Study Shows That Dallas Has a Lot of Housing, But it Also Has a Lot of Poverty
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Following a Tuesday review and discussion of the Child Poverty Action Lab’s study on the Dallas rental market, members of the Dallas City Council’s Housing and Homelessness Solutions Committee came to a couple of conclusions. The city has a lot of housing opportunities, but it also has a lot of poverty.
The committee, chaired by District 2 Councilman Jesse Moreno, discussed formally adopting the CPAL data for use in developing strategies for Dallas Housing Policy 2033.
A housing gap of more than 33,600 units exists between what is available to renters and what already exists, explained CPAL Senior Director Ashley Flores.
Larger households of four or more people earning at or below 50 percent of the Area Median Income are most affected by constraints in the rental housing market.
“When we looked at three-bedroom rental units that would be affordable at or below 50 percent AMI, we found that we only had about half of what we need,” Flores said. “Families in particular are having an extra hard time finding rental units that are both affordable and sized appropriately for their needs.”
Rents are rising, and income-restricted housing is concentrated in the southern sector of Dallas, Flores explained. New market-rate multifamily development is primarily occurring in the “city center” and along the Dallas North Tollway, not in the areas where it’s most needed, she said.
That’s good information to know as city officials are currently in the process of selecting target investment areas for affordable housing to incorporate into the housing policy, said Assistant Director of Housing and Neighborhood Revitalization Thor Erickson.
City of Dallas to Incorporate CPAL Data Into Housing Policy
The primary takeaways from the CPAL report, conducted with consultants from HR&A Advisors, are that a gap exists between supply and demand for low-income renters and affordable housing is not always accessible citywide.
As a companion to the rental needs assessment, CPAL recently released a production calculator “to help illustrate how local gap funding can help support production of affordable housing.”
Lisa Neergaard, assistant director of builidingcommunityWORKSHOP, presented information on homeownership opportunities, saying affordable housing has become increasingly unattainable.
The city has a 16,000-home deficit of affordable single-family homes, Neergaard said.
“Similar to the rental market, we’re seeing that we have potentially enough housing but we don’t have enough housing affordable to our median- and low-income households,” she said. “We often talk about how land is a driver of housing costs. We’re seeing that reflected in what’s being built but any savings that might have been gained by a smaller lot size is being transferred into a larger house. You’re not necessarily getting a more affordable product. You’re just getting a bigger house on a smaller lot.”
The traditional three-bedroom, two-bath unit no longer meets everyone’s needs, Neergaard added.
“This highlights the need for a greater variety of housing stock, such as condos, duplexes, and townhomes,” she said.
District 1 Councilman Chad West pointed out that comprehensive code reform is coming, but suggested that he would support immediately addressing “low-hanging fruit” to make it easier to build fourplexes on land that’s already zoned for such development.
The councilman has previously criticized a lack of targeted goals in Dallas Housing Policy 2033. A public engagement effort is underway, and a presentation on the feedback is scheduled before the Housing and Homelessness Solutions Committee in January.
West further suggested in Tuesday’s HHS briefing that perhaps the CPAL report could be formally adopted by the City Council so the data can be incorporated into the housing policy.
“Part of what I felt we were missing is a lack of data supporting what those goals should be,” he said. “I feel like [CPAL’s data] could be some good benchmarks for us. If we as a council decided we wanted to adopt CPAL’s data as targets, how would we go about that?”
Erickson said the CPAL and bcWORKSHOP data has already been used in informing the 2024 Community Bond Task Force subcommittee on housing activity.
“When we understand those [targeted investment] areas, a deep dive into the data will be done,” he said. “We do plan to partner with [CPAL and bcWORKSHOP] to understand the conditions because it will help inform what’s needed in those markets so we can better recruit developers to build what’s needed.”
Availability Vs Affordability
District 12 Councilwoman Cara Mendelsohn has pointed out that affordable housing does not need to be distributed equally among council districts. Her area of North Dallas, part of which extends into Collin and Denton counties, has plenty of affordable apartments, she said Tuesday.
The councilwoman acknowledged that the threshold for “cost-burdened” is typically defined, even by the U.S. Census, as those spending 30 percent of their income on housing. She suggested maybe looking at 35 percent or 40 percent.
Flores said she was compiling a list of questions asked by committee members on Tuesday and would deliver the answers by memo.
The City Council has approved several Public Facility Corporation projects that offer units for those earning at or below 80 percent of the Area Median Income, but that’s not actually where the need exists, Mendelsohn added.
“I just want to make sure I heard you right,” Mendelsohn said. “We actually have enough housing. We have a lot of poverty.”
Flores agreed and said Dallas also has a lot of Class A luxury units that are priced “way far out of reach.”
Mendelsohn also took issue with a map showing units built after 1990, which depicts that all the affordable housing is concentrated in southern Dallas.
“There are two Dallas Housing Authority properties in my district that aren’t on the map,” she said. “I would love for you to have another map that shows the naturally occurring affordable housing because what this map shows is that all the affordable housing is in southern Dallas. The reality is that District 10 and District 12 have the most affordable housing if you include the naturally occurring. I just think it’s not the whole story.”
