{"id":435,"date":"2017-05-24T19:33:54","date_gmt":"2017-05-24T19:33:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stories.kera.org\/no-place\/?p=435"},"modified":"2017-05-25T00:33:31","modified_gmt":"2017-05-25T00:33:31","slug":"when-west-dallas-tenants-leave-they-pay-more-in-rent-and-they-miss-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stories.kera.org\/no-place\/2017\/05\/24\/when-west-dallas-tenants-leave-they-pay-more-in-rent-and-they-miss-home\/","title":{"rendered":"When West Dallas Tenants Leave, They Pay More In Rent — And Miss Home"},"content":{"rendered":"

For seven months, residents living in small, weathered rent homes in West Dallas were told they had to clear out by early June. Everything changed<\/a> on Monday, May 22. The landlord offered to sell those homes to tenants who are still there, and a judge pushed the June 3\u00a0deadline to early October.\u00a0However, most\u00a0of the families who had been renting from HMK Ltd. have already left.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Missing The Community<\/h5>\n

For Rosemary Guerra, home is now Oak Cliff. McAdams Avenue is quiet with not much noise besides the birds and a car cruising by every now and then. She\u2019s likes it \u2014 still, it\u2019s no West Dallas.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody knew everybody,” she said. “We all got along with each other, you know. We never locked our doors. We were always with our windows up. I never had a key to our house.\u201d<\/p>\n

After a lifetime in West Dallas, Guerra moved into a two-bedroom rental house in November. She lives with her husband, her brother and her three grown sons. They have a separate\u00a0back house \u2014 one big room with no kitchen or bathroom.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re enjoying it.<\/p>\n

\"Rosemary<\/p>\n

Rosemary Guerra sits on the porch of her home in Oak Cliff. She moved from her West Dallas home in November, soon after HMK Ltd.’s initial eviction notice. Photo\/Courtney Collins<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

This house rents for $850 a month. The West Dallas home she rented from HMK was $575. She says coming up with $300 more each month hasn\u2019t been too bad — almost everyone in the house has a job and can chip in. Guerra is\u00a0glad she found something even this affordable.<\/p>\n

\u201cAround here, there\u2019s a house they want $1,200 down, and $1,200 a month. We were lucky we found this; this is the cheapest one we could find,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

The hardest part of the transition for Guerra is not knowing anyone.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were used to being outside in the front,” she said. “And, you know, we knew who passed by and who didn\u2019t. And you know, here, everybody\u2019s like, they go outside but just to cut their yard and stuff like that. It\u2019s totally different.\u201d<\/p>\n

West Dallas is different now, too. It\u2019s not just all new restaurants and high-end apartments going up \u2014 it\u2019s the street where Guerra used to live.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe house on Bayonne, it didn\u2019t last very long. He knocked it down quick,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Demolition and construction noise is the new soundtrack of West Dallas. Another vacant HMK home was bulldozed last week.<\/p>\n

“We had planned on living our life out here.” <\/p>\n
John Anderson, former West Dallas resident<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\"An<\/p>\n

An empty lot at 909 Bayonne Street in West Dallas. Photo\/Allison V. Smith<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

John Anderson lived in the neighborhood for 44 years. He finally moved out at the end of April.\u00a0He\u00a0and his wife settled in Oak Cliff, too. Their rent has tripled to more than $1,000 a month. Even though he moved out of West Dallas close to a month ago, he goes back frequently.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m going to miss my neighbors, and that\u2019s why I\u2019m over here,” he says. “I visit them and I come over here and leave something out for the animals. We\u2019ve got some cats. They be roaming around in the daytime.\u201d<\/p>\n

After hearing that the remaining HMK tenants can now buy their homes, Anderson felt hurt. He says that announcement came a few weeks too late for him.<\/p>\n

\u201cVery sad,” he says. “Because we had planned on living our life out here.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"John<\/p>\n

John Anderson outside his former West Dallas home. He visits the neighborhood often. Photo\/Courtney Collins<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Pattern Of Displacement<\/h5>\n

This scene has played out many times before across the country — and right here in Dallas.<\/p>\n

John Greenan runs CitySquare Housing<\/a>, a nonprofit that builds affordable homes. He remembers another displacement on the other side of downtown.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt must have been close to the year 2000,” he said “There was a lot of the apartments along Gaston Avenue [that] were closed for renovation. And their tenants had to pick up and move. Most of them moved further away from the city center, further from jobs [to] more expensive transportation, lots of times less desirable housing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Today, Gaston Avenue is lined with trendy renovations of the old apartment buildings.<\/p>\n

Greenan says the folks who leave often head southeast to places like Hutchins or Balch Springs.<\/p>\n

He says the 305 HMK rental homes are the canary in the coal mine. There are thousands more units in Dallas that will have to be repaired or cleared out if the city sticks to its tougher housing codes.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn a market basis, what people can afford is substandard. And that\u2019s just the reality right now,\u201d Greenan says.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s because building something new just costs too much.<\/p>\n

\u201cA one-bedroom apartment costs about $150,000 to build right now in the city of Dallas,” Greenan said. “And on a market rental basis, you\u2019re looking at about $1,000 a month more or less.\u201d<\/p>\n

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    A view of the Margaret Hunt Hill bridge from a West Dallas neighborhood. Photo\/Allison V. Smith<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n
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    A view of The Austin at Trinity Green under construction off Singleton Boulevard. Photo\/Allison V. Smith<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n
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    Tennis shoes hang from wires off Singleton Boulevard in Dallas. Photo\/Allison V. Smith<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n
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    Red balloons outside The Austin at Trinity Green, an apartment complex off Singleton Boulevard. Photo\/Allison V. Smith<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n
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    One of the 300 homes owned by HMK Ltd. and slated for closure. Photo\/Allison V. Smith<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n