Elmwood Anti-Displacement Fight is Far From Over, Residents Say Dallas Needs to Help Elderly And Disabled

We began researching about a month ago potential options for a disabled Dallas resident who is being threatened by investors to sell his home for less than market value or be reported to Code Compliance. 

Plenty of Dallas homeowners have told us they get the calls, texts, and emails. They mark them as spam and move along. But this kind of tricky business can be detrimental for a senior citizen, a non-English speaker, or a disabled person. 

In evaluating the dilemma of Woody Brodie Jr. — a North Oak Cliff resident who owns two homes that are code compliant — we uncovered a few things: City programs exist, but not everyone knows about them. Often a solution is found through good Samaritan neighbors. And a little neighborhood organization and political pressure can go a long way. 

City of Dallas Code Compliance

Elmwood resident Christine Hopkins said there are dozens of vulnerable residents and businesses in City Council District 1, which covers North Oak Cliff. 

“They feel like Code Compliance can be used as a way to force them out of their homes and that if they don’t sell, maybe Code is going to get called on them all the time and they’re going to be forced out,” Hopkins said. “Businesses have felt that way in Oak Cliff — Latino businesses, like the car mechanic shops that fought not to be written out of the [West Oak Cliff Area Plan]. They felt like, ‘Well we won that battle. Let’s hope they don’t force us out in another way,’ because we saw that happen in Bishop Arts. There’s always a fear in the community that one way or another they’re going to push you out if they want to push you out.” 

Assistant Director of Code Compliance Jeremy Reed is a 14-year city employee and a straight shooter. 

He told CandysDirt.com that “it definitely is a thing” for investors to threaten disabled and elderly homeowners that they must sell their homes or be reported to the city for code violations. 

What’s not “a thing,” Reed explained, is that the city would arbitrarily punish someone without first trying to help them address code violations.

“I would tell them to ignore it and not let them get to you,” Reed said of investor threats. “We also tell residents to make sure their property is always compliant.” 

That’s part of the problem, Reed acknowledged. Some residents can’t afford home repairs or yard maintenance, and although numerous programs are available, they’re not well-advertised or accessible. 

For example, the city has a community hand tool shed where homeowners can borrow lawn equipment to bring their property up to code, but not everyone knows about it. 

“We do have quite a few assistance programs of varying sizes,” Reed said. “Some are funded; some are not. There are some that are easily accessible. You go to savedallaswater.com and those programs never dry up, pun intended. They have free irrigation evaluations and a minor plumbing repair program.”

Common code violations include litter, high weeds, bulky trash violations, overgrown vegetation, and lack of a building permit. The City of Dallas will soon be unveiling a Code Compliance dashboard where residents can look up code violations in their neighborhoods. 

“Failure to protect exterior surfaces is one of the most common structural issues,” Reed said. “It usually looks like peeling paint or rotted wood.”

If Code Compliance doesn’t have an immediate way to help the resident, they suggest local churches or civic organizations. 

“We try to be empathetic and create a solution,” Reed said. “It’s just a problem that doesn’t always have a government solution. One route we can go, depending on where they are in the city, is we can write a special citation for Community Court. It’s not a civil citation, it’s technically a criminal citation. They are assessed and get a caseworker assigned. They’re walked through the process to see if there is anything the city can help with. In the case of something like property maintenance, there are steps they need to take and if they take those steps, we’ll dismiss the citation.”

Someone with a code violation might be assigned by Community Court to an hour-long training with a code official on the top 10 violations and how to avoid getting citations in the future, Reed added. 

“Again, they get a caseworker who might recognize the problem and something we can help them with,” he said. “If it’s an elderly person and it’s lawn maintenance, sometimes they’ll put them on a rotation and send somebody over who’s doing community service. We always want to help those who want to be helped, when we have the resources to help.”

Request for $2 Million Dedicated to District 1

Although there are dozens of home repair programs and funding sources listed in the Dallas Housing Resource Catalog, some are highly competitive and residents have to show up in person on a particular day to fight for a small amount of funding that is doled out just once a year. 

That’s the case with the Home Improvement and Preservation Program (HIPP), said Hopkins, a founding member of the West Oak Cliff Coalition.

“It’s like a Hunger Games-style application process, where it’s first-come, first-served, so if you are not at that building in line at the beginning of the day, camped out like you’re trying to get Taylor Swift tickets, then you’re not going to get money to help repair your home,” Hopkins said. “These are elderly and disabled people who you’re expecting to go there and try to rush to get in their application hoping that they get help. It’s just not the right kind of process, I don’t think, for the type of people who you’re trying to serve.”

Hopkins organized nine neighborhood associations — Polk-Vernon, South Edgefield, Hampton Hills, East Hampton Hills, Jimtown, West Kessler, Ruthmeade Place, Casa Guanajuato, and Kidd Springs — to sign a letter to Councilman Chad West asking for $2 million in a targeted home repair program dedicated for District 1. Residents say it doesn’t matter if the funds come from the 2024 bond or the general fund, but they want their fair share. 

“The need is not being met,” Hopkins said. “Even if District 1 was getting its fair share of help from the current HIPP program, that would be only three to four district residents served by that program per year. Out of 90,000 residents in our district, the need is much, much greater than that.”

West, who was re-elected to serve District 1 in May, responded via email that he shares Hopkins’ vision for Oak Cliff’s prosperity and is committed to exploring all viable options. 

“While the funds from the bond program are crucial for various community initiatives, it is essential to acknowledge that utilizing them for home repair purposes would require amending the bond charter, a process that necessitates action from the entire City Council,” West wrote. “As you might be aware, such an amendment has not been undertaken in recent history.”

West appointed Ashley Brundage, co-founder of the Dallas Housing Coalition, to the Economic Development/Housing subcommittee of the Community Bond Task Force. The DHC has requested $200 million in bond funds for housing. 

West Dallas Home Repair Program

District 6, represented by Councilman Omar Narvaez, procured a targeted “West Dallas Home Repair Program” using a surplus from a previous bond that was subsequently channeled into the Equity Capital Revitalization Fund. 

Something similar could occur in District 1, but it’s too soon to start making those plans. The 2024 bond election will either be held in May or November of next year. 

“As we look ahead to the 2024 bond, determining the presence of a surplus will only be possible years later when certain projects might require less funding than initially anticipated,” West said. “Additionally, it is worth noting that the Housing, Economic Development, and Homeless Solutions Departments typically refrain from allocating bond money for specific programs due to the additional demand for staff and resources, among other logistical considerations.” 

West asked for a meeting with Hopkins to further discuss ways D1 needs can be addressed. 

While West has, for years, advocated for more affordable housing and innovative solutions, he’s also said missing middle housing can be provided without tearing down existing homes. 

More Education

Hopkins also says the city can do better in raising awareness about its housing programs. 

“[They should] protect neighbors from displacement pressures that might come from folks wanting to come in and build more expensive properties,” she said. “They could have bilingual, bicultural education about predatory real estate practices or make sure that Oak Cliff District 1 residents were getting help from the home repair program. Unfortunately, we haven’t seen any of that happen. We have not seen any rollout of bilingual, bicultural education about predatory real estate practices. We have not seen any increase in the HIPP funding.”

Don’t Bishop Arts My Elmwood

Woody Brodie’s mother’s home on Nolte Drive was almost entirely rebuilt by the City of Dallas. Now neighbors are fighting to help Woody keep the home. 

More South Edgefield Neighbors Join Fight to Keep Disabled Resident in His Family Home

Even though Brodie owns the property, and it’s up to code, investors appear to be taking advantage of Brodie’s disability, a brain injury that left him unable to communicate verbally. Since CandysDirt.com started a series on the South Edgefield neighborhood and Brodie’s plight in August, he’s received several notices from attorneys representing Your Problem My Solution telling him he has to sell. 

The fight continues, and the ace in the hole could be attorney Matt Glenn, who met with Brodie and another friend and neighbor, Suzanne Felber, on Thursday. Glenn offered to take Brodie’s case pro bono.

“The future is looking much brighter in South Edgefield,” Felber told CandysDirt.com.

We’ll continue to follow that story. 

“There are a lot of neighbors who try to help other neighbors get through that process and I think the people who get through it successfully are the people who have help,” Hopkins said. 

But the bigger-picture issue remains one of “Don’t Bishop Arts My Elmwood.” 

“You can see what is happening to the neighborhoods here,” Hopkins said. “We’re having expensive apartment units built, expensive luxury townhomes built, and the people who have been longtime residents holding down Oak Cliff and making Oak Cliff the Oak Cliff we love to live in, are now fighting rising property taxes and an inability to afford to live here. I don’t want it to be whitewashed, and I don’t want it to be basically made into an Uptown. That’s not what Oak Cliff is about. If we care about protecting and preserving Oak Cliff, we need to start investing real money in helping people stay in their homes.”

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This is the fourth in a series on housing and development issues in the Elmwood and South Edgefield neighborhoods of Oak Cliff.