Latest Stories

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  We Hope Our Homeless Will Fade Into Ash, and Soon Enough They Do

  October 5 at 4 a.m.

  Genocide is a tricky, ugly word to trot out in an argument. Comparing something to the brutality and madness of genocide to make a point is likely to blow up in your face. Survivors are justifiably touchy about anything that remotely devalues their suffering. Plus, my editor won't let me...

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  First Some Crow to Eat, Then We Dig Into the Good Stuff

  September 24 at 4 a.m.

  Last week I got an important fact wrong in a story about a troubled apartment complex in far West Dallas. I said the agency responsible for enforcing basic standards there over a period of years was the Dallas Housing Authority. That was not true. In fact, an entity in Austin...

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  City Staff Push Policy Change That Reinforces Racial Segregation

  September 19 at 4 a.m.

  Monday The Dallas Morning News made some great points in an editorial about racial segregation in the city and the Trump administration’s troubling initiative to de-emphasize desegregation in national housing policy. The defect in the editorial — the thing always left unsaid in Dallas — is that segregation is what...

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  Booming Economy Driving Up Dallas Rents. Incomes not so Much

  September 12 at 4:01 a.m.

  Ivan Garcia was born in Dallas and lived in the city for most of his life, but he was still shocked when he began apartment hunting in February. He didn’t know that his first apartment would cost so much — especially in his own hometown. North Texas has seen the...

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  North Texas U.S. Attorney Closes Book on Massive Mortgage Scam

  September 12 at 4 a.m.

  Six years after it started, all four people behind a mortgage scam that bilked dozens of desperate North Texans out of hundreds of thousands of dollars are behind bars, Erin Nealy Cox, the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Texas said Tuesday. U.S. District Judge David Godbey sentenced Mark Demetri...

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  City Wants to Give One Landlord a Sweetheart Deal, Makes Others Mad

  August 23 at 4 a.m.

  Put yourself in John Carney’s shoes. He’s got to wonder if he and his clients have some special thundercloud or mark following them around. Two years ago the mayor of Dallas named and listed several of Carney’s clients as “high impact landlords” whom the mayor was targeting in a special...