SMITH COUNTY, Texas — Nineteen cases were heard by Smith County Justice Court Judge Andy Dunklin at eviction court Thursday morning with tenants owing many different amounts of rent to their landlords. Some owing a couple thousand dollars and others owing up to $10,000.
"Today was the first day that we brought the cases that we had abated from last year where there was a number of those people continuing to live basically rent-free," Dunklin said.
Of the 19 cases, 4 complexes were responsible for 14 cases.
Darrell Guthrie is a property manager for one of these complexes. He says the cases they brought forward to court are those that have made little to no effort to pay their back rent.
"We've worked with people over this process is going on for better than a year now for most people, and accepting partial payments, trying to work out a promissory note," Guthrie said.
He added they've tried to work with their tenants by connecting them with rent relief programs.
"We probably have a bunch of 25 people that are working through the program now with Texas rent relief," Guthrie said.
Those 25 people represent five to six percent of their units.
Another property manager who wanted to remain anonymous says at their property they've had to evict ten or 11 tenants and echoed trying to connect people with rent relief programs.
"The sad thing about evictions is that not a lot of people leave because sometimes they don't want to leave or sometimes they don't have anywhere else to go," he said.
Dunklin hears around 500 eviction cases a year. He says above all else theirs one thing that always sticks out listening to cases.
It's a lack of communication between a tenant and their landlord about what they can or can't do," he said. "It's just that silence that causes a landlord eventually to say I can't work with you."
Options for rent relief are available and one such route is through PATH. In February, PATH was awarded seven million dollars by Smith County to help renters.
"We are working very rapidly to prioritize those families who have an eviction court docket like those today," PATH Executive Director Andrea Wilson said.
Rent assistance through PATH is only available to those who live in Smith County.