There is a tremendous shortage of affordable housing in Dallas. The Elm Thicket neighborhood near Love Field used to be affordable but we met some long time tenants on one street who are scrambling to leave with wrecking crews working fast.
There is a tremendous shortage of affordable housing in Dallas where big expensive homes are quickly replacing older, less expensive dwellings.
The Elm Thicket North Park neighborhood near Dallas Love Field used to be affordable.
Longtime tenants on March Avenue in Elm Thicket were scrambling to leave Wednesday with a wrecking crew demolishing old duplexes on the street and expensive new homes under construction.
Juan Martinez raced to pack a vehicle and exit the duplex where he said he grew up.
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“If we don’t get out of here by the end of the day tomorrow, they say we won’t be able to come back and get our stuff,” Martinez said.
The wrecking crew up the street made the urgency very clear.
Immediately across the street from the demolition work, neighbor Pablo Valdez said he and his family have lived in their duplex since 1995.
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Martinez translated for Valdez who said he just had heart surgery.
“He said he just came out of the hospital and he’s trying to get well but he’s trying to find a place and he can’t find anything,” Martinez said.
February 6, 2023, letters to both families ordered them to leave by April 6, but Valdez had a heart attack that shifted his attention to his health.
Their letters list the landlord as Olerio Homes with an office on Lemmon Avenue, very close to the neighborhood. A person answering a phone call to that office when asked for comment said “No, thank you.” A reporter’s visit to the office to leave a message produced the same response.
The big new homes going up on the street are nothing the long-time tenants can afford. And even smaller old dwellings in the neighborhood have gone up in price as land value in the neighborhood soars.
In the next block up on March Avenue, two small old houses are each listed for sale at over $400,000. A new one is valued at more than $900,000.
The tenants said complaints about homeless people breaking into boarded-up duplexes approaching demolition on March Avenue produced no action from the landlord.
“They going to destroy the houses anyway so what’s the point? They don’t care,” Martinez said.
Finding anywhere else to go for the same kind of rent they paid all these years is extremely difficult, the tenants said.
Martinez said he spend the past two months waiting for answers from several apartment applications, wasting time he did not have with the deadline to leave approaching.
Valdez said he paid $900 a month for the unit to also house his wife and son. He said the landlord has agreed to give him one more week for an extra $400, but he has not yet found a new place to live.
Martinez said he and his parents have found a smaller apartment.
They were moving Wednesday, leaving behind their old home on March Avenue and the fast-changing Elm Thicket neighborhood.
