“Our members are continually exploited by individuals in this community that are unwilling to take care of themselves but expect our members to take care of them,” Hedges said. “Our members are disrespected, verbally abused and sometimes physically assaulted by homeless individuals that know one thing: If they call them out on one, they get an immediate response from the Fire Department for assistance.”
Hedges said that 33.8% of every call in Station 2’s district is related to homelessness out of 23,012 total calls in 2024. Citywide last year, 11.8% of calls were related to homelessness, an average of 7.5 calls per 24-hour shift.
Hedges provided a “small set of examples” of 911 calls to illustrate what the department’s crews experience on a “daily basis,” he said:
- In an EMS call to the Denton Community Shelter at 3 a.m., a woman’s chief complaint was that “she didn’t want to sleep around others in the shelter because they were coughing. The crew handed her a mask and cleared the scene.”
- An EMS call to find a woman experiencing homelessness “whose chief complaint was she did not have socks.”
- “Multiple calls” about a woman experiencing homelessness who continuously defecated on herself and wanted transport to the hospital “just to be cleaned up.”
- A man who requires dialysis and “calls 911 when it’s time for treatment in the hospital. He was sent to Denton from Dallas by another agency.”
- “Multiple responses” to the shelter for individuals who said “they call 911 for EMS to take them to the pharmacies to get their medication.”
The department is “highly trained” and “highly committed” to serving the city, but its members are being stretched thin by these incidents, Hedges said: “If changes are not made, something will eventually break.”
In finishing his speech, Hedges called for the members of the department to attend or watch the City Council meeting on April 1.
His speech was met with a standing ovation from the few hundred firefighters and families in attendance at the banquet.
At the April 1 meeting, the council is expected to receive a presentation from city staff about homelessness in Denton. City Manager Sara Hensley said this presentation will cover the city’s proposed future approach to the Denton Community Shelter operation, how the city is “going to deal with encampments,” and partnership with nonprofits.
Hensley told the Denton Record-Chronicle she recognizes that both the city’s police and fire departments are overwhelmed with such calls to the Denton Community Shelter and elsewhere across the city, as Hedges described. Police Chief Jessica Robledo nodded in agreement.
It has impacted department morale, and firefighters have expressed not wanting to be stationed in District 2, Hensley said.
“Everything Hedges said is absolutely true,” Hensley said. “It’s true, and now it’s our job as a team, all of us, to figure out how we’re going to deal with it and what we’re going to do. We’ll work closely with our nonprofits, closely with [Our Daily Bread] and do the best we can.”
Mayor Gerard Hudspeth told the Record-Chronicle on Friday evening said Hedges’ statements were good information to have and the response from the department members says a lot. But Hudspeth said he wanted to receive more information and data from the April presentation before commenting further.