Fighting eviction in Texas: Eight lawyers take on 600 cases per month

Every day, around 10 a.m., courthouses in Dallas, Texas, fill up with people about to be evicted. People with crumpled papers, and sad faces. Some arrive at 9:45 a.m. or 9:50 a.m. Those few minutes before the judge enters the courtroom can mean the difference between keeping the home they live in or sleeping in their car or a shelter. Why? Because that is the time the lawyers from the Dallas Eviction Advocacy Center (DEAC) use to review their cases and prepare a defense.

There is a way to contact DEAC beforehand. The center regularly receives notifications of new eviction cases and sends out cards offering their services. The problem is that few people reach out — “approximately 4 or 5%,” they say — because they don’t read the letters, lack legal documents, or don’t trust lawyers. However, the center’s lawyers are always at the courts, where they approach vulnerable defendants, and represent them for free.

Nonpayment is the most common cause of evictions in Dallas. “Most people fall behind on rent due to an unexpected emergency: a layoff, illness, injury, the death, or deportation of a family member. This is partly because wages have stagnated while rents have increased,” explains Bill Holston, the center’s executive director. Holston adds: “In most cases, the court isn’t interested in the condition of the property or the understandable — and often tragic — reasons for falling behind on payments. The only real issue is whether you paid and if the landlord complied with legal requirements.”

The work of DEAC is a form of organized resistance. They call it “movement advocacy” — occupying the system from within to expose its flaws. It’s about working within legal frameworks to confront the inequalities of housing laws in Texas. “We are shield lawyers,” Holston says, “using the procedural framework of the eviction process to fight against a hostile system that displaces thousands of people each year and strips those who suffer from it of their dignity.”

DEAC distrusts that system and fights against it. The group is run by a team of 18 people: eight are lawyers, and the rest are coordinators and legal assistants. One of these assistants, who asked to remain anonymous, told EL PAÍS that he personally handles about 40 cases a month, although sometimes he has dealt with as many as 300 in a single week. For example, in May, DEAC prevented 598 people from being evicted from their homes.

Each case begins with those few minutes in the courtroom, where they ask the defendant how they received the eviction notice, whether they have any evidence, and if the landlord complied with the law. This is how they spot legal errors: improperly served notices, lawsuits filed by someone who is not the real owner, unregistered landlords… Then they quickly devise a defense strategy.

The legal assistant recalls the story of an elderly man who, after 18 years of paying rent, was about to lose his home. The landlord’s son tried to evict him after the landlord’s death. However, an earlier lease agreement was still valid, and the lawyer stopped the eviction. Another time, they got a case dismissed for a man who had cared for his parents for 13 years. When they passed away, the house went to a distant nephew, who sold it without notifying him. He also recalls a migrant mother with three children who had no money.

“Landlords resort to the threat of deportation if they suspect you’re undocumented, and they rely on this in the hope that tenants won’t try to assert their rights or appear in court,” Holston says. He adds that there’s a correlation between immigration status and how often people attend court. “This fear was created during the first Trump administration and never went away. Now that ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] is arresting those who show up for their hearings and court appearances, that fear has only increased.”

The DEAC — the only organization of its kind in the country — was founded in March 2020, in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis, and became an NGO in January 2021. Since then, it has represented thousands of people: by February 2022, the number exceeded 10,000, with a 96% success rate. Currently, the figure is around 30,000, although the success rate has dropped to nearly 60%.

According to their own data, most of their clients are Black single mothers. Between 2023 and 2024, DEAC assisted 4,256 people. Of these, 2,835 were African American and 570 Hispanic. “The lack of affordable housing is linked to the practice of residential segregation and educational disparities in communities of color,” Holston says. “The wealth gap between white and communities of color is the result of hundreds of years of discrimination. These problems will persist until we address the racist systems that cause them,” he asserts.

DEAC’s strategy is what they call the “Saturation Theory”: continuous presence in every eviction court in the county. That presence forces landlords to strictly comply with the law. However, eviction numbers in the city remain alarming. According to local media, in 2022 there was an average of 135 cases daily, and this continued the following year. Texas is one of the least tenant-friendly states in the United States, with exclusionary laws and judicial processes that generally favor the property owner. Additionally, the state does not allow homeless encampments, and sleeping outdoors has been punishable in Dallas since the 1990s.

For now, DEAC has no immediate plans to expand. A month and a half ago, they managed to cover the 10 local courts that handle these cases. “We’re reaching the basics,” says an advisor. But he wonders what would happen if they doubled the team, received federal support, or replicated the model in other states. “At the end of the day, we don’t ask your immigration status or how much you earn. If you’re facing eviction in Dallas, we’re here to help you,” he says. That phrase feels like a lifeline for disadvantaged people.

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