agreed last week <\/a>to begin advertising Tuesday\u2019s vote, signaling the proposal is likely headed to ballots this fall. While cities and school districts have sought voter permission to raise taxes over the years, this would be the first county property tax increase on a ballot in recent history.\u00a0<\/p>\nArticle continues below this ad<\/p>\n
Commissioner John Wiley Price, who opposes the idea, can\u2019t recall the county putting a tax hike on the ballot in his 40 years in office. Commissioners have either reduced the tax rate or held it steady every year since 2011.<\/p>\n
Housing Forward, the region\u2019s lead homelessness agency, began asking commissioners in May to consider a tax rate election to fund homelessness interventions across the county and expand their success clearing downtown encampments.<\/p>\n
CEO Sarah Kahn said 93% of the 24,000 people the group has helped out of homelessness since 2021 have not returned to the system.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Housing Forward President and CEO Sarah Kahn claps hands during the State of Homelessness Address at Winspear Opera House, Tuesday, May 20, 2025, in Dallas.<\/p>\n
Chitose Suzuki\/Staff Photographer<\/p>\n
With $127 million of additional tax money from a rate increase, the organization proposes funding short-term rental and stability assistance; long-term treatment and housing services; and diversion hubs for police to take people for treatment instead of jail. A public safety portion would also fund training for law enforcement on dealing with mental health needs and increase access to residential substance abuse treatment.<\/p>\n
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\u201cWe know what works and the only thing holding us back is having the capacity to reach everybody,\u201d Kahn told The Dallas Morning News.<\/p>\n
Tax increase<\/p>\n
If commissioners agree to put the measure on the ballot, advocates will have three months to run a campaign convincing residents to increase their taxes at a time when basic costs of living are a struggle for many.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Dallas County\u2019s fiscal year 2027 budget of $904 million without the homelessness measures, scheduled to be voted on Tuesday, includes a proposed tax hike of just under 1 cent per $100 valuation to the current rate of 21.55 cents, an increase that doesn\u2019t require voter approval.<\/p>\n
The tax bill on a home worth $350,000 would be $32 higher than this fiscal year, or $786 annually.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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The homelessness ballot measure would ask voters whether they want to pay 2.85 cents more per $100 of valuation to support the homelessness and public safety services. That would add another $100 in property taxes to a $350,000 home.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The decision on Aug. 4 to advertise Tuesday\u2019s vote divided officials, with Price and Commissioner Elba Garcia pushing back on advancing the idea.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Garcia said now is not the time to raise taxes when residents are having trouble paying for gas and groceries and the populations of Dallas and Dallas County are shrinking.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Last-minute changes<\/p>\n
Although Housing Forward pitched the idea in May, the proposal underwent last-minute changes before Commissioners Andrew Sommerman, Theresa Daniel and County Judge Clay Lewis Jenkins voted on Aug. 4 to advance it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Jenkins first announced commissioners were considering advertising a tax of up to 25.90 cents per $100 of valuation although the associated agenda item stated the proposed rate was 25.96 cents.<\/p>\n
Daniel initially voted against the motion to advertise any homeless levy, saying she agreed with Price\u2019s point that homeless services are not a county government responsibility. The motion failed 3-2.<\/p>\n
After a closed executive session, Daniel asked to redo the vote due to confusion over \u201cunderstandability of the wording\u201d of the motion but never explained what she thought was unclear.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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(From left) Dallas County Commissioner Dr. Theresa Daniel of District 1, and Dallas County Commissioner Andy Sommerman of District 2, Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins, Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price of District 3 and Dallas County Commissioner Dr. Elba Garcia of District 4 during a Dallas County Commissioners Court Meeting located in the Dallas County Records building in downtown Dallas on Tuesday, Aug. 1, 2023.<\/p>\n
Juan Figueroa\/Staff Photographer<\/p>\n
After Daniel asked for a redo, Garcia and Price demanded officials share how much more money per year average residents would pay with the homeless tax because those figures were not provided during the first vote.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Garcia also noted the tax rate Jenkins read out loud before the second vote was different from what was in her documentation.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat I am really bothered by is the fact that we have different information right now, and now that there\u2019s a reconsideration it\u2019s new information with new numbers,\u201d Garcia said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Commissioners had to table the second vote so staff could conduct calculations. When they returned to the agenda item later, the proposed homeless tax rate changed again to up to 25.31 cents per $100 valuation. The motion to advertise the vote on the rate passed 3-2, with Price and Garcia voting no.<\/p>\n
In an email, county administrator Darryl Martin told The News Jenkins asked staff to reduce the rate for the public safety portion before the second round of voting \u201cto reduce the overall burden while keeping most of the services intact.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jenkins and Sommerman made the case for giving voters a chance to decide. Sommerman said the idea is an investment to avoid paying for people struggling with homelessness and mental illness to burden the jail and hospital.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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\u201cLet them weigh the costs, let them measure the benefits, let them decide whether our county should make dedicated investment in solving one of the greatest challenges we face,\u201d Sommerman said.<\/p>\n
Within the last year, city of Mesquite voters rejected a tax increase to pay for street repairs and hiring more fire and police employees while Dallas ISD voters approved a $6.2 billion bond package for mostly construction of schools and technology that came with a one-cent tax increase.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man with an encampment downtown sweeps his area on Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. Outreach by Housing\u00a0Forward and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":403211,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[102,104,103],"class_list":["post-403210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=403210"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403210\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/403211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=403210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=403210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=403210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}