4 May 4 – 10, 2023 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents The Big Squeeze Surviving Dallas’ affordable housing crunch makes roommates out of strangers. BY JACOB VAUGHN A lthough they had met just months earlier, Hector Her- nandez and Alecia Sanchez moved into a small duplex as roommates last November. They were thrown together not by romance but by necessity. Although the space they share is tiny, it’s better than the group home they had moved into briefly after they were priced out of their own homes in an apart- ment complex in Oak Cliff last July. Now, they share a single room, bathroom and kitchen for about $1,500 a month. Unable to work because of physical dis- abilities, they each receive about $1,200 a month in Social Security Disability Insur- ance (SSDI) and Supplemental Security In- come (SSI). With more than half their incomes going to rent, they’re not certain how long they can stay in the duplex as prices keep rising. Hernandez, 49, and Sanchez, 70, were born and raised in Oak Cliff and have lived in Dallas or surrounding suburbs all their lives. Their path to becoming roommates is one that’s familiar to people living on the economic margins. Forced to move because of gentrification, they’ve scrambled to find a secure home in a city where affordable housing is scarce. The places they can afford are most likely either in bad shape, in crime- ridden neighborhoods or both. Options like boarding homes offer refuge for those down on their luck and looking for housing, but living conditions at these facilities are often terrible, and recent city efforts to reg- ulate boarding homes could limit options even more. The situation has grown so bad that the two lifelong Dallasites might be forced to leave the only city they’ve ever known. A group called Fighting Homelessness and its founder, Lisa Marshall, have been helping them and others navigate it all. “This is the reality of what’s out there, and you see what it is. It’s horrible,” Marshall said. H ernandez and Sanchez each sat on their own twin mattresses as advo- cates with Fighting Homelessness moved their belongings into the duplex on Nov. 17. It was the first place they could call their own since being priced out of their sep- arate apartments nearly six months earlier. They had been living at the Oakridge Apartments on North Marsalis Avenue in Oak Cliff and hadn’t met until new owners bought the complex and raised their rent. That’s when volunteers with Fighting Home- lessness offered to help find them a new place. Previously, Sanchez would probably have laughed at the suggestion to move in with Hernandez, but they’ve been through a lot in the last few months and have come to know each other along the way. “If I didn’t know him, he wouldn’t be with me,” Sanchez said of Hernandez. She said they were considering getting a divider for the room so they could have more privacy. One of the things Hernandez likes about the new place is that it has a laundry room. At the group home where they had lived be- fore, Hernandez said, “I would have to walk like, not a mile, but a couple of blocks down [to do laundry]. Being arthritic and the side- walk being all lopsided and cracked up and stuff, I would twist my leg.” The two are happy to be at the new place, but they’re nervous about the future. Her- nandez is not optimistic. “That’s what me and Alecia always talk about. It’s not going to get better,” Hernandez said. To help cover their rent, they’ve applied for housing vouchers from both the Dallas Housing Authority and Housing First, the lead homelessness response organization for Dallas and Collin counties. But the de- mand for vouchers is high and resources are limited, and they’re still waiting for a re- sponse. With the right kind of assistance and a willing landlord, they could have places of their own, but the long wait for the vouchers has made Hernandez pessimistic. “As fast as the city allowed the wealthy peo- ple to just come in and get that property and throw us out, they could have at least checked us, that we were on time with our rent,” Her- nandez said. “They could have at least said ‘These people are on time, there’s no com- plaints or nothing.’ They should’ve tried to help us out. No, they just threw us out.” Both of his parents were laborers. His father worked in construction and his mother was a housekeeper, and the family moved often. He remembers having to move from the apartment complex his fam- ily was living in 1988 because it was going to be demolished. The family then rented their first house in Oak Cliff, but the man- agement company they were renting from sold the property to someone who wanted to remodel it. They moved into another apartment complex after that. This kind of thing happened to the family again and again, Hernandez said. “They’ve never been evicted or any- thing,” Hernandez said. “There’s the prob- lem of being forced to move out because of places being sold, or, you know, some- thing’s always happening. So, they’re al- ways having to find somewhere to stay.” These days the cheapest place they could find was a trailer park in the city, but it, too, is becoming increasingly unaffordable for his parents. Hernandez was about to turn 27 when he got an apartment with his girlfriend in East Dallas. She was employed at a retail store, and he was working temp jobs in ware- houses. They had a daughter in March 2001. A few months later, Hernandez had a stroke that paralyzed his left side and robbed him of vision in his left eye. He’s been legally blind since then. Hernandez couldn’t work anymore. His partner was still working, caring for their newborn daughter and helping Hernandez as he pushed through rehab, learning how to function again, but the couple grew apart and ended up separating. He moved in with his parents, staying with them as he worked to recover from his stroke. Around 2005, he signed a six-month lease on an apartment in Oak Cliff, but he said he gets bored easily and likes a change of scenery, so at the end of the lease, he moved into a new place. He was subsisting on Social Security benefits he started to re- ceive after the stroke. Nathan Hunsinger Above: Alecia Sanchez hands over some building documents for signatures from Fighting Homelessness’ founder Lisa Marshall (second from left) and outreach administrator John O’Callahan while Hector Hernandez waits in the background. Jacob Vaughn | UNFAIR PARK | Alecia Sanchez and Hector Hernandez became unlikely roomates after facing an affordable housing crisis. >> p6
