Wave of Renovations, Rising Rents Push Evicted Tenants Toward Homelessness

A wave of renovation to take advantage of soaring Dallas rent is pushing some low-income tenants toward homelessness.

Three evicted tenants are now squatters, staying behind at a North Oak Cliff complex where they were ordered to leave by June 30.

Two of the three said they can’t find anywhere else to live for close to the $675 a month they were paying in rent with all bills paid.

“I thought I was in a ghost town,” evicted tenant Alicia Sanchez said.

That’s how it feels staying in a place that’s been boarded up all around them.

“It was affordable but it started getting bad here. There was a lot of crime, people would get it fights and stuff,” said Hector Hernandez, an evicted tenant who says he had been living at the complex for the past year.

The tenants stayed despite the problems that included rodents.

“I did. I used to pay. I could afford it. But not today. I need something to go to,” Sanchez said.

Their landlord plans to renovate their complex like others that have already been upgraded in the changing city.

But renovated apartments may rent for nearly twice as much a month, with utility bills separate and big security deposits required.

“I have been calling all those numbers. Those guys, you got to pay three months of rent, two months of rent. I cannot afford it,” Sanchez said.

Volunteers with the group Fighting Homelessness are trying to save the tenants from winding up on the street in this heat.

Fighting Homelessness CEO Lisa Marshall said Sanchez and Hernandez are both disabled but always lived on their own.

“You can't be in 109 when you have diabetes and you are 70 years old. Hector is blind. They have never been to a shelter. They have never had to go to a shelter because they were independently living on their own in their own apartment. But now, that home has been taken away from them,” she said.

Marshall said local studies have shown there are far too few available housing units for the lowest income residents who need them, and her efforts to find housing for Sanchez and Hernandez demonstrate that problem.

“This is the newest entry into homelessness because there’s nothing to safeguard them,” Marshall said.

Instead of sending Sanchez and Hernandez to homeless shelters, Marshall started a fundraising drive to cover extended stay hotels for these final tenants who’ve been unable to find new homes.

“Hopefully Miss Marshall can help us find something, help us relocate and find something we can afford, something permanent, something safer,” Hernandez said.

Marshall said the tenants are seeking housing vouchers that might supplement their limited income for housing, but they are on a long list of applicants.

The City of Dallas has expanded funding for people who are already homeless. And local governments have been promoting the construction of new affordable housing.

“It’s not enough and it’s not quick enough either,” Marshall said.

She said the situation these and other clients face shows that the needs are much greater than available housing programs.