Every time someone pays a code citation in Dallas, $36 goes into a fund intended to help low-income homeowners make costly repairs to bring their properties into compliance. But NBC 5 Investigates discovered the city stopped awarding grants from that fund about two years ago, even as money continued flowing into it and as the city deployed AI-powered cameras that detected more than 20,000 potential code violations in just months.
Since code enforcement turned on the cameras, the Code Compliance Department said between April and mid-September it sent about 3,700 notices to homeowners asking them to voluntarily fix violations. After human inspectors reviewed potential violations, the city also said it opened 300 new enforcement cases and issued more than 80 citations involving approximately 50 properties…