DOT's Closet has been in business for 27 years at 5810 Live Oak.

DOT’s Closet has been in business for 27 years at 5810 Live Oak.

There’s been a lot of tears shed at DOT’s Closet this week. After 27 years of providing free clothes and other services to those suffering from terminal illness, the nonprofit saw its rent more than double recently, and it simply can’t make ends meet any longer.

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“This rent thing has just sucked us dry,” says a clearly discouraged Georgia Davis, who has been running DOT’s while her brother, the nonprofit’s founder Jim Davis, is in and out of the hospital. “We’ve been trying to make it work, but it’s just been a nightmare. It got the best of us.”

Jim Davis opened the consignment shop at 5810 Live Oak after watching two friends struggle to cover their basic needs while they battled terminal illnesses. He decided there had to be a better way to support sick people with food and clothing, and launched the nonprofit Disciples of Holy Trinity in his garage.

The woman who first rented Jim Davis the space on Live Oak clearly believed in the nonprofit’s mission. She gave him a sweetheart deal on rent, and paid the property taxes and general maintenance costs herself, allowing the business to exist on a shoestring budget.

“We help our clients however they need. We’ve helped with utility bills, with rent,” Georgia Davis says. “We’ve even been known to pay for a funeral or two.”

Two years ago, the property owner died and everything changed for DOT’s Closet. A property manager was hired, and six months ago the rent was hiked from $2,500 a month to $5,500, bringing it into market range.

“The rent just jumped. And suddenly we had to pay all the taxes and maintenance ourselves — it’s a lot,” Georgia Davis says. According to records, property taxes for the site were $18,580 last year. “We had to put in a whole new heating and air conditioning system last year and that was expensive.”

Ultimately, they couldn’t keep up, and last week announced plans to close by the end of February. Georgia Davis says notifying the 1,800 active clients they serve has been heart wrenching for her and her brother.

“Our clients are very worried,” she says. “There’s not another agency in Dallas that provides clothes. They’re worried about how they’ll get what they need.”

The family is hopeful they might be able to reopen somewhere else in the neighborhood, but so far nothing has fit their price-point and needs.
“Almost all of our clients ride the bus, so if we found a new place, it would need to be on the bus route,” she says. “If anybody has anything they’d like to rent us cheap, we’ll be happy to talk to them.”

For now, she’s focused on clearing out inventory to close out the business on Live Oak. Through their last day, Feb. 21, everything will be marked down 75 percent.

It’s unclear whether a new tenant for the suite has been secured, calls to owner Country Club Properties were not immediately returned. “It’s a very lucrative corner,” Pete Zapffe, a Coldwell Banker Realtor and longtime board member for DOT, says of the site.