Editor’s Note: Jeffrey McWhorter is a Dallas-based photographer who spent five months documenting an unsheltered person’s journey into housing.
Kacey Coker, 51, has spent more than half her life living outside. After an eviction in 2024, she and her partner wound up in a tent under Interstate 45 in South Dallas, an encampment so well-known to service providers that they identified it simply as “Coombs,” the name of a nearby street.
Since 2016, this dusty field, mostly hidden amid adjacent industrial sites, was a magnet for people like her. In May, Coker and her partner, Clark “Mickey” Simon, 59, were among the four dozen or so others under the bridge who were faced with a choice: Accept help or risk going to jail.
Coker and Simon moved into a one-bedroom apartment in northeast Dallas with the help of the nonprofit Housing Forward. On Nov. 3, voters will decide whether to approve a tax increase that will result in the nonprofit, which coordinates the homelessness response in Dallas and Collin counties, receiving $100 million a year to clear other encampments across Dallas County and help more people stay off the streets.
To better understand the opportunity and complexities of providing some of the services the county is asking taxpayers to help fund, The Lab Report partnered with freelance photographer Jeffrey McWhorter, who spent six months following Coker as she moved into an apartment and tried to acclimate to her new life.
Kacey Coker, 50, stopped to laugh one Wednesday in April while walking northeast on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, not far from the encampment where she lived under the Interstate 45 bridge. Coker grew up in Brownwood, about three hours southwest of Dallas, and left home at age 18 after losing custody of her 1-year-old son. For roughly the next 30 years, her life was marked by homelessness and addiction. After she and her partner Clark “Mickey” Simon, 59, were evicted from their apartment in November 2024, the two began sleeping in a tent under the interstate near the South Dallas homeless encampment.
Standing outside her tent, Coker spoke with Hannah Sims, the director of crisis response for Housing Forward. Coker and her partner were among the 47 people who accepted an apartment from Housing Forward when the camp was decommissioned in May.
Service providers from Housing Forward, Austin Street Shelter, and The Stewpot helped Clark “Mickey” Simon move his and Coker’s belongings from their campsite to a car that shuttled them to their new apartment in northeast Dallas last May. “I wanna burn it,” Coker said as she disassembled their tent. “I wanna set it on fire.”
Sims said goodbye to Coker and Simon as they left Coombs for their new apartment on May 6.
Simon watched as Coker signed move-in paperwork on May 6 in the office of the apartment complex. Coker, who said she had felt frustrated as she watched others around her at Coombs receive units before they did, was excited to move in by her 51st birthday, which came six days later.
Advocates from Housing Forward, Austin Street Shelter, and The Stewpot helped Simon, center, carry food and other necessities provided as part of a “move-in kit” into the new apartment.
Simon showed off the key to his and Coker’s new apartment before entering for the first time. “Getting me another chance,” Simon said. “I know what to do this time, where I messed up in my other apartment. Man, I can do it right. It’s a second chance, so I got to do it.”
Simon, right, shook hands with Solomon Parker, a housing systems coordinator with Housing Forward who helped with the move.
Coker’s bare feet rested on the clean carpet as she settled into the new apartment on move-in day.
Coker’s jaw dropped as she unboxed new dishes provided as part of the move-in kit from the nonprofits. “Oh, I love it! I frickin’ love it!” Coker said as she toured the apartment for the first time. “I have a bedroom with a door. We didn’t have that before. We didn’t ever have anything this nice before. This is the nicest room I’ve ever had in my entire life.”
Coker took a deep breath while smoking a cigarette on the balcony of her new apartment. “I feel like a real person,” she said.
Simon and Coker rested on the new bed Housing Forward delivered a few weeks after the two got their keys. The bed, which replaced the air mattress they received with their move-in kit, was accompanied by two chairs and a couch.
Coker and Simon, while lying on their new bed, watched “Game of Thrones” on a TV they purchased shortly after moving in.
Simon stepped onto the apartment balcony on May 12. In July, two months after he and Coker moved in, Simon was sentenced to six years in prison for a 2024 unlawful carrying of a weapon charge, leaving Coker alone in the apartment. After Simon’s incarceration, Coker described feelings of sadness and isolation. “First time I ever been with anybody that long,” she said.
On May 12, Coker’s 51st birthday, she snuggled with her cat, Daisy, who also moved with the couple from their tent. According to the arrangement with Housing Forward, Coker and Simon must commit 30% of their monthly income to rent, and the nonprofit covers the rest. With Simon incarcerated, Coker lost his $994 monthly Supplemental Security Income (SSI) check. Her income dropped to nearly zero, which meant Housing Forward would now pay 100% of the rent.
In the five months since leaving Coombs, Coker’s physical condition has worsened. She has a bulging abdominal hernia that she said needs to be surgically repaired; debilitating pain in her feet; and numbness in her hands, which makes it difficult to cook. Because of her poverty, physical ailments, transportation obstacles, and lack of help with caring for her cat in her absence, Coker rarely leaves the apartment, even to seek medical care. She has applied for Social Security benefits on her own but is awaiting approval and does not expect any payments until at least June 2027.
Coker spends most of her time alone in the apartment. She said she does not have any friends and doesn’t want any because her experiences on the street taught her not to trust anyone. Her hopes for the future, she said, are to meet her 16-year-old granddaughter for the first time and “just win my SSI case and then just maybe start saving up my own money to kinda go do stuff…maybe go to Six Flags or got to a concert or just go out to eat by myself and just have fun instead of being stuck in the house all the time.”
A man sat on a vehicle barrier placed to block an entrance to the former Coombs encampment on Thursday, Oct. 8. As of the date of publication, most of the area is fenced off and no dwellings are visible under the bridge.
