8 May 4 – 10, 2023 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents the tenants wouldn’t be able to afford to live in them. One landlord opted instead to sell his properties to his renters. Dallas officials know there are quality of life issues at places like El Shaddai, and part of the problem in regulating them is that they’re not all registered the same way. El Shaddai, for example, is considered a group residential facility, so the city’s rules for boarding homes don’t apply to it. This was brought up in City Council and committee meetings over the last year in the run-up to the council’s approval in February of new rules for boarding homes. The rules came in response to state legis- lation enacted in 2021 that increased fines for people operating boarding homes ille- gally. The council updated its ordinance to increase the fines and began to consider an overhaul of the city’s boarding home rules. Dallas has some 180 registered boarding homes, according to the director of code compliance, Christopher Christian. City Council District 8, which is represented by Tennell Atkins, has 63. City Council member Carolyn King Arnold’s District 4 is home to 36 boarding homes. City Council members and staff wanted to find ways to deal with boarding homes that aren’t in compliance with city code and to protect tenants from retaliation if they complain. Some City Council members also worried about what would happen if they were too heavy-handed on boarding homes and ended up shutting some down. “I worry about the people in the gray area … the bad [boarding homes] we’ve heard about,” City Council member Chad West said during a meeting last April. “I guess those residents, if there’s an issue, they’re probably too scared to reach out because they may not have anywhere else. They’ll be homeless if they’ve lost that. I don’t really have a solution for that. It’s just a gap that concerns me.” Council member Adam McGough shared similar thoughts. “This council wants to re- ally strongly support restrictions against un- authorized, illegal houses where the conditions that are mentioned are abso- lutely atrocious and people are being ware- housed,” he said. “At the same time, we’re trying to navigate an increasing homeless number where [displacement] is absolutely an issue.” No one seemed to have an answer about what to do about displacement, but the council still wanted to find ways to improve the homes. Dallas also didn’t have any rules about how close boarding rooms could be to each other. The rules the council passed in February require owners to provide residents with re- frigerators of a certain size and access to kitchens with a stove or microwave. They also require owners to post information about their tenants’ rights and responsibili- ties, including language stating that retalia- tion against residents is prohibited. In addition, the new rules require a distance of 1,000 feet between boarding homes. Before the council voted to approve the new rules, District 12 City Council member Cara Men- delsohn suggested that 1,000 feet between each boarding home was not enough. That’s when City Council member Omar Narvaez, who represents District 6, sug- gested 2,000 feet instead. He said at the meeting that West Dallas and Northwest Dal- las are inundated with boarding homes. “Peo- ple need homes, and we all understand that,” he said at the meeting. “But at the same time, there should be a little bit higher scrutiny on them just because of what’s going on as far as the people that are ending up in these types of facilities. And the general public has zero ability to do anything about it.” City Council member Adam Bazaldua of District 7 asked the code compliance direc- tor at the meeting whether the city had any data to suggest there were density issues re- garding boarding homes. Christian said the city had no such data. Despite this, the new distance requirement was unanimously ap- proved, and the new set of rules for boarding homes was passed by the City Council. The new regulations also require each boarding home to have its own license and impose a penalty of $2,000 and/or 180 days in jail for falling out of compliance. Hernandez and Sanchez have been living in the duplex with each other for months now. They’re still happy to be out of El Shad- dai, but they’d be lying if they said it didn’t feel like a tight squeeze at the duplex. They’re not sure if they’ll ever get hous- ing vouchers, so they’re still looking for op- tions outside of Dallas. Hernandez said he and his parents are considering moving to Wellington, about a four-hour drive northwest of Dallas, where they might be able to find a cheaper place. Sanchez said she’s not sure yet where else she could go, but she’d like to have her own place again by Christmas. Marshall said she thinks the two could still make living together work. Sometimes they argue with one another but they always make up, she said. If they can wait, she’s hoping to find an apartment for them in the near future where they could at least have their own rooms. “They have a very shitty circumstance, and they’re just doing the best they can,” she said. ▼ POLITICS VICTIM-BLAMER IN CHIEF CRITICS SAY GOV. GREG ABBOTT SUNK TO ‘A NEW LOW’ WITH TWEET ABOUT CLEVELAND MURDERS. BY KELLY DEARMORE O n Friday, April 28, five people, in- cluding a 9-year-old and an 18-year- old, were murdered in Cleveland, Texas, after police say that the shooter, Fran- cisco Oropesa, was asked to stop firing a rifle near the victims’ home. According to an in- terview with ABC 13 in Houston, the home- owner, Wilson Garcia, said Oropesa was possibly drunk and shooting rounds from an AR-15 outside of Garcia’s front door, before the murders. Oropesa fled the scene and a manhunt involving more than 250 officers, according to CNN, is currently underway. On Sunday, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott an- nounced a $50,000 reward for information leading to Orepesa’s capture. But he did so with an insensitive tweet that some Twitter users viewed as “victim shaming.” “Announcing a $50K reward for a @Tx- DPS top 10 fugitive who is in the country ille- gally and killed five illegal immigrants Friday night,” the tweet said. “I also directed #Opera- tionLoneStar to be on the lookout for the crim- inal and any attempts to flee the country.” Of course, the governor’s tweet riled up plenty of folks who were less than impressed with his bounty announcement. Noting the citizenship status of the deceased isn’t only unnecessary, at best, and heartless, at worst, but in this case, it may also be inaccurate. Carlos Eduardo Espina, who describes himself as a community organizer and im- migrant activist, tweeted that the governor is wrong about at least one of the victims, in- cluding a snapshot of what he says is the permanent resident ID card for Diana Velas- quez Alvarado. “I just spoke to the husband of one of the victims. He confirmed to me that his wife was a permanent resident of the US,” he wrote. “He even sent me a picture of her ID confirming this.” Whether any of the victims were living in Cleveland, just north of Houston, legally or illegally, shouldn’t be a factor in the discus- sion according to many people who criti- cized Abbott’s tweet. For his part, longtime Fort Worth Star-Telegram columnist Bud Kennedy suggests the governor may not necessarily be the best source for this type of information anyway. “Finding the killer is more important than chiding the governor here,” Kennedy wrote. “But only the federal government can accurately determine anyone’s civil immi- gration status. Comments from any other source are speculation.” Sen. Roland Gutierrez had no qualms chiding the governor. On Sunday night, the state senator, who represents Uvalde, where 19 children and 2 teachers were murdered at Robb Elementary School last May by an as- sailant armed with an assault-style rifle, tweeted: “A new low for @GregAbbott_TX, who continues to do nothing to keep #Texas safe from #GunViolence. Greg, how was an undocumented person able to obtain an AR- 15 in the first place? I’ll tell you why. It’s be- cause you and other Republicans have made safe gun laws nonexistent. I challenge you to show some actual political courage and #DOSOMETHING. #txlege.” Since it’s buried at the bottom of the gov- ernor’s tweet, it might be easy to miss, but Abbott’s pointing out that he has directed Operation Lone Star to “be on the lookout for the criminal” likely isn’t comforting to many of his constituents. Operation Lone Star is Texas’ costly, controversial border pa- trol effort designed to crack down on illegal immigration, and it has been ensnared in ac- cusations and litigation involving civil rights since its 2021 launch. On Monday, the Texas Tribune reported that Abbott, through a spokesperson, sort of apologized for his tweet. “We’ve since learned that at least one of the victims may have been in the United States legally,” Ab- bott spokesperson Renae Eze said in the statement. “We regret if the information was incorrect and detracted from the important goal of finding and arresting the criminal.” Gov. Abbott’s office did not return calls from the Observer requesting further comment. ▼ LEGISLATURE CHILLING THE COOLER ‘THEY’RE BASICALLY BAKING’: TEXAS PRISON AIR CONDITIONING BILL HEADS TO THE SENATE. BY TYLER HICKS S tanding outside the state Capitol building, Rep. Carl O. Sherman veered off the script he’d prepared for the gathered reporters. According to the lawmaker, he had been visiting a state prison when a middle-aged white woman — one of the people incarcerated at the prison — ap- proached him and apologized for being sweaty. She had just gotten off work, she ex- plained. “What work do you do here?” the legisla- tor asked. “I work on the HVAC systems,” she re- plied. Now that her shift had ended, she was heading back to her housing unit in one of the 79 of 107 Texas prisons that do not have air conditioning in all living quarters. “How cruel is that?” Sherman asked his audience on the Capitol steps. “She’s work- ing on HVAC systems to keep others cool where we have AC, but she’s coming Illustration by DonkeyHotey Gov. Greg Abbott announced a $50,000 reward for information leading to the capture of a man who killed five people in Cleveland, Texas. Unfair Park from p6 >> p10
