6 November 17–23, 2022 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents York City social scene between 2013 and 2017. The subject of a popular Netflix series, she spent two years in prison after being convicted of grand larceny, larceny in the second degree and theft of services. Abagnale, an infamous con artist, was the inspiration for and subject of the 2002 film Catch Me If You Can, in which he was por- trayed by Leonardo DiCaprio. For his part, Bryant racked up bills for steak dinners topped off with Champagne and a half-day cruise on a private, 90-foot yacht, as well as more than a dozen trips on chartered flights and five luxury vehicles worth more than a half a million dollars. Altogether, according to court records, he attempted to get at least 17 chartered flights without paying for them. In many cases, he had the flights stocked with vodka and brought along friends, none of whom are named in court filings. He also used the online payment services to generate payments for materials and building costs on a home with a workshop and a pool that cost nearly a million dollars. By the time the payments failed to go through, the builder had put in a significant amount of time and labor into the home. As part of the scam, Bryant posed as a member of a rich oil family and claimed to be employed by a number of “fictitious com- panies,” the DOJ explained. In one case, he created a website for a nonexistent company to add an “air of legitimacy,” according to court records. He even managed to convince an oil com- pany to front him $150,000 in funds to bank- roll a nonexistent oil well. In another instance, he drummed up a fictional secretary to supposedly process payments of some $38,000 in exchange for private flights from Lubbock to Houston, and Houston to Miami, including in-flight booze and limos to and from the airports. ▼ Housing More Help for TenanTs As people continue to struggle pAying rent, DAllAs is consiDering permAnent protections AgAinst eviction. by Jacob Vaughn T hroughout the pandemic, a tempo- rary ordinance in Dallas offered addi- tional protections for tenants facing eviction. Over time, though, it became diffi- cult to get the full benefit of these protec- tions. Changes to the ordinance City Council approved last week aim to remedy that. Before, the deal was your landlord had to give you a 21-day notice of eviction before posting a notice to vacate. In that time, if you showed proof you were financially affected by the pandemic you got a full 60 days from the initial notice to avoid eviction. But after a while, it got harder to prove that COVID specifically was the reason peo- ple were behind on rent. That meant many people never got the full 60 days, and some were getting kicked out as they waited on rent assistance. On top of that, there was no guarantee landlords would take late rent checks if tenants did get assistance. After talking with the Apartment Associ- ation of Greater Dallas, local attorney Mark Melton, who wrote the temporary eviction ordinance and runs Dallas Eviction Advo- cacy Center, pitched a few amendments to the city, which were approved. Now, instead of getting 21 days to prove COVID caused them to get behind on rent, tenants have 10 days to show the landlord they’ve applied for rental assistance. This is a much easier standard for tenants to meet, and if they do, they get the full 60 days to avoid eviction. Under the original ordinance, tenants were getting evicted even as they had active rental assistance applications. The changes in the ordinance could prevent this from happening. The updated ordinance also includes what is called a right to cure. Under Texas law, Melton explained, “If you fall behind on rent, your landlord is under no obligation to accept your late payment.” So, Melton said, “you can walk in with a check for the full balance — this has actually happened to me several times, by the way, paying rent for people — and the landlord can say, ‘Nope. I don’t want it. Keep your money. I’m just going to evict you.’” Now, the ordinance requires landlords to accept late rent in the initial 10 days the ten- ant has to apply for assistance. This ordinance is meant to be temporary, but the city is considering adopting a perma- nent one. A permanent ordinance is still be- ing drafted, but Melton had a few ideas for it. He said instead of giving tenants 10 days to show they’ve applied for rental assistance, maybe they should get 15 days. “The idea there on a permanent basis is not about rent assistance directly. It’s about ‘We want you to at least have enough time to get through your next paycheck,’” Melton said. “So, if a person gets paid twice a month, every other week, you should have at least a 15-day reprieve here to get to that check to get yourself caught up. If during that 15-day period there happens to be rent assistance and you apply for it then you can get some additional time, 60 days maybe.” City staff were set to show a draft of the permanent eviction ordinance to the Dallas Housing and Homelessness Solutions Com- mittee this week. A final vote by the City Council could come by the end of the year. ▼ Housing Halfway HoMe Housing ForwArD works to put A Dent in Homelessness, but resources Are strAineD. by Jacob Vaughn T he Dallas R.E.A.L. Time Rapid Re- housing initiative, a partnership be- tween local governments and homelessness organizations, has been able to provide homes to some 1,265 people who would otherwise be homeless. That’s almost halfway to the initiative’s goal of rehousing 2,700 homeless people and families by 2023. Leading the effort is Housing Forward, formerly known as the Metro Dallas Home- less Alliance. The nonprofit organization said its challenges include rent increases, a tight rental market and the unwillingness of some landlords to accept housing vouchers, as well as racial inequities in housing and homelessness. Some of these issues are also leading to an increased demand for housing assistance, the group says. “Housing Forward, along with our part- ners in the All Neighbors Coalition, are feel- ing increased pressure,” Joli Angel Robinson, president and CEO of Housing Forward, said in a press release. Service pro- viders are seeing more visitors and taking more calls for services than usual, and it’s beginning to strain their resources. “When rents increase and the rental housing market tightens, more and more individuals and families are feeling the immense impact of already precarious housing situations,” Rob- inson said. That’s why Housing Forward is also working on keeping people out of homeless- ness through what it calls diversion. Family Gateway, one of Housing Forward’s partner organizations, has shown that the cost of. keeping people out of homelessness through some sort of housing assistance is one tenth of the average cost of a family’s shelter stay. On average, Family Gateway spends about $1,275 per family to keep them off the streets. Half of those families didn’t need fi- nancial assistance at all. Compare that to the $12,320 it usually costs to put up a family in a shelter and provide services for a little over two months, and you’ll see why many say di- version is a bargain. “It really is sort of this innovative ap- proach where we’re kind of bringing hous- ing assistance to the front door of the system, so people don’t have to enter shelter in order to get that level of care,” Sarah Kahn, Housing Forward’s chief program of- ficer, told the Observer. “So sometimes that looks like … people identifying friends or family that they can move into. Sometimes, it’s the diversion specialists helping to medi- ate conflict with a family member where they were living previously or with a land- lord, for example.” The organizations have been able to raise private funds to offer incentives to landlords and property owners willing to work with them. These include payments for reserving units, guarantees that those units will be oc- cupied and ensuring these renters have ac- tive case management and wrap-around support. “One of the benefits of working with our program is knowing that not only are we supporting people through helping them get back on their feet and provide rental assis- tance, but we’re also supporting people to really stay in housing over the long term,” Kahn said. “And to get back and to get con- nected with employment to connect in with community-based services that support them to increase their income and to stay housed over the long term.” But all of this may not be enough, accord- ing to Robinson. The organization needs more landlords and property management firms to work with it so there are more places to put people. “We need more housing units,” Robinson said. “We are so appreciative of our partners in the landlord and property management community, but we need more to join them.” ▼ EnvironmEnt seTTling THe DusT environmentAl ADvocAtes pusH For more regulAtions For concrete bAtcH plAnts. by Jacob Vaughn T he Texas Commission on Environ- mental Quality (TCEQ) is working on amendments to the air quality stan- dard permit for concrete batch plants in the state. The first public meeting for this amendment process took place Wednesday in Austin, where attendees asked the agency how and if it planned to provide more pro- tections for the environment and communi- ties living near these batch plants. According to Texans for Responsible Ag- gregate Mining, an environmental group pushing for changes in the process, the regu- lations provided now don’t offer much pro- tection from air pollution, specifically particulate matter. This can have harmful effects on the health of neighboring commu- nities, the organization says, and they’re dis- proportionately communities of color. The proposed TCEQ permit amendment will include an updated air quality analysis, a report intended to show that emissions at these batch plants do not violate federal air quality standards. The analysis will Jacob Vaughn Dallas is finding ways to support evictees. Unfair Park from p4 >> p8
