The City created a home repair program for West Dallas residents, but they’re struggling to qualify

By |Published On: November 3, 2022|Categories: West Dallas|

Every afternoon, 67-year-old Patsy Ruth Jackson visits her home on Shaw Street. She shuffles through the mail on her porch, checks the doors and windows, then returns to her sister-in-law’s house to spend the night. She’s been doing this since 2020. 

Today, as she walks through her house, she carefully steps on the uneven floor of her living room where chunks of sheetrock are scattered all over her belongings. 

“I’m not an animal,” Jackson says. “Ain’t no way I’d leave my house if everything was in working condition. But I cannot keep living in this house. If it caved in, it’s gonna kill me.”

The house has been in Jackson’s family for 70 years. When her mother died in 2016, the house she inherited was in bad shape. As co-director of her neighborhood association, Victory Gardens, Jackson learned about the West Dallas Targeted Rehab Program, a City of Dallas neighborhood revitalization effort designed to provide financial assistance for home repairs. 

Jackson applied, hoping to qualify for its offer of up to $10,000 in home improvements for West Dallas homeowners.

Patsy Ruth Jackson sits outside her home after giving Dallas Free Press a tour on Wednesday, Oct. 5, 2022. “I’m not ashamed,” Jackson said before showing us every room. Its deteriorating conditions have not allowed Jackson to stay at her home since 2020. Photo by Jeffrey Ruiz

The program launched in December 2020 with $2 million — enough to tackle repairs for at least 200 homeowners. It’s been nearly two years, however, and the program hasn’t been able to spend those city tax dollars, despite the great needs among aging homes in the seven Census tracts of West Dallas the program targets.  

So far, the program has committed roughly $800,000 for about 90 eligible applicants, according to Thor Erickson, area redevelopment manager with the City’s department of housing and neighborhood revitalization. He says the goal was to complete 200 home repair projects and spend the $2 million within an 18-month period.

The city didn’t meet its goal, Jackson says, because applicants are finding the city’s requirements to be too strenuous. In order to qualify for the program, West Dallas residents have to meet a laundry list of demands: make less than $76,900 a year, live in the home as their primary residence, have home insurance, have a clear title and be current on their property taxes and mortgage payments.

Dallas Free Press filed an open records request to find out how many West Dallas residents had applied, been rejected or approved, and how much money had been allocated. We found that between December 2020 and July 2022, about a third of all applications were denied. However, the number could be higher. Jackson’s application was listed as “pre-construction” in our open records request, but she eventually was denied because she couldn’t afford