Dallas says his rentals are crime havens, but can he be forced to make repairs, security upgrades?

The outlines of a figure shrouded in darkness dragged the body down the stairwell of a decrepit South Dallas apartment building and dumped it among old tires and other trash in a dumpster. The Nov. 2 murder was a grim example of the violence and danger that 2906 Holmes Street had brought to the community, city officials said. Some months earlier, FBI agents raided the building and two other high-crime rental properties in South Dallas, making multiple drug-related arrests. Federal authorities said the apartments had become havens for drug dealers and spawned numerous other crimes such as prostitution, robberies, shootings, assaults and murder. Dallas city officials say the owner, Stewart McCray, refuses to clean them up, make repairs or provide proper security. The city has two ongoing lawsuits against him – one filed in 2018 and another filed earlier this year – in which it’s asking a judge to force him into action.

McCray, 56, said he was unable to comment, and his lawyers did not respond to requests for an interview. But in court documents, his attorneys have argued that the city is unfairly forcing him to make expensive, unreasonable and unnecessary repairs that would require him to raise rents, forcing his low-income tenants to find housing elsewhere. Dallas continues to crack down on alleged slum landlords, as evidenced by the multiple lawsuits it has filed in recent years. Such cases raise questions about how much culpability landlords should bear for out-of-control crime at their properties. “The police need the cooperation and support of local owners in order to effectively address crime,” a court-appointed receiver said in one of the McCray lawsuits. The Dallas City Council in 2017 passed a “nuisance abatement” ordinance allowing the police department to slap a sign onto troublesome properties, identifying them as places of “habitual criminal activity.” Other tools the city has to fight crime and force code compliance include lawsuits like the ones against McCray and, in rare cases, seizing and demolishing a building.