The Dallas rich keep getting richer. The City of Dallas Eviction Moratorium is over and worse – the Coronavirus Dallas Rental Assistance Program is pushing money into districts with higher socioeconomic status.
The Coronavirus Dallas Rental Assistance Program was put into action to try and help citizens in need. It was expected the program would be up for at least a month with applications being processed daily. The system was overwhelmed by applicants by the second day both the hotline and website were shut down, not accepting any more applications.
COVID19 brought many fears to the City of Dallas. One of them was how to work with Shelter in Place orders. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate in Dallas tripled from 4.6 in March to 12.3 in May 2020 similar to the spiking COVID19 numbers.
Mayor Eric Johnson took to Twitter to announce that only 9,996 applicants were eligible for the second phase of the program. After the website shut down it was reported at least another 15,000 applicants were not able to finish. This is without taking into account the many people had no idea of this rental assistance program or the many immigrant communities who don’t qualify for the program.
The Eviction Lab at Princeton University estimated that 1.5 million people are evicted in the United States annually.
10 million people were evicted in the years following the 2008 financial crisis. Some have suggested we may see an eviction rate as high as 8% or 28 million people being evicted in the just the next few months.
Dallas Rich District Landlords Receive Most Rental Assistance Income
Some districts most affected by the coronavirus were left with little to no help from the programs set up by the city. An example, District 5 accounted for only 3% of applications and several residents said they heard nothing about the program from City Council Member Jaime Resendez. While accounting for only 3% of program applications, none were approved for District 5 and local residents are bewildered by Resendez’s attitude towards their needs.
The South Dallas sector ended up receiving less than 20% of the funds. This is a bad look for city leadership and management that talks about equity, but usually fails to deliver.
The City of Dallas Eviction Moratorium is not expired and runs concurrent with the State of Texas Emergency Declaration. It is still in full effect. It’s unfortunate that this blog post is riddled with inaccurate information and filled with false editorial.