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Blind Spots in Code Compliance Leave Complex Residents Vulnerable to Poorer Living Standards

NNPA NEWSWIRE — With a combination of low accessibility of 311 services and tenant law that has been long established with no updates despite new factors arising in various contexts, gated complexes effectively privatize their physical spaces. As porters and office associates employed by apartment and housing complexes handle facilities such as trash, maintenance, and parking, this further isolates tenants from protections and services they could potentially attain in the public sphere.
The post Blind Spots in Code Compliance Leave Complex Residents Vulnerable to Poorer Living Standards first appeared on BlackPressUSA.

Published

2 years ago

April 23, 2024

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By Sam Judy | Dallas Weekly Magazine

Dallas housing complexes and apartments are often inaccessible to code compliance officers, allowing residential companies to circumvent responsibilities in maintaining city code. One complex resident’s peaceful enjoyment is actively threatened by poor trash management and illegal towing. Even worse, as Redbird is currently undergoing ‘economic redevelopment,’ some residents allege that mistreatment may be a method of displacement within larger gentrification efforts.

Flordeisha Moore is a resident at Hickory Trace Townhomes in Redbird. After about three years of living at the complex, she began facing issues with bulk trash piling up around the central dumpster just a few steps outside her residence.

For over a year, Moore has been complaining about excessive trash and has alleged retaliation from her complex for doing so. Since her initial complaint, issues have begun to compound.

“I made a request to have the trash removed, and also for something to be done to fix it. There’s several dumpsters in this complex, but for some reason all of the bulk trash goes here,” Moore says. “After I talked to the property manager, my car was illegally towed.”

Moore cites communications with both her residential manager and HighMark, the real estate company that owns Hickory Trace, as examples of either hostility or indifference to issues she’s expressed living at the property.

Bulk trash surrounds the dumpster, usually overflowing directly toward Moore’s garage door. Additionally, the recycling containers lining the outside of one of three walls housing the dumpster have been filled with non-recyclable trash, some of which has been there for more than two years. According to Moore, custodians at the complex have scraped the top of the bins to keep them from overflowing. However, some trash still remains, going as far back as late 2021.

Waste management in charge of hauling garbage has previously told the complex that the trash in the recycling bins must be emptied into the dumpster for collection. Workers handling custodial services at Hickory Trace refused to provide comments.

Following a discussion with her property manager, but prior to the return of her car, Moore states the manager showed up with a camera at her front door, seemingly intending to provoke or antagonize Moore.

“She wanted me to respond so that she could put me out.”

As Redbird has undergone huge changes as a result of development and gentrification in the area, all while slowly pushing out longtime residents, apartment and townhome complexes are becoming a more frequent fixture in the area. With almost twenty complexes holding vacancies in Redbird, with more either at-capacity or in-development, residential neighborhoods are becoming overrun with multi-home properties.

Highmark Residential, the property management company that owns Hickory Trace, is one of the largest in the US with over 300 housing complexes across the nation and over 30 years in the housing business.

Poor management of basic services like waste, coupled with situations like Flordeisha’s, has some residents under the impression that they are being intentionally pushed out.
“Service here has definitely suffered,” a resident who requested to remain anonymous says. “Maintenance requests mostly. And my rent is controlled from living here a few years ago. Sometimes I wonder if that’s [the reason].”

Housing complexes also present a distinct obstacle in maintaining code compliance across residential areas, as the complex itself is typically responsible for upholding regulations without supervision by code enforcement.

While code issues can be reported by residents living within a gated housing complex, many violations potentially go unseen and unreported due to confusion regarding the rules of the complex, the responsibilities of management, and general inaccessibility by city entities.

Retaliation from a property manager or landlord is a similarly complicated issue to address. While you may file a complaint with the Fair Housing Office if you think your rights are being violated, the Department of Housing and Urban Development overall is notoriously difficult to contact about a complaint. Dallas Weekly was unable to get a hold of anyone from the department for this article. Regardless, it’s important to cover your bases legally by keeping physically written correspondence with your property manager/landlord via certified mail.

“People experiencing health or safety issues, they need to request a repair or remedy,” said Farwah Raza, an attorney working with Legal Aid of Northwest Texas. “Everything must be put into writing, so tenants will need to send out a certified letter to the landlord outlining what needs to be done. This is to show that you’ve been contacting them and have given them sufficient time to complete the repairs. As written in the specific code applying to this, you need to make the repair request at the place you pay your rent. There, you’d outline whatever the problem you’re having is.”

While residents citing issues threatening their peaceful enjoyment of their property may face retaliation from residential management, proof of retaliation is more often utilized as evidence showing wrongdoing as a supporting factor in an action or a defense than the primary allegation in a lawsuit.

“Retaliation is not something you can necessarily sue for. It’s more commonly used as a defense, say, in an eviction.” “That way, if you’re sued for a lease violation or unpaid charges – in the case that your landlord hiked up your rent – you can provide the judge a more full perspective of the situation.”

While retaliatory actions have lessened, Hickory Trace’s trash and waste management services have still not disposed of old garbage and continue to pile bulk trash at the dumpster directly outside Flordeisha’s residence.

“Same story, different day,” Moore says. “[I had] Halloween trash, Thanksgiving trash, and Christmas trash for another year.”

With a combination of low accessibility of 311 services and tenant law that has been long established with no updates despite new factors arising in various contexts, gated complexes effectively privatize their physical spaces. As porters and office associates employed by apartment and housing complexes handle facilities such as trash, maintenance, and parking, this further isolates tenants from protections and services they could potentially attain in the public sphere.

Development in Redbird continues. Ambitious projects, like the new Red Bird Mall undertaken by local real estate mogul Peter Brodsky, exist primarily by design to draw middle-class residents to the neighborhood. And while residential complexes continue to sprout up to accommodate a newer, more privileged community in the area, this slice of Southern Dallas is undergoing a transformation that leaves less affluent residents at the behest of private entities.

The post Blind Spots in Code Compliance Leave Complex Residents Vulnerable to Poorer Living Standards first appeared on BlackPressUSA.

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Poll Shows Support for Policies That Help Families Afford Child Care

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — New national polling shows persistent voter concern about the affordability and availability of child care for working parents, alongside broad support across key demographic groups for federal child care policies that help families afford care.

Published

3 days ago

March 2, 2026

Oakland Post

By First Five Years Fund

New national polling shows persistent voter concern about the affordability and availability of child care for working parents, alongside broad support across key demographic groups for federal child care policies that help families afford care.

The national survey was conducted by UpOne Insight on behalf of the First Five Years Fund from January 13–18, 2026.

Key findings include:

• Parents need help: 80% of voters say the ability of working parents to find and afford child care is either in a state of crisis or a major problem.

• This is an affordability issue: 82% believe federal child care funding will help lower costs for working families — including 69% of Republicans, 84% of Independents, and 94% of Democrats.

• And there continues to be strong support (62%) for the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG), a federal program that makes it possible for hundreds of thousands of families to afford safe, quality care for their children while parents work or go to school, including a majority of Republicans, 63% of Independents and 72% of Democrats.

• Support for funding child care programs remains strong: 75% believe child care funding should be increased or kept at current levels — including 75% of Republicans, 85% of Independents, and 97% of Democrats.

• 74% say funding for child care is an important and good use of tax dollars, including a majority of Republicans, three-quarters of Independents, and nine in ten Democrats.

FFYF Executive Director Sarah Rittling said, “Voters across the country are sending a clear message: federal child care and early learning programs work. These investments help parents stay in the workforce, strengthen families, and support healthy child development. They have also long had strong bipartisan support in Congress. At a time when affordability is top of mind for families, continued federal funding is essential to ensure child care remains accessible and within reach.”

First Five Years Fund works to protect, prioritize, and build bipartisan support for quality child care and early learning programs at the federal level. Reliable, affordable, and high-quality early learning and child care can be transformative, not only enhancing a child’s prospects for a brighter future but also bolstering working parents and fostering economic stability nationwide.

We work with Congress and the Administration to identify federal solutions that work for families with young children, as well as states and communities. We work with policymakers to identify ways to increase access to affordable, high-quality child care and early learning programs for children. And we collaborate with advocacy groups to help align best practices with the best possible policies. http://www.ffyf.org

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Trump’s MAGA Allies are Creating Executive Order Plan to Steal the 2026 Midterms

NNPA NEWSWIRE — The document that could lead to an executive order proposes using the claim that China interfered with the 2020 elections as grounds to “declare a national emergency.” The move would be an unprecedented step that would grant Trump new authority over the voting systems in the U.S.

Published

6 days ago

February 27, 2026

Oakland Post

By Lauren Victoria Burke, NNPA Newswire Correspondent

A group of MAGA pro-Trump activists, who say they are working in coordination with the White House, are circulating a 17-page draft executive order that would claim without evidence that China interfered with the 2020 presidential election. Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential to President Joe Biden by over 7 million votes. Since Trump lost to Biden in 2020, he has repeatedly claimed that the election was “stolen” without evidence. The report of a group of “Trump allies” preparing an executive order to give Trump power over elections was first reported by The Washington Post.

The lies around the right-wing campaign that pushed falsehoods that the 2020 election was stolen was trafficked through right-wing media, particularly Fox News. Fox News was then sued for defamation for the claims by Dominion Voting Systems. Fox lost the case and had to settle for the largest defamation amount on record of $787.5 million in April 2023.

The document that could lead to an executive order proposes using the claim that China interfered with the 2020 elections as grounds to “declare a national emergency.” The move would be an unprecedented step that would grant Trump new authority over the voting systems in the U.S.

The story in The Washington Post arrives as Trump increasingly signals that he may take actions that would alter the result of the 2026 midterms. The Republicans are widely expected to lose as their approval ratings plummet as a result of a failing economy under Trump. Over 50 members of Congress have announced they will retire this year and not return in 2027.

The Trump Department of Justice, which now has a large image of Trump on the side of it, “sued five new states Thursday [Feb. 26, 2026] demanding access to their unredacted voter rolls — escalating a campaign that has been rejected by multiple federal courts and faces resistance from Republican-led states as well,” according to Democracy Docket, a group that works to protect voting rights.

Trump claimed back in late 2020, the last year of his first term, that he had the authority to issue an executive order related to mail-in voting for the 2020 elections — which he would then lose. But the Constitution states that control of elections lies with the states. As the GOP works to place hurdles in front of voting, Democrats worked to make voting easier.

In March 2021, President Biden signed an executive order calling on federal agencies to expand voting access as part of the Biden Administration’s effort “to promote and defend the right to vote for all Americans who are legally entitled to participate in elections.”

Trump’s focus is clearly on altering the November 2026 midterm elections. Trump’s polling numbers and the elections and special elections that have taken place around the U.S. over the last year clearly indicate that Republicans are about to be hit by a blue wave of Democratic victories.

Lauren Victoria Burke is an independent investigative journalist and the founder of Black Virginia News. She is a political analyst who appears on #RolandMartinUnfiltered and hosts the show LAUREN LIVE on YouTube @LaurenVictoriaBurke. She can be contacted at LBurke007@gmail.com and on twitter at @LVBurke

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PRESS ROOM: NBA Hall of Fame Nominee Terry Cummings Joins 100 Black Men of DeKalb County to Launch Victory & Values Initiative

NNPA NEWSWIRE — NBA Hall of Fame nominee and Basketball Legend Terry Cummings was administered the official member’s oath and ceremonially pinned during a special induction ceremony held on Friday, February 20th.

Published

6 days ago

February 27, 2026

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Cummings becomes an honorary member, joining other role model sports stars

NBA Hall of Fame nominee and Basketball Legend Terry Cummings has officially become an honorary member of the 100 Black Men of DeKalb County, marking a powerful new chapter for the 100 Black Men and youth development across the region.

Cummings was administered the official member’s oath and ceremonially pinned during a special induction ceremony held on Friday, February 20th. The moment signified more than membership — it marked the launch of the organization’s transformative new platform, the Victory & Values Initiative.

The Victory & Values Initiative is a groundbreaking youth development program designed to empower elementary and middle school students through a dynamic blend of sports, mentorship, and STEM exposure. The initiative focuses on building health, discipline, character, leadership, and access to opportunity — creating pathways for long-term academic and personal success.

“This is about more than sports,” said Cummings during the ceremony. “It’s about using the platform of athletics to teach life lessons, create access, and build the next generation of leaders.”

The induction ceremony also featured notable guests including NASCAR’s newest Star Driver, Lavar Scott and NASCAR Director of Athletic Performance, Phil Horton, who joined Cummings for a powerful Victory & Values Town Hall discussion. The Town Hall was moderated by renowned Sports Emcee John Hollins and focused on leadership, resilience, discipline, and the importance of mentorship in shaping young lives.

A “Day at NASCAR” for 75+ Youth

Cummings wasted no time getting to work. On his first full day as an honorary member, he joined his new brothers of the 100 Black Men of DeKalb County to host a “Day at NASCAR,” escorting more than 75 youth to a once-in-a-lifetime experience at EchoPark Motor Speedway (formerly Atlanta Motor Speedway).

The youth participants received behind-the-scenes access including: an exclusive tour of Pit Row, access to the Garage Area and exploration of the interactive Fan Zone.

The experience culminated with a surprise meet-and-greet and Q&A session with NASCAR Superstar Bubba Wallace, who shared insights on perseverance, preparation, and breaking barriers in professional sports.

The day served as a living example of the ‘Victory & Values’ Initiative in action — exposing youth to new industries, expanding their vision for the future, and connecting them directly with high- level mentors and role models.

Building Leaders Through Access and Mentorship

The 100 Black Men of DeKalb County – a chapter of the largest, national mentoring organization in the county – continues to expand its footprint with programs focused on academic excellence, economic empowerment, leadership development, and health & wellness.

The launch of ‘Victory & Values’ represents a strategic expansion of the organization’s impact

intentionally integrating athletics and STEM to engage youth at an early age while reinforcing core principles such as integrity, accountability, teamwork, and perseverance.

“Our mission has always been to mentor the next generation,” said Vaughn Irons, President-Elect of the 100 Black Men of DeKalb County. “With Terry Cummings joining the brotherhood, along with partners in NASCAR and professional sports, we are creating unprecedented access and exposure for our youth. Victory & Values is about turning inspiration into structured opportunity.”

By connecting elementary and middle school students to professional athletes, executives, STEM professionals, and community leaders, the initiative aims to:

Increase youth exposure to careers in sports business, engineering, and performance science
Strengthen mentorship pipelines
Promote physical wellness and mental resilience
Build character-driven leadership at an early age

Open Invitation to Youth and Families

All youth are invited to participate in the Victory & Values Initiative, along with the other countless, impactful programs offered by the 100 Black Men of DeKalb County.

Parents and guardians seeking mentorship, leadership development, academic enrichment, and transformative exposure opportunities for their children are encouraged to connect with the organization.

As NBA Legend Terry Cummings’ induction demonstrates, Victory & Values is more than a program — it is a movement designed to build champions in life, not just in sports.

For more information about the Victory & Values Initiative or to enroll a student, contact: 100 Black Men of DeKalb County at Phone at 404.241.1338, info@100bmod.org or Tee Foxx at 404.791.6525,