Gracey have called for transparency on how the city partnered with organizations to address homelessness and expressed wanting to see results beyond downtown.
Got a tip? Email Megan Cardona at mcardona@kera.org.
KERA News is made possible through the generosity of our members. If you find this reporting valuable, consider making a tax-deductible gift today. Thank you!
