On a chilly morning in late February, Terisa Hensley gets up early to pack. She puts on make up, donned pleather pants, a glittery graphic tee, and a pleather jacket.
She had woken up in a tent under a bridge in East Dallas where she’s lived for years. But tonight, she's going to sleep in an apartment of her own.
“I’m feeling oh, so excited,” Terisa says. “With a little bit of dread. Just a little bit of dread … and that’s just from being out here so long.”
Terisa's also a little stressed. She’s only allowed to bring two bags with her, she was told. So she’s trying to pack as much as she can.
Eventually, she hands off some belongings to friends, loads two bags and a bit more into a Dallas city van, and then she’s heading off to see her new home.
Terisa is one of about two dozen people moving from this encampment into long-term housing. It’s part of a process called decommissioning — an approach led by the nonprofit Housing Forward and the City of Dallas to help people leave homelessness behind.
The process is part of a shift in strategy that’s helped reduce homelessness in Dallas even as homelessness is on the rise across the country. Since 2021, more than 25 encampments have been closed and 370 people moved out of homelessness into housing.
And today’s moving day.
for Terisa, that come after months of work by more than 20 staffers from at least seven nonprofits and agencies to get everyone in the encampment into a subsidized apartment and connected with long-term supportive services and a caseworker to help make the transition successful.
'Surviving...has been so hard'
Terisa was one of the first who signed up to get the help. But she says she was filled with doubt.
“Nothing good ever happened to me,” she says. “Any time I set out to do something good for myself, it might be good for a little while but eventually it’s short-lived. Or it don’t go through at all.”
The 57-year-old Terisa endured a lot of trauma — even before she became homeless. By 16, she dropped out of school and got married to the first of two brutal husbands.
“The first one was abusive — physically, mentally, emotionally, all of the above,” she recalls. “The second one was more mental, because, although he didn’t put his hands on me, he chased me around with knives when he was drunk.”
She has eight children — raised mostly by her aunt or her ex-husbands. One of them died as a young man.
She married a third husband who did treat her well — he was her childhood sweetheart, and they were together for 14 years. But he got sick and died, and things went downhill.
Surviving these years out here by myself — without him — has been so hard, she says. “I think a lot of times I went out here and used drugs to try to destroy myself and what was left of me because of guilt, and a lot of other issues.”
Terisa has battled addiction for a long time. For the last few years, she’s lived on the streets, staying close to some long-time friends.
Like a 'mansion'
As Terisa arrives at her new apartment, she’s giddy, nervous, overwhelmed.
“Look at this, this is the perfect-size room,” she says as she scans her new home. “You don’t need anything bigger than this because it’s just too much cleaning."
It’s an older apartment complex, not particularly luxurious. But it’s clean. Terisa and her caseworker, Avie Warren, walk through the one-bedroom apartment making sure everything works — appliances, air conditioning, hot water.
“You know, compared to where I’m living now, this is a mansion,” Terisa tells Warren.
Next, Terisa signs the lease. Her rent — paid for by a housing voucher — comes a shock. It’s $1,300 for the rent and $1,300 for deposits and other charges.
“Wow. I took my stimulus check to try to get an apartment and didn’t have enough,” she says.
She’d also tried to sign up for a housing voucher before, but said the process was far complicated and the website was unnavigable.
It took more than three months to go through dozens of steps required just to get out of the encampment and into an apartment. Now, Terisa gets the keys...to the first home she’s ever had that’s just hers.
“Congratulations!” Warren tells Terisa as the two hug. “It’s been a long journey, huh? You did it my love. Now you just gotta keep going.”
Terisa and the others moving into their new homes get a few boxes of groceries to start, some pots and pans and cleaning supplies, an air mattress, bedding and towels. After a couple weeks, new furniture is delivered.
They also have regular visits from a caseworker who helps them adapt to life inside.
“It can be something as small as they never had to use an air conditioner before …They may not know how to use a dishwasher,” says Robin Craddock, who manages caseworkers for The Stewpot, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping the homeless. “Grocery shopping — they’ve been cooking on an open fire or a propane stove so going with case managers to figure out what should I shop for now that I have a real kitchen.”
Case workers also help people find job training programs, sign up for Social Security or other benefits. They can help them get mental health or addiction treatment — so they can begin to unpack the trauma of living on the street.
“These are some strong people. They are resilient,” Craddock says. “But I don’t think they were ever able to let down their guard.”
Challenges and opportunities
Craddock says this transition is filled with complicated feelings and a ton of challenges — but it's also exciting.
“It’s like all of a sudden they start to see this image of who they really are, not just this identity that they have adopted or been given while they have been living unsheltered,” she says. “They start seeing themselves as valued, and seen, and that they do have a purpose.”
A few months after Teresa moved into her new apartment, she says her home is a blessing.
"I’m just so tired of being out there that now that I’m not ... and I’ve got something to eat and I’ve got a place to lay my head …I’m just enjoying every minute of it.”
Still, she’s a bit bored, and a bit lonely. She's met some of her neighbors, likes most of them. And she's spending more time with her family.
“My family’s proud of me, my brother especially,” she says. “…And that means the world to me.”
Terisa says she's got a lot to work through. She's thinking about what kind of things she wants from life — what she needs help with.
One thing she wants to focus on is art. She’s passionate about drawing and painting. Already, she’s began turning the white walls of her apartment into murals. Armed with a stereo to play good music and her art supplies, Terisa says the world melts away. “Nothing can touch me,” she says.
This is a huge transition and one that’s often a struggle for people leaving homelessness. For Terisa, adjusting to the quiet and solitude of living alone — away from the constant activity and noise of life under the bridge — has been a challenge. She still gets startled when the air conditioner kicks on in the quiet of night.
“I was thinking about that the other day that maybe it’s a good thing that I’m bored,” she says. “Maybe this is God’s way of saying be still, let me show you something different.”
Got a tip? Christopher Connelly is KERA's One Crisis Away Reporter, exploring life on the financial edge. Email Christopher at cconnelly@kera.org.You can follow Christopher on Twitter @hithisischris.
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