DAI at Center of Fight to Improve Conditions in Dallas Apartments
[Excerpts]
You have to wonder what would become of the residents of Kendall Villas without advocates like Dallas Area Interfaith pressing the city on their behalf.
....city staffers were aware that many of Villanueva’s neighbors had concerns. A code compliance supervisor had talked to residents in April at the behest of Dallas Area Interfaith. The nonprofit said residents relayed stories about raw sewage leaking onto walkways, electric stoves sparking and mold in bathrooms. Based on their photos and video, and what I saw in person, I believe them.
DAI met again with city officials in May. The concerns persisted into June, when DAI hosted another meeting with city workers at Kendall Villas. A code compliance officer surveyed Villanueva’s collapsed ceiling, according to DAI representatives who were there.
DAI member and Kendall Villas resident Yazbeth Esquivel, 35, helped organize neighbors who had concerns. A handful of complaints trickled into 311 in May, and more than 30 came into the system at once in June....
[Photo Credit: Michael Hogue, Dallas Morning News]
Bad Landlords Make Dallas Housing Miserable. Why Can't City Crack Down?, Dallas Morning News [pdf]
¿Porqué Dallas Permite Que Propietarios Tengan Apartamentos en Malas Condición?, Dallas Morning News [pdf]
DAI Leaders Confront Unbearable Apartment Conditions
[Excerpt]
On Wednesday, residents will join Dallas Area Interfaith, Bachman Lake Together and Lumin Education in a meeting with city officials to demand solutions to what they describe as “risky and unbearable living conditions” in many units.
“We are ready to speak up, and we are not scared anymore. All the things we went through are helping us to move forward,” said Claudia Cruz, 38, a mother of three children who lives in an apartment in the area. “We are not victims, we are organizers now, and we want the city and those in charge to work with us.”
[Photo Credit: Maria Ramos Pacheco, Dallas Morning News]
Dallas Tenants Counter ‘Unbearable’ Conditions, Dallas Morning News [pdf]
DAI Sounds Alarm on Lack of Water and Safe Housing After the Storm
[In photo above, Maria Magarin of San Juan Diego Catholic holds her six-month old son and evaluates the water damage sustained to her apartment in far northeast Dallas. Magarin lost hot water due to the Texas blackout and now, after her apartment sustained significant damage, fears that the mold growing on wet walls will make her young sons sick.]
[Excerpt]
Maria Magarin stomped on her gray carpet, to punctuate the fact that burst pipes have left her bedroom floor soggy, her apartment smelling of mold and a hallway wall so damp it bulges like a huge wet sponge. She said she feared her 6-month-old son would get sick.
“My apartment is a disaster,” the single mother of four said.
....
Josephine Lopez-Paul, the lead organizer for Dallas Area Interfaith, has tried to help those most in need, usually immigrant women who are single heads of households. Emergency assistance funds from the Oakland-based Family Independence Initiative obtained before the storm meant Dallas Area Interfaith was able to distribute $500 checks in the middle of the freeze. The flow of money was held up for a few days because renters couldn’t get on computers without electricity.
“This is a disaster,” Lopez-Paul said.
[Photo Credit: Lynda M Gonzalez, Dallas Morning News]
No Water: 15 Days After Losing Service Due to a Winter Storm, Some in Dallas Still Lack Working Plumbing, Dallas Morning News [pdf]
