The Cleaners

The vacant lot appears out of place, sandwiched between a well-maintained cottage and a three-story modern shaped like a Lego block. The rectangular plot, with enough space for a line of condos, is bordered on three sides by lopsided wooden fences. Andrew Rollo treads into its ankle-high grass and eyes a clutch of trees in a back corner. He touches graffiti on the fence near the cottage then peers at overhead street lights that abut the sidewalk on this block of Roseland Avenue in Old East Dallas. He slowly scans the ground like a detective at a crime scene.

“No needles, no activity, no smells,” he says.

The decade he has spent in this line of work has taught Rollo that what is not visible is often as telling as what is. He is one of three members of Dallas’ City Action Strike Team, a crime prevention unit that targets urban decay. They clear piles of trash and address overgrown vegetation, loitering, and vandalism. They respond to neglected properties, noting dismal lighting, inadequate security cameras, and broken gates. Research from across the country has found that these conditions are often present near incidents of violence.

The team’s work is an experiment: Would improving these spaces help reduce violent crime?

The results are promising. In the first half of 2025, the City Action Strike Team “treated” 150 sites in Dallas, cleaning up overgrown vegetation, littering, faulty lighting, loitering, and homeless encampments. Violent crime dropped 48.2 percent across these locations for a total of 79 fewer incidents. There were 85 offenses in the first six months of the year compared with the same period in 2024, when the city logged 164 in these exact areas, according to new data provided this month.

Violent crime is down citywide so far this year. Dallas police reported 2,808 violent offenses in the first half of 2025, a 17.2 percent drop compared to the 3,392 offenses in the same stretch of last year. Those datapoints exclude family violence and sex crimes, which typically occur behind closed doors. The code work is aimed at reducing “street-level” crimes such as murders, robberies, and aggravated assaults; the city employs different strategies for family violence.

The team is in the vacant lot on a hot July afternoon weeks after a murder in an apartment across the street. An 18-year-old named Dee’Anthony Armstead was fatally shot days before he was set to graduate from high school. Officers arrested an 18-year-old suspect in the killing. But the murder wasn’t the first time police were summoned here, about a block away from Ross Avenue. Officers have come repeatedly for a variety of calls; now, it’s Rollo’s turn.

This work reflects years of research in cities such as Philadelphia, New Orleans, and Cincinnati that have reduced violent crime by employing strategies beyond arresting and policing communities. Dallas’ new team is responsible for targeted blight remediation.

The investment has shown to make a significant impact on crime for a relatively low expense, says Kevin Oden, Dallas’ director of emergency management and crisis response. Blight erodes a neighborhood and leaves the impression that nothing is being done to maintain it. Oden says people, in turn, are more likely not to care what happens on such neglected properties. Overgrowth and trash can offer cover or escape routes for criminals. Forgotten properties can become hubs of drug use, gang activity, and prostitution. In mid-August, for example, the team guided a teenager away from prostitution and toward youth services and free medical treatment. “You need to change the way behaviors work in an area,” Oden says. That starts with changing perception.

Formed last October, the strike team evaluates code enforcement needs such as lighting or fresh coats of paint. The team can connect unhoused people to services and people prone to violence to credible community advocates. They recommend traffic calming measures and help police determine where to increase patrols. Certified by the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement as crime prevention specialists, Rollo, Elena Lopez-Aguirre, and Kashina Shine find locations by tracking high crime rates and service requests. 

A strategy known as “risk terrain modeling” helps determine where they go. Rutgers University criminologists developed a system that splits the city into thousands of micro-grids between 250 to 660 square feet, each smaller than most one-bedroom apartments. The goal is to go granular. The system identifies risk based on a variety of metrics such as prior incidents of violence and the presence of abandoned buildings, liquor stores, and other land uses that decades of research have shown to be correlated with higher crime risk.

The trio acts as a liaison between city departments like code compliance, a specialized homelessness response team, and transportation and public works, as well as external partners such as Oncor and Atmos Energy. They speak with neighborhood groups to better understand where they’re working and to spread word to residents about planned improvements. They meet weekly with the nonprofit Child Poverty Action Lab, which provided the 2025 crime analysis and helps recommend locations. (The Lab Report is a local journalism project published by the Child Poverty Action Lab. Our newsroom operates with editorial independence.) 

“The beauty of it,” Oden says, “is not every site needs the same things. It's a sudoku for them to figure out.”

Dallas’ sudoku-solvers were raised in cities across the country and found their ways to public service for different reasons. Lopez-Aguirre grew up in North Oak Cliff among a kaleidoscope of cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds. She joined Dallas’ community outreach team because she wanted to give back to her city, which led her to working in public safety. Navigating City Hall is challenging, she says; now, she is a one-stop shop who can direct people to the right departments.

Shine, an accounting major from Louisiana, traded a desk job with the U.S. Air Force for code enforcement at the city of Dallas. Being stuck in a cubicle farm wasn’t for her. Code allowed her to be outside and connect with residents. In the nine years she’s worked for City Hall, Shine has collected stories that stick with her. In South Dallas, she once tried to help a toddler she spotted clutching a crack pipe in an idled car, the mother asleep behind the wheel. (Shine referred the case to Child Protective Services.) Another time, she helped a Family Dollar manager after a rash of robberies. He told her he needed citations to compel corporate leaders to fix its inadequate lighting, neglected shrubs, and potholes.

Rollo, a Baylor University history major from San Diego, leads the team. A friend recommended he apply to become a Dallas code officer in 2014 because he didn’t want to leave Texas after graduating. He spent the next decade learning the city and feeling empowered by his impact. “I've been in drug houses, drug apartments, vacant houses, commercial buildings, nightclubs, illegal game rooms,” he says. “I've seen everything—dead bodies, blood.”

“You don’t have to be a police officer to fight crime,” he says.

This isn’t Dallas’ first spin with blight remediation. In 2019, when the city’s murder tally surpassed 200 for the first time in more than a decade, Mayor Eric Johnson tasked 16 community leaders and public safety experts with brainstorming crime reduction strategies. Blight remediation was a key recommendation, inspired by a program in Philadelphia that a 2016 study credited with dropping gun violence 39 percent in and around remediated buildings over a period of 14 years.

Oden, who has worked for the city since 2010, says blight remediation has long been a part of code enforcement, but it had not been a critical component of Dallas’ public safety strategy. He noticed a shift in interest after the murder of George Floyd in 2020, which prompted communities to begin researching means of crime prevention that didn’t require law enforcement.

Still, in recent years, code enforcement faced the same organizational challenge as other city responsibilities that involve multiple, often siloed, departments. Service requests fell into different queues and levels of priority. Rollo, Lopez-Aguirre, and Shine do what Oden describes as the hard work. They pull departments into the same room and negotiate agreements on what needs to be done. Critically, they also track outcomes. Does this area look better as a result of their efforts? Is violent crime actually going down near their work? They help city employees understand the “why,” offering a vision and creating urgency for tasks that staffers might not have otherwise completed, Oden says.

“You hear a lot of people say, ‘Oh, the city, they don't do anything,’” Rollo says. “I get stressed because there's so many things we're responsible for. Never enough time to solve it all. Never enough time. But there actually are successes. There is change. There is a lot of good that we're doing. We do talk to other departments. We do break down silos.”

The team’s work can look like it did that July day on Roseland Avenue, when solutions were clear. Cut back the vegetation, paint over the graffiti, convert the old streetlights to LED bulbs. If people feel safe walking around, Rollo says, there are more eyes and ears out to report issues. He has seen this improve community pride to maintain the neighborhood’s upkeep. If the disorder goes unaddressed, it multiplies, he says. 

A little over a week later, the grass had been cut. The graffiti remained, as did specks of litter and the old streetlight. But it’s a quick, visible improvement and more is on the way. 

It’s not always that simple.

Later that afternoon, Rollo, Lopez-Aguirre, and Shine joined other city employees at a light brown house on the corner of Peavy Road and Abshire Lane in Far East Dallas. The one-story residence is near the intersection of North Buckner Boulevard and Peavy, a source of trouble for more than three decades. Vikki Martin, executive director of the nonprofit Ferguson Road Initiative, which focuses on making this part of the city safer, says issues improve briefly but are never fully resolved.

In the past, she recalled, police cleared the area and left. As soon as officers stopped monitoring, it went “right back to where it was.”

That day in July, city workers shouted cordially over the fence to a red-haired woman who swung open the back gate. The team spotted a shattered house window. An open door led to a detached garage. A man was lying on a piece of cardboard inside. Blankets were scattered around him and a shopping cart was in a corner. He didn’t stir when Rollo walked in. The woman told Lopez-Aguirre he'd been there for a week. She said the home isn’t hers, but her RV broke down and she’s working to get parts for repairs. She hopes to move into an apartment soon, she said, because she can’t handle the heat. She declined city help. “If you need any services,” Lopez-Aguirre tells her, “be sure to flag one of us down. … We’ll be back.” Lopez-Aguirre plays a long game; she says building rapport is often more effective than forcing compliance. 

This house’s owner lives out of state, making it an easy camp for people experiencing homelessness. Rollo calls this area a “triangle” of issues. Along the sidewalk is a bus stop where a group of men often perch without ever boarding a bus. A camera surveillance tower looms above a beer store across the street. The team put the tower there in May, Rollo said, but people still deal drugs beneath it. 

Rollo considered his options. DART could remove the park bench. They could ask DART and Dallas police to increase patrols here. Martin says nearby residents tell her they’re fearful of crime and complain about chronic code violations, drug trafficking, and loitering at businesses and single-family residences. Martin created a task force with city officials in 2023 to try to transform the neighborhood. Because apartment complexes occupy most of this part of town, the Ferguson Road Initiative invited property owners to meetings, but few have attended, she says.

The challenges in this line of work are plentiful. Community prosecution steps in on cases involving absentee landlords or uncooperative property owners. Oden says not everyone comes to the table. There’s a delicate balancing act of making areas ripe for investment while preventing community displacement. Properties also have to be maintained after they’re treated. The strike team tries to ensure criminal trespass affidavits are up to date, loitering gets reported, and property owners stay engaged, but Dallas is 340 square miles. Vacant lots and neglected properties aren’t hard to find.

Some sites can take two weeks to treat, others take months. “It's important and it's hard and it's puzzle pieces and it's relationships,” Oden says. But if done right, he says, it can prevent violence, and ultimately improve a neighborhood’s quality of life.

At the house in Far East Dallas, a man approached the city employees. He invited them inside Supreme Beer and Wine where he works, just across Peavy. He offered water and shade, then asked for help. People come into the store and get cash back on small purchases to buy drugs. He calls 911 constantly, he says, and those who loiter here know it. “I call the ambulance for the people because they are drug addicted,” he said. “They are going to die.” He worries for his safety. He has a criminal trespass affidavit, but it hasn’t been enough to ward off trouble. He wants to help, but he needs help in return.

Lopez-Aguirre took his information and promised to find him a city contact. Shine assured him she’ll be there the following week. Realistically, the team is likely to return for months between stops at dozens of neglected sites across Dallas. Because if they’re not doing the work, who will?

Still, the man is adamant as Rollo, Lopez-Aguirre, and Shine turn away.

“I hope that you’ll come,” he calls after them, “again and again.”

Kelli Smith is a staff writer for The Lab Report. [email protected].

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The Lab Report Dallas is a local journalism project published by the Child Poverty Action Lab (CPAL). Its newsroom operates with editorial independence.

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