The city joins Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston and Harris County in regulating boarding homes.
ARLINGTON, Texas — The City of Arlington unanimously passed the adoption of a boarding home facility chapter to its city code this month following numerous deaths linked to boarding homes in Tarrant County.
With this adoption, the city joins Fort Worth, Dallas, Houston and Harris County in regulating Texas boarding homes.
Jennifer Wichmann, Arlington’s deputy city manager, said the ordinance would regulate group homes, not traditional boarding homes. These are homes for three or more people who are elderly or disabled.
“This would give the city the ability to inspect and get them registered and regulated,” Wichmann told city council members.
According to the ordinance, these regulations seek to adopt clear standards for the construction, remodeling and maintenance of the facilities. It would also mandate regular inspections and require ongoing criminal background checks of all employees and caretakers operating the facilities, as well as regular reporting and recordkeeping.
Due to the lack of regulation in most of Texas, a WFAA investigation found the homes can also become havens for neglect, exploitation and abuse.
Dallas also has taken steps to regulate boarding homes, with police and code enforcement teaming up to investigate complaints. In a September 2024 inspection, officials visited a home on Buford Drive after receiving a complaint that people were seen wandering in streets outside an unlicensed boarding home.
Body camera footage showed police and code enforcement talking to a resident of the home, who told them that eight residents lived there. He told officials that the operator provided them with meals.
“It’s like a family house,” the resident said.
Officials concluded it was an unlicensed boarding home and shut it down.
Regla ‘Su’ Becquer, who ran several unlicensed boarding homes in Tarrant County, was arrested last year following numerous deaths linked to boarding homes she operated, officials said.
Becquer has since been indicted on a murder charge in the death of a man in her care, and Arlington police are looking into other client deaths and how she and her relatives came to own property belonging to some of them.
Not all of the houses Becquer operated were in the city of Arlington.
