The Dawson State Jail, once a privately run house of horrors where seven inmates died between 2004 and 2013 under the watch of Corrections Corp. of America, looks like it did when it was abandoned by the state of Texas four Augusts ago. The only thing missing is the inmates — 2,200 when Dawson was at peak capacity, all but a few hundred of whom slept on bunk beds in communal "pods" with shared toilets out in the open.

The few state-employed guards still on duty at the jail keep watch over the concrete husk perched on Commerce Street near the banks of the Trinity River. They used to make sure no one got out. Now, they stop people from getting in, from stealing everything left behind or sleeping on bunks spread throughout its 10 vacant floors.

A guard told me last week that every now and then people — most homeless, some drunk, others maybe lost and confused — will come up and yank on the doors, hoping they open. They're shooed away, told to git.

So, yes, there just might be some among Dallas' homeless population, which ranges between 600 and 10,000 depending on whom you ask, who'd like to spend the night in an old jail. Beats sleeping on the streets or in a tossed-out tent in a lawless pop-up city beneath a downtown bridge.

Inside Dawson, a reminder of its former operator ((Robert Wilonsky / Staff writer))

At this very moment, city and county officials are taking a long, hard look at that fortress and trying to determine its viability as a homeless recovery center.

That sounds good. Because other cities are doing it, and it works, and because Dallas needs to do something now.

And that sounds awful, because stashing the homeless in an old jail sounds mighty cruel and unusual. But doing nothing? That's criminal.

Sam Merten, a former colleague who's now chief operating officer of The Bridge downtown, told me the other day that housing the homeless at Dawson has all the makings of a mistake.

"You don't want to give the perception: Here are the least fortunate among us, and they can suck it up and live in a jail."

But what's the other option? Keep playing whack-a-mole as encampments pop up all over town, from Bachman Lake to Fair Park? Stash the most troubled in expensive cottages near downtown and tell everyone else to wait their turn? Hold your breath and hope they disappear?

Amid a makeshift cross, homeless residents live in an encampment beneath Interstate 30 near Fair Park. ((Tony Gutierrez / The Associated Press))

In the long term, Dallas needs permanent supportive housing. But there's no money. And no one can agree where it should go — except, of course, not in their neighborhood. So while we argue over that, we ignore the short-term needs — getting people off the streets and out of the camps.

"Let's separate the two issues, make the short-term our priority and look at every option," said Ron Stretcher, Dallas County's director of criminal justice and a member of Mayor Mike Rawlings' homeless commission. "The community is in paralysis over this because they're mixing the two."

Back in April, Dawson's name was first bandied about as a could-be housing option for the hundreds who'd taken root in the sprawling Tent City that had taken root beneath Interstate 45. Merten was skeptical then. Still is. But desperation is the mother of invention.

He recently toured Dawson to see if it can be converted into a housing facility. Quick answer: Maybe. But only if you can make a jail seem less like a jail.

Merten said that in a perfect world Dawson would be "a mix of transitional housing, emergency shelters and single-room housing." But first you'd have to yank out the bars in the windows, put up walls around the communal commodes and divvy up some of the communal rooms into smaller spaces.

Bunk beds in the jail's old "faith-based wing" on the top floor. ((Robert Wilonsky / Staff writer))

Then they'd want to bring in mental-health professionals. And make sure the Homeless Outreach Medical Services program, a Parkland-Children's Health Fund joint operation, got space for a pharmacy, exam rooms, a nursing station and other health-care amenities. And then staff it up like a proper recovery center.

"If the idea is just secure the property and throw people in there, then I'd have serious problems," Merten said. "Because that's not going to put us in a position to succeed."

But to do it right costs money. How much, no one knows. Except a lot -- many millions, at least, especially since the air conditioning isn't working. In 2013 Colorado set aside $3.9 million to reopen the shuttered Fort Lyon Correctional Facility as a homeless shelter for about 200 people, most of them veterans who'd been living on the street. A nonprofit in Auburn, Calif., needed hundreds of thousands of dollars annually just to house 47 people in a former jail.

Here's where medium-security prisoners slept and ate at the old Dawson Jail. ((Robert Wilonsky / Staff))

The Bridge is talking to local reps from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development about how to find the funding. At the same time, county officials are working with city housing department staffers to vet Dawson's viability as a short-term fix.

"We are in a crisis with too many people unsheltered and not having a place to stay," Ron Stretcher said Monday, after he told the Dallas City Council's housing committee that to get folks off the streets, you need to offer them more than just a plaintive be patient. "But we also have to find out: How does the homeless community feel about it?"

Rawlings, who once served as Dallas' homeless czar, said he's not opposed to exploring Dawson as "a temporary facility for homeless." But he has no interest in it being turned into a permanent fix — like, say, a Bridge replacement, which council member Philip Kingston doesn't think is the worst idea in the world.

There's no way the city will turn over Dawson to the homeless. It has coveted that land for too long for Trinity River development. But the state's going to ask $4 million to $5 million for it. And buyer, beware: There's no parking. Worse, Dawson sits on slightly less than an acre's worth of dirt across Commerce from the Dallas County Jail and criminal courthouse — location, location, location.

Kingston has called Gov. Greg Abbott's office to request that the state lease the jail to the city for free until it's sold. And, yes. He knows. It's not ideal. But it's something. And it's a hell of a lot better than just talking, which is all Dallas knows how to do these days.

"At least they'd have a roof over their heads," he said. "And there's plumbing and an operating kitchen. Sure, you don't want to put the homeless in jail. But that's all I am trying to do, effect an improvement in their lives."