Unfair Park from p4 home provided in the TIF program turned out to be difficult, confusing and time consuming. The units she found aren’t all that affordable either, Mary said. Mary still lives in an affordable unit provided in one of the city’s TIF districts and asked that she remain anony- mous to protect the safety and privacy of her family. She used to be a home economics teacher at a high school in North Texas. She left to get her master’s degree with the intention of returning to teaching. But then she had to care for her mother, who’d been diagnosed with cancer. She got married not long after that and was working part time in the food industry. For the next five years, she worked her way up to a managerial position. She resigned in August last year to be home with her chil- dren. With their household income cut in half, they needed some help, so they started looking for affordable units in Dallas Housing Authority properties or TIF mixed-income districts. The whole process could be a lot easier, Mary said. She said the DHA website is good, but she’s never dealt with an actual person, “so, you also have to be tech savvy.” She still hasn’t heard from DHA. (DHA does not manage the TIF program or any of the participating properties.) But through persistence, she was able to get into one of the TIF apartments. Throughout that process, communication with the landlords was poor. She’d call places and not hear back. Some had waiting lists. Others told her just to keep calling until they had availability. To her, all of the affordable hous- ing options in Dallas should have some kind of waiting list to let people know when they can expect to have a home. “Out of every single [property] in the downtown area, only two of them had a waiting list, an actual waiting list,” Mary said. “Everyone else never called back after leaving messages. Some complexes never even answered, and I called repeat- edly. Several other ones said I needed to call back every few weeks to see if they had available units.” She said it was also hard to find more than just a single bedroom apartment in the neighborhood her family hoped to live in. “Three of the properties I called only had one-bedrooms,” Mary said. “I was under the impression that it was supposed to be for families for the best living situation possible. We’re a family of four with two kids and a one bedroom just wouldn’t work for us, so that eliminated two properties off the bat.” It took about two months before she finally found a two- bedroom apartment at The Statler. “We love it here,” she said. “We love the experiences we have here.” Her husband works in the area, and there’s a school nearby her kids can attend. Their lease ends in January, and they had planned to re- new it, she said, but “our expenses are just too high to stay here another year, so [we’re] getting ready to start the whole process again.” She’s glad she ended up where she did, but it could have been easier, and the homes could be more affordable. “I just feel like a lot of these properties aren’t being held account- able,” she said. “I’m educated, I have a masters degree, I’m organized,” she said. “Some people are educated, but they’re not organized, and with this specific program, trying to get in one of these apartments you really have to be if you’re going to be calling back every few weeks and remember who you talked to and remind them you talked to them before. So, I think it would be challenging for anyone else, especially someone with a learn- ing difference or someone with a language issue.” She remembers finding the website where she could download a PDF with a list of properties that received TIF funds and had “affordable” units set aside. From there, rent- ers are expected to call each one in the area they want to be in. Sometimes no one would answer, Mary said. Sometimes she was told her information would be passed along, but it wasn’t. She also said some properties didn’t seem to have Spanish speakers to help navigate the program. One place required a $325 application fee, which they 6 6 paid. That’s a pretty penny for people seeking housing assis- tance. She said they were told there was only one person gram not for those who need/expect a handout,” Cox said. “It’s not a voucher system, it’s not Section 8, no monetary transactions take place. It is a program for hard workers who, in my case, have gone through some hard times, dealt some bad hands, some through my choices, some through uncontrollable circumstances.” P age Jones, a spokesperson for the city, said Dallas monitors the properties to ensure they remain in compliance with the incentive agreements. That in- cludes properties incentivized with TIF funds as well as any other city programs. “As for the specific process to apply for income/rent-re- stricted units, those questions should be directed to the property managers,” Jones said. “The city is not involved in the vetting of tenants.” There have been some issues with TIF and other afford- able housing incentives over the years. But those issues haven’t exclusively been caused by developers. The city has fallen short on its end of the TIF deal in the past. In 2016, the city amended its housing code to require de- velopers wanting funding from Dallas (this includes TIF money) to lease 10% of their units to housing voucher hold- ers. If they couldn’t lease those units to voucher holders, they would stay vacant. The result has been fewer affordable units and housing options in general. City Council member Chad West said the 2016 policy was courtesy Chad West City Council member Chad West found that the number of affordable units in some districts was small. ahead of them, but they never got a call back. She called back in December to let them know they got into another one of the TIF units and needed their deposit back. They got it back, but it took months. “I don’t see, if they’re operating like this, how they’re fill- ing up those units,” she said. Their rent is about $1,410, but they also pay another $100 for parking, and there’s a mandatory internet and cable fee, which costs another $125. They only need the internet, but they’re required to buy the package. “So, we’re really paying $1,,600 for base rent because then there’s also the mandatory trash and all those other fees that come up,” Mary said. And, they have bills on top of that. “If someone is tight on money, it’s not effective to move them into this downtown housing but then have there be a required $200 on top of that. Maybe I should have known, but I didn’t,” she said. These additional fees are not included in the market rent calculator, according to the city. Mary suggested the pro- gram have someone to walk people through the process and tell them about the additional costs. “Once we got in and once we signed the paperwork, you know, it’s too late. Now we’re just really spread thin,” Mary said. “The money’s really tight.” Now, they’re looking for something more affordable. Another resident in one of the TIF units has had a differ- ent experience. Felecia Cox told the Observer she’s lived at one of the TIF properties going on four years now. In that time, she’s become the property’s resident relations coordi- nator. She wouldn’t say which one. She said they require prospects to provide their last four paystubs to make sure they qualify before they apply. This is because they have a $75 nonrefundable application fee. Cox said they only accept military vouchers. Aside from that, they set aside their studio apartments for the TIF pro- gram. Applicants also have to show they make three times the monthly rent. The units run between $1,150 and $1,300. Then, people have to requalify for the program every year. “People tend to stay in [the units] unless they get a new job or a raise in which they make too much to stay in the program,” Cox ex- plained. “Most will then transfer into a one bedroom.” “I want the public to know that in-town or TIF is a pro- passed with good intentions. “The reality of it is the develop- ers stopped using the TIF money for affordable projects,” West said. It’s not that they didn’t want voucher units. It was just a hard process. “There was a lot of red tape. It became to where it wasn’t attractive for them to do it,” West said. “It just wasn’t work- ing. If it’s 10% of zero, you’re still getting zero units.” Then, there’s the scenario developers Larry and Ted Hamilton found themselves in that led them to sue the city in 2019. The attorney representing them in the lawsuit was Philip Kingston, a former member of the City Council. According to news reports, the suit was over Lone Star Gas Lofts, a historical complex that fills the downtown block between The Statler and First Presbyterian Church. The Hamiltons partnered with another developer named John Greenan and the nonprofit CitySquare. The standards were different when the Hamiltons signed their TIF agreement. They were allowed to choose the total number of units and the level of affordability. “The affordable housing standard typically required by the city in the Downtown Connection TIF district prior to this project was that 10% of the units in a multifamily building would be set aside for moderate-income affordable housing,” the lawsuit said. “Moderate-income, as that term has been used by the city’s Housing and Economic Development Depart- ments, means the least affordable threshold at which HUD will still recognize the units as affordable for purposes of meeting the city’s duty to affirmatively further fair housing.” The Hamilton development would include units for peo- ple making less than 80% AMFI. The property would eventually have 230 residential units. Most of those, 170 of them, were for tenants making far below the area median income, with rents going for any- where between a few hundred dollars a month and a few thousand. For providing such affordability, the developers lost out on money they would’ve made from charging full prices. They were fine with that, as long as the city cut them a check for $8 million from the Downtown Connection TIF in summer 2018. But they didn’t get the money, so they sued. Larry Hamilton told The Dallas Morning News at the time their development created half of all the affordable units in the TIF district, but the city wasn’t holding up its end of the deal, which was to hand over 5% of the TIF funds, the $8 million. After filing the lawsuit in 2019, Kingston told the News, “CitySquare and Hamilton Properties have created more af- fordable housing in downtown than anyone and asked only for 5% TIF funding. And if they can be treated this way, I don’t know who will come help us solve this housing crisis.” The Hamiltons ended up winning the bulk of their >> p9 MONTH XX–MONTH XX, 2014 MAY 19–25, 2022 DALLAS OBSERVER DALLAS OBSERVER | CLASSIFIED | MUSIC | DISH | MOVIES | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | FEATURE | SCHUTZE | UNFAIR PARK | CONTENTS | CLASSIFIED | MUSIC | DISH | CULTURE | UNFAIR PARK | CONTENTS dallasobserver.comdallasobserver.com
