San Antonio’s volume of orders to vacate, demolish homes is ‘unprecedented’ among big Texas cities

By Madison Iszler of The San Antonio Express-News. Excerpts: 

"San Antonio has used code enforcement measures heavily on the near West and East sides and ordered homes to be vacated and razed at a much higher rate than other large Texas cities, displacing vulnerable people of color, according to a new report.

The city issued 626 orders to vacate and demolish occupied single-family homes between 2015 and 2020, says the study released by the University of Texas at Austin School of Law.

That’s an “unprecedented” level compared with Houston, Dallas, Austin and Fort Worth, which issued no more than 16 orders combined during the same time period.

“I was surprised by the extent that San Antonio was such an outlier, just the sheer volume of these orders,” said Heather Way, the report’s lead author and co-director of the Entrepreneurship and Community Development Clinic at the university.

The authors compared the distribution of orders for homes with the number of owner-occupied homes within each census tract. They found that the highest number of orders were issued on the near West and East sides, which also have been disproportionately targeted for sweeps for code violations such as overgrown yards and abandoned homes, the report states.

In both areas people of color were systematically discriminated against for decades through redlining — the government’s designation of certain areas as risky for investment. Neighborhoods of color were usually outlined in red, restricting residents’ ability to access home loans.

Investment lagged and many homes are old and in poor condition. The near West and East sides have also recently drawn more attention from developers and investors, fueling concerns about long-time residents being priced out of their neighborhoods.

Having to leave their homes “can have really traumatic effects for families,” Way said.

“This is their home, and when the city is issuing notices for families to vacate, they often don’t have any other alternatives — especially not alternatives that are affordable and any safer,” she said."

"The city disagrees with the UT study’s findings and is reviewing them, which is expected to take several weeks, a spokesperson said."

"The city spokesperson said that while the report compares San Antonio to other cities, it also points out the regulatory and operational differences between them. Way said the authors focused on the same question for all of the cities: when and how orders were issued.

The spokesperson also said the authors made “no real attempt to engage with the city staff tasked with implementing policy and procedures,” which Way disputed as well.

San Antonio residents can be removed from their homes if it is deemed dangerous to them, and demolition orders are issued when a home is considered a public safety hazard and cannot readily be repaired, according to the report.

The authors said the city often does not provide residents with a due-process hearing.

San Antonio officials issued 337 orders to vacate between 2015 and 2020 outside of a hearing process with the Building Standards Board, a quasi-judicial panel that hears code violations and appeals. During the same period, none of the state’s other largest cities issued such an order apart from a hearing process."

"The city often does not provide relocation assistance to residents displaced by code enforcement actions — which the report’s authors said in their opinion violates state law."