An Underutilized Housing Affordability Tool: Homestead Exemptions
Housing affordability impacts financial stability, wealth-building opportunities, and long-term economic mobility for families. Homeowners can reduce their property tax bill by claiming exemptions — i.e., tax breaks — such as the homestead exemption.
The homestead exemption is a valuable but underutilized benefit for Dallas County homeowners. In particular, homeowners in low-income census tracts, majority Black, and majority Hispanic census tracts do not claim the homestead exemption at the same rates as homeowners in high-income census tracts and majority White census tracts.
About 57,000 properties within Dallas County are potentially eligible for the homestead exemption but have not yet claimed it, for an estimated total benefit of ~$310M. Of those, ~40,000 properties are in low-income and very low-income census tracts, for an estimated total benefit of ~$5,000 per household. For context, $5,000 is equivalent to what a four-person household in Dallas County would spend in 5.2 months on food or in 3.5 months on health care.
As a companion to the report, we also developed an interactive tool, the Dallas Homestead Exemption Map, to visualize utilization of the homestead exemption within Dallas County by neighborhood, census tract, and ZIP code.
We hope the report and web map will support efforts to increase access to the homestead exemption across Dallas County.
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WIC Playbook
CPAL’s WIC playbook features prototypes designed to increase WIC benefit uptake in Dallas through human-centered design.
- The WIC program plays an important role in improving birth outcomes and containing health care costs. Every dollar spent on WIC leads to savings in health care costs from $1.77 to $3.13 within the first 60 days after birth.
- National data shows that in 2021, an average of 12.13 million moms, babies, and young children were eligible for WIC but only 51% actually participated.
Eviction at Dallas College
Analysis from CPAL and Dallas College explores how eviction affects Dallas College students and opportunities for support.
- Housing providers filed 4,114 evictions against 3,352 Dallas College students from 2017 to spring 2022. For students with an eviction filing while enrolled at Dallas College, just 4% went on to earn a credential.
- Black students, students with children, female students, and American Indian/Alaskan Native students are overrepresented in the subset of students with an eviction filing.
SMU Deason Criminal Justice Reform Center partnership
CPAL and the Deason Center are working to identify leverage points to reduce pretrial detention in Dallas County.
- Because pretrial detention can jeopardize a person’s employment, family stability, housing, and health, charging delays are a major issue for children and families.
- After an arrest, a prosecutor decides whether to file formal charges against an individual. In Texas, prosecutors can take up to 6 months to make that decision, and an arrested person can be held in jail for half of that time.