Dallas-Fort Worth Evictions Hit Record Level Since Pandemic – The Dallas Morning News

North Texas eviction filings have shot up since the end of federal moratoriums late last year and are now at the highest level since the start of the pandemic.

Dallas, Tarrant, Collin and Denton counties saw 7,829 eviction filings in March, according to the North Texas Eviction Project from Dallas nonprofit Child Poverty Action Lab. Of those filings, 4,012 were in Dallas County and 2,588 were in Tarrant. In the four counties, eight of every 1,000 renters faced eviction filings in March.

The U.S. Supreme Court ended the federal moratorium on evictions in late August. Since the start of last September, nearly 22,000 eviction suits have been filed in Dallas County. The median amount of rent owed by tenants in those cases was $1,995.

Ashley Flores, senior director of the Child Poverty Action Lab, said some advocates expected eviction filings to return to prepandemic patterns, with a jump in January and a slowdown in the spring. But the influx in March proves that not to be the case this year.

Flores said it’s “hard to say definitively” why there was a record number of filings in March, but that the end of state-level rent relief programs and a backlog of cases for local rent relief are likely factors. The Texas Rent Relief program stopped taking applications for assistance in November.

She also suspects that the tight local rental market could be playing a role. Dallas-Fort Worth apartment vacancy rates fell to less than 3% in the first quarter, and demand for local rental units outpaced new apartment completions, according to RealPage.

“There’s just so many people looking for housing, the demand far exceeds the supply, and so that squeeze is probably also contributing,” Flores said.

David Mintz, Texas Apartment Association’s vice president of government affairs, said it is important for people having trouble paying their rent to contact the managers or owners of their property to let them know they are having issues and try to work out a solution.

“Evictions are always the last resort for owners,” Mintz said. “Our members are in business providing housing, and when they rent to somebody, their goal is to have a long-term relationship with those residents.”

The North Texas Eviction Project began tracking evictions in Dallas County at the start of the pandemic and has since expanded to the four major D-FW counties.

Eviction filings don’t allow experts to discern whether a person was actually displaced from their home or for what reason.

At least one study performed in 2020 has shown that the federal ban on evictions did little to keep North Texas renters in their homes during the pandemic. In 2020, eviction filings continued at about half the rate they had in prior years.

The ban was put in place by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention under the premise that keeping residents housed could keep them safe and prevent the spread of COVID-19.