Eviction Notices Coming This Week to 150 Families Caught in Political Crosshairs
Looks like the mayor loses this one. He has been maneuvering to stall the evictions of hundreds of poor families in West Dallas, probably hoping the hard hammer would not fall on these poor souls until after the May 6 City Council elections. But it will fall this week.
Khraish Khraish, proprietor with his father of HMK Ltd., has informed me that all of the remaining 150 families in the 300 houses originally threatened with eviction will be sent eviction notices this week.
Khraish said he and his father were boxed in, left with only two choices after a court hearing last week in which a protective injunction was not extended. He said he could have sold all of his 300 properties to a nonprofit of the mayor’s choosing – an outcome he and his father have vowed to resist from the beginning. Or he was legally compelled to evict all the remaining tenants to avoid penalties in the millions of dollars and possible criminal prosecution for maintaining substandard housing under new, stricter city codes.
In this black cloud over the families there is no silver lining – not even a glimmer – but at least there is this to be said for the evictions coming now instead of after the election: This way the true blame for this tragedy can be fully and publicly aired before the people of West Dallas vote.
Read more: http://www.dallasobserver.com/news/west-dallas-renters-to-get-eviction-notices-this-week-150-families-face-moving-9358291
