Municipal services discrimination
Daniel & Beshara P.C.’s civil rights cases have often focused on housing segregation and related issues such as municipal services discrimination and unequal zoning in Black and Hispanic neighborhoods. The effects of official racial segregation of neighborhoods continues to impact neighborhoods of color today. In addition, there are ongoing municipal and governmental actions that often perpetuate those inequalities.
The impacts of these neighborhood inequities on the residents, particularly children, are long lasting. There is a large body of academic research literature indicating that growing up in socioeconomically disadvantaged, racially segregated neighborhoods is harmful to children’s well-being and future life chances.
Neighborhoods were not equalized after the passage of the Fair Housing Act. Numerous inequalities remain or have increased. Such inequities include unequal streets, curbs, gutters, flood protection, illegal dumping, code enforcement, land use, and zoning among many other conditions.
Daniel and Beshara have brought cases that work towards addressing those inequities. Some notable cases by the firm are set out below. These cases involve the lead contaminated neighborhood of Cadillac Heights, the City of Dallas’ demolition of thousands of homes in Black neighborhoods, and the case of Carlos Jackson, a neighborhood advocate in West Dallas.
Cadillac Heights neighborhood in Dallas, Texas
Daniel & Beshara represented residents of the predominantly Black and Hispanic neighborhood of Cadillac Heights seeking to redress discrimination in the provision of municipal services including flood protection, inferior zoning, environmental hazards, and illegal dumping. Miller v. City of Dallas, 2002 WL 230834 (N.D. Tex. 2002); Lopez v. City of Dallas, Tex., 2006 WL 1450520 (N.D. Tex. 2006). The Cadillac Heights neighborhood, officially designated by the City of Dallas for Negro housing in the 1940s, exists in the middle of heavy industrial uses - rendering and meat packing plants, former lead smelters, junk yards, an environmentally challenged chrome plating facility, and a wastewater treatment plant. The Trinity River levees end right where this neighborhood begins. It is and was obvious that the levees failed to protect the neighborhood from frequent flooding from the Trinity River. Hazardous waste and solid waste landfills dot the neighborhood. Many locations in the neighborhood remained contaminated with lead. The plaintiffs in these cases successfully obtained the relief from the City to relocate from this neighborhood. The City has also purchased the homes of other residents in Cadillac Heights with a bond funds.
City Demolition of repairable single-family homes in Black neighborhoods
The City of Dallas demolished hundreds of repairable single-family homes in Black neighborhoods in Dallas in the early 1990s. Daniel & Beshara brought several individual and class action cases challenging the City of Dallas use of code enforcement demolition of substandard but repairable homes in violation of the civil right laws and the U.S. Constitution.
In the case James v. City of Dallas, 254 F.3d 551 (5th Cir. 2001), cert. denied, 534 U.S. 1113 (2002), a class was certified based on due process violations of homeowners with repairable homes who did not receive notice of the City board demolition proceeding or of the order to demolition. Demolition cost debts and liens to enforce the payment of demolition liens were released for hundreds of homeowners in this case and in other class action cases. James v. City of Dallas, 2003 WL 22342799, at *20 (N.D. Tex. Aug. 28, 2003), aff'd sub nom. James v. City of Dallas Tex., 115 Fed. Appx. 205 (5th Cir. 2004) (unpublished)
Carlos Jackson and West Dallas neighborhood improvements
Daniel & Beshara represented Carlos Jackson in two federal court cases seeking neighborhood improvements in and around a West Dallas majority Black single-family neighborhood. One case concerned an illegal junk automobile site next to residences. Another involved an industry that emitted lead pollution next to a residential neighborhood. Settlements by Daniel & Beshara led to the removal of the illegal junkyard and the closure of the industrial site.
In a separate case, Mr. Jackson also received over 100 municipal court citations that were successfully enjoined against him on the grounds of racial disparate treatment and bad faith prosecutions and denial of equal protection. Mr. Jackson and Ms. Jackson had spent five years rehabilitating and revitalizing a small West Dallas neighborhood. They began by improving a home that had been in Ms. Jackson’s family for five generations and also worked on nearby properties. They improved the area by mowing and cleaning vacant lots, commissioning murals for fences, planting fruit trees and gardens. The City issued multiple code enforcement citations against Mr. Jackson that became a tool of harassment and intimidation for his rehabilitation and revitalization work. The link to the Fifth Circuit opinion upholding the successful enjoining of the citations is here.