West Dallas Residents Struggle to Keep Affordable Housing Amid Change

For more than a century, West Dallas was treated differently from the rest of Dallas proper. Although it morphed from an industrial community to an urban one with changing demographics, it was always considered poor.

Then in 2012, the big, shiny, white Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge was built, connecting downtown with West Dallas, and with it came change: Fancy shops, restaurants, and high-rise apartments flooded the neighborhood. Now hundreds of residents who have lived in West Dallas for generations can't afford to stay. The city of Dallas boosted its rental property standards, and landlords say the repairs to the rental houses are too expensive to achieve ahead of the June 3 deadline set for residents to leave their homes.

KERA's series "One Crisis Away: No Place to Go" explores the changes taking place in West Dallas and documents the lives of people who are trying to figure out where else to go. KERA reporter Courtney Collins, who leads the reporting for the series, talked with residents, the landlord of the rental properties, and the mayor about the rapid gentrification of West Dallas and solutions to the issue.