4 December 22–28, 2022 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents Month XX–Month XX, 2014 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER | Classified | MusiC | dish | Movies | Culture | Night+day | feature | sChutze | uNfair Park | CoNteNts | tates the notice must be hand-delivered, delivered by mail or posted on the inside of the door.) But Smith froze up. “When it was my turn to talk, I forgot to tell the judge what he needed to hear,” she says. “I had never done this be- fore, and it was all a little overwhelming.” Ever since, Smith and her husband have bounced be- tween temporary housing and homelessness. S andy Rollins spends every day talking to people who have been priced out of the rental market. As the ex- ecutive director of Texas Tenants’ Union, she helps individuals understand their rights and connects them with the resources they need. She also has an in-depth knowl- edge of policy shaped by decades of advocacy experience. Nothing surprises her anymore, but that doesn’t mean she is any less incensed by the abhorrent behavior and “lack of em- pathy” she sees throughout her state. “For landlords to blame inflation for rising rents is disin- genuous,” she says. “To raise rent 30% when inflation is at 7 or 8 percent? It doesn’t add up. They’re only doing it because they can.” Just as frustrating for Rollins is the seemingly arbitrary red tape that often encumbers renters like Smith — or rent- ers who can’t find a place to live to begin with. “I’ve seen landlords use all kinds of terms and conditions to make it prohibitive to rent or to terminate early,” she says. One such policy is the often-used rule that tenants must earn three times the monthly rent of their specific apart- ment. “Often it coincides with new ownership, but it doesn’t have to,” Rollins says. “Sometimes landlords do a rescreen- ing, and if you don’t make three times the rent, they’ll issue a notice of nonrenewal.” The “three times” policy becomes even more strenuous when you realize just how much rents have recently risen in Dallas. For instance, a recent study shows rent costs in the city of Dallas have risen 25% since the start of the pandemic. In the suburbs, that number is closer to 30%. Meanwhile, Dallas’ occupancy rate is hovering around 93%. In short, the problem is three-fold: Prices are up; stock is low; and people who fall behind on rent are at the mercy of a landlord, a judge and a market hostile to renters. In some cases, advocates find themselves walking a tightrope with bad housing options on one side and homelessness on the other. “We don’t see fewer cases of landlords refusing to fix mold; we see more of those,” says Melton, the attorney. “This is a conversation we have all the time. You’d love to go in and en- force every code, but if you do, you’re going to have a lot of buildings lose their COs (certificate of occupancies). I literally had a conversation with someone at the city the other day where I said, ‘Do not pull that CO. If you do, those people will have nowhere to go. That’s how bad the market is right now, and as bad as some situations are, it’s better than the street.” Melton, who founded the Dallas Eviction Advocacy Cen- ter, somehow found time to bill over 300 hours of tax law work in November while working with the city to revise Dallas’ minimum housing standards. “I’ve got my hands in a lot of things,” he admits. On the way to an early December wedding in New Or- leans, he also found time to talk about potential solutions to the city’s dual crises of rising rents and low stock of afford- able housing. “The $800 to $1,000 per month apartments aren’t ideal, but for a lot of people, that’s all they can afford,” he says. “In fact, it’s more than they can afford. You can fix that with large-scale acquisitions instead of leaving it up to free mar- ket forces.” Like Rollins, he also laments the lack of empathy he sees for tenants who fall behind on rent or struggle with home- lessness. That contempt shows up in the conversation about vouchers: the subsidy program by which families can re- ceive assistance paying their rent and utilities. Even though a lot of people have maintained their job and their income at the same level since 2020 or 2021, Melton notes, inflation has made everything more expensive. This means more people qualify for government housing vouch- ers. At the same time, they carry a stark stigma. “Vouchers aren’t a freebie,” Melton says. “It’s not like you’re out there living some fabulous life. All it’s doing is ad- justing rates so they’re affordable.” Rollins said she doesn’t hear much talk about inflation or things getting more expensive. Instead, she hears about the “terrifying” bottom-line issues: Where am I going to live next week? If I get evicted, how will I ever find another place to live? Many rental assistance programs, including those sprin- kled throughout Dallas, have run dry. That, too, is another thing Rollins often hears about: Where can I get help? “There’s a very long waiting list for the affordable hous- ing programs that are out there,” she says. “There’s also a huge need for apartments that cost $500 or $600 or less, and there’s just not enough of those without a subsidy.” When asked about possible solutions, Rollins, Melton and Flores, the researcher from Child Poverty Action Lab, each shared some cause for hope. Multiple bills currently in the Texas Legislature may cre- ate rare relief for people who have been evicted. One such bill, introduced by Houston Rep. Gene Wu, would make an eviction filing confidential if the judge finds in favor of the defendant or the case is dismissed without relief for the ten- ant. As it stands today, the mere filing of an eviction can plague a tenant’s record simply by existing; a landlord may see it and immediately assume the worst. On the housing front, increasing production of affordable housing is a must, particularly since Dallas’ history of high rents, redlining and NIMBYism have fueled its ongoing af- fordable housing crisis. In the short term, tenant education and legal representation are critical. (Melton stresses that judges are much more receptive to tenants’ plight when there’s a lawyer by their side.) Plus, perhaps most important of all, this trio of experts believe it is time for permanent so- lutions that move beyond the vital yet fleeting remedies of- fered during the pandemic. “We’re at an important moment in time in Dallas where all of our COVID-era resources and interventions have been exhausted,” Flores says. “We have an opportunity to think about what eviction prevention should really look like.” And the stakes are arguably as high as they’ve ever been. “Now that the rent assistance programs are effectively out of money, I think we’re about to see some massive in- crease in homelessness,” Melton says. “Because, number one, all the rents are going up. So if someone gets evicted, and they can even find a place, their rent probably goes from $800 to $1,200, and there’s no help anymore. It’s gone.” Right now, that’s what the Smith family is trying to do: find their next place. But that’s a tall order. All their money is going to motel fees, and as of this writ- ing, the family wasn’t sure how much longer they could af- ford those costs. Shortly after their eviction in September, the family lived for weeks in their car. Smith’s husband was working at the time, which made for a logistical nightmare. Each morning, the family would rise, drive from the lot where they parked overnight, then drive to Smith’s husband’s job. Then, after work, they’d find a new place to park. The car broke down at one point, so they had to use the hundreds in GoFundMe cash to fix their sole source of both transportation and shelter. They eventually started crashing with Smith’s husband’s sister, but right around Thanksgiving, they moved to a motel. “His sister has kids,” Smith says, “and we’re not trying to put anyone out.” For now, they’re taking things week by week. Every cent of her husband’s paycheck is going to the motel, but soon, Smith says, they may have enough savings to put down a de- posit on a new place. Christmas will be spent in the motel, but if she had her way, Smith would like to see family. That would involve telling them about the eviction, though, which she has yet to do. She doesn’t want them to worry. “It’s been stressful, but it’s worked out for the most part,” Smith says after a particularly taxing week. The fam- ily owed the hotel some money, and after a couple days of worrying and waiting for a check, they were able to make the payment. “It took my husband’s whole check to keep us here. We don’t have funds for gas or personal items, but we have a roof over our head. It’s going to be stressful for a while due to the fact that we have to pay every week,” she adds, “and we don’t know if my husband’s check will cover it each week. But as of now, we have a roof over our heads.” ▼ Prisons Cooked Alive A New Study ReveAlS the deAdly PRice of texAS PRiSoNS with No AiR coNditioNiNg. by Tyler Hicks A ll too often, Dr. Amite Dominick receives letters containing some variation of the sentence, “I don’t think I’m going to make it.” Dominick, the founder and director of Texas Prisons Community Advocates, is in frequent contact with incarcer- ated people, their families and beleaguered corrections offi- cers. Each of these groups has its distinct sources of despair, but there is one topic that frequently bubbles to the top of the list of grievances, particularly in the summer months: the heat. Only 28 of the 107 prisons in Texas are fully air condi- tioned. Despite years-long attempts from advocates like Dominick, incarcerated people still endure scorching sum- mers in units that regularly reach 110 degrees and, in at least one case, topped 149 degrees. The Texas House recently passed a measure to install air conditioning in all its prisons by 2029, but lawmakers didn’t provide the money, and the Senate never voted on the bill. “The letters I get are full of so much pain,” Dominick says, “because they were written by people who were liter- ally being baked alive.” Now, a new research study adds clarity and specifics to that pain. The study — a joint effort by Boston University, Brown University, Harvard University and Dominick’s organization — combined federal data on prison mortality in Texas with temperature data from NASA. It also focused on state prisons that do not have air conditioning. Heat mitigation practices differ by facility, but in most cases, incarcerated people must try to cool off with damp towels, “bird baths” in luke- Unfair Park from p3 Mike Brooks Sandy Rollins helps tenants understand their rights in Texas as inflation and rising rents threaten their housing. >> p6
