{"id":335,"date":"2017-05-04T22:06:52","date_gmt":"2017-05-04T22:06:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stories.kera.org\/no-place\/?p=335"},"modified":"2017-05-24T16:22:38","modified_gmt":"2017-05-24T16:22:38","slug":"this-state-lawmaker-is-trying-to-save-the-place-where-he-grew-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stories.kera.org\/no-place\/2017\/05\/04\/this-state-lawmaker-is-trying-to-save-the-place-where-he-grew-up\/","title":{"rendered":"This State Lawmaker Is Trying To Save The Place Where He Grew Up"},"content":{"rendered":"

A lot has changed since State Rep. Eric Johnson<\/a> grew up in West Dallas. His old neighborhood is in the midst of a transformation. High-end apartments and restaurants are edging out the low-income families who’ve lived there for decades. He’s filed legislation in the Texas Legislature to keep longtime residents in a rapidly\u00a0gentrifying<\/span>\u00a0neighborhood. He joined KERA’s Rick Holter for The Friday Conversation.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2022 The latest:<\/strong> Landlord offers to sell rental homes to longtime residents; judge extends move-out deadline<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cWe lived in an apartment complex that\u2019s no longer there; it got razed a several years ago,\u201d the Dallas Democrat said. \u201cI remember going down Singleton to go to Wimpy\u2019s and a place called The Dog House. That was our treat on Friday nights.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trinity Groves is a \u201ccut above that,\u201d and though Johnson acknowledges there\u2019s nothing wrong with change, he said he\u2019s worried about how the development is affecting his old stomping grounds.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt breaks my heart to think that through no fault of their own and involuntarily, people who lived in that community through all those tough times and no one cared,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cAnd now because we\u2019ve built a bridge, these folks may be shown the door so that frankly, young SMU grads can have a first apartment that their parents help them pay for. It just doesn\u2019t sit well with me.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Democrat has filed legislation<\/a> to address some of the gentrification issues in West Dallas. Some of his bill\u2019s provisions would set aside a fixed percentage of affordable housing across the board and provide some property tax relief for existing residents. Johnson admits the track record is poor for fighting gentrifying<\/span> neighborhoods from pushing out longtime residents, he says he\u2019ll take those odds over doing nothing at all.<\/p>\n

\n
The Latest In ‘No Place To Go’<\/h6>\n

The owner of hundreds of aging West Dallas rental homes that had been slated for closure said Monday, May 22 that he will sell <\/a>upwards of 75 of them to tenants. Hours later, a Dallas County district judge extended a move-out deadline<\/a> for remaining renters until October.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A lot has changed since State Rep. Eric Johnson grew…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":16,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"audio","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[11,21,15,20,9,8],"class_list":["post-335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-audio","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-one-crisis-away-no-place-to-go","tag-affordable-housing","tag-eric-johnson","tag-gentrification","tag-housing","tag-one-crisis-away","tag-west-dallas","post_format-post-format-audio","byline-krystina-martinez","byline-rick-holter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stories.kera.org\/no-place\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stories.kera.org\/no-place\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stories.kera.org\/no-place\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stories.kera.org\/no-place\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stories.kera.org\/no-place\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=335"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/stories.kera.org\/no-place\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":539,"href":"https:\/\/stories.kera.org\/no-place\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335\/revisions\/539"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stories.kera.org\/no-place\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stories.kera.org\/no-place\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stories.kera.org\/no-place\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stories.kera.org\/no-place\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}