Every day, around 10 a.m., the Dallas courts (Texas) fill with people about to be evicted. Crumpled papers, sad faces. Some arrive at 9:45 or 9:50. Those minutes before the judge enters the courtroom can make the difference for them between keeping their home or sleeping in their car or a shelter. Why? Because it’s the time that lawyers from the Dallas Eviction Advocacy Center use to study their cases and prepare a defense.
In reality, there is a way to contact them beforehand. The center regularly receives notifications of new eviction cases and sends cards offering their services. What happens is that few contact them, “approximately 4 or 5%,” they say, because they don’t read the letters, lack legal documents, or do not trust lawyers. However, they are always in court, approaching vulnerable defendants and representing them for free.
Non-payment is the most common cause of evictions in Dallas. “Most people fall behind on rent due to an unexpected emergency: a layoff, an illness, an injury, the death or deportation of a family member. This is partly due to stagnant wages and rising rents,” explains Bill Holston, the executive director of the Center. Holston adds that, “in most cases, the court does not care about the state of the property or the understandable, and often tragic, reasons for the missed payment. The only real issue is whether you have paid and whether the landlord has followed the legal procedures.”
The work of the DEAC is a form of organized resistance. They call it “movement advocacy,” occupying the system from within to expose its flaws. Working within the legal frameworks to confront the inequalities of housing laws in Texas. “We are shield lawyers,” Holston asserts, “we use the procedural framework of the eviction process to fight against a hostile system that displaces thousands of people each year and strips dignity from those who suffer it.”
The DEAC is distrustful of this system and combats it. It is a team of 18 people: eight are lawyers and the rest are coordinators and legal assistants. One of these assistants, who requested anonymity, told Adolfo Kunjuk News that he handles about 40 cases a month, though sometimes he has dealt with up to 300 in a week. In May, for example, the Center 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 notice, if they have any evidence, and if the landlord complied with the law. This is how they detect legal errors: improperly done notices, lawsuits filed by someone who is not the actual owner, unregistered landlords… Then they create an express strategy.
The legal assistant recalls the story of an elderly man who, after paying rent for 18 years, was about to lose his home. The landlord’s son tried to evict him after the landlord’s death. But a previous contract was preserved, and the lawyer stopped the eviction. Again, they managed to dismiss a case against a man who cared for his parents for 13 years. When they died, the house passed to a distant nephew who sold it without informing anyone. He also recalls a migrant mother with three children who had no money.
“Landlords threaten with deportation if they suspect you are undocumented, and they rely on this in the hope that tenants won’t assert their rights or appear in court,” Holston asserts. He adds that there is a correlation between immigration status and the frequency with which people attend court. “This fear was created during the first Trump Administration and has never disappeared. Now that ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) is arresting those who show up for their hearings, that fear has only increased,” he emphasizes.
The DEAC, which is the only organization of its kind in the country, was founded in March 2020, amid the COVID-19 crisis. In January 2021, it was established as an NGO. Since then, it has represented thousands of people: by February 2022, the number exceeded 10,000, with a success rate of 96%. Currently, the figure is around 30,000, although the success rate has dropped to nearly 60.
Most of their clients, according to their own data, are single Black mothers. Between 2023 and 2024, they served 4,256 people. Of those, 2,835 were African American and 570 were Hispanic. “The lack of affordable housing is linked to the practice of residential segregation and disparities in education for communities of color,” Holston believes. “The wealth gap between white communities and communities of color is a result of hundreds of years of discrimination. These problems will persist as long as we do not address the racist systems that cause them,” he asserts.
Their strategy is what they call the “Saturation Theory”: continuous presence in every eviction court in the county. This presence forces landlords to comply with the law to the letter. However, eviction figures in the city remain concerning. According to local media, in 2022 there were an average of 135 cases daily, and this number remained the same the following year. Texas is among the least favorable states for tenants, with exclusionary laws and judicial processes that often favor the landlord. Furthermore, the state does not allow encampments for homeless people, and sleeping outdoors has been punishable in Dallas since the 1990s.
For now, the DEAC has no immediate plans to expand. A month and a half ago, they managed to cover the 10 local courts that handle the issue. “We are reaching the basics,” says the advisor. But he wonders what would happen if they doubled their team, secured federal support, or replicated their model in other states. “At the end of the day, we do not ask about your immigration status or how much you earn. If you are in the process of eviction in Dallas, we are here to help you,” he says. That phrase seems like a lifeline for disadvantaged people.