At Bryan Song Apartments in Old East Dallas, the letters arrived Dec. 10. Tenants living in this Bryan Street complex — in the heart of a neighborhood that has seemingly gone from affordable shabby to overpriced chic in a moment's notice — were told they had 60 days to vacate the premises. "Peacefully," said the notice on Perry Guest Management letterhead, lest there be lawsuits.

If you have driven around this area at all, if you have shopped at Jimmy's Food Store or dined on Vietnamese food at Mai's or simply driven between Lakewood and downtown, you know where this is going. If you've sat through just one Dallas City Council discussion about its toothless new comprehensive housing policy, you know how this story ends.

An affordable apartment complex — painted a contemptuous shade of dull green in a fast-gentrifying neighborhood — is about to go high-end under a new owner. Which means people have to go — where, they have no idea. Just some place else. Now.

"It's real stressful, because most of the people that live here, they receive some sort of assistance," said Shatara Blackshire, who has lived at Bryan Song for three years with her son, now 9. She's among the majority of Bryan Song residents who have their rents, around $800 a month, subsidized with federal housing vouchers and cannot find another landlord willing to welcome them.

"We need help," Blackshire said.

For decades Bryan Song has been home to people like Blackshire — men, women and children who use vouchers to keep roofs over their heads. They are on fixed incomes. Some can't speak English. A few, too, are elderly and infirm.

On Tuesday the Texas Tenants' Union held a news conference in one of Bryan Song's dreary courtyards. Residents held hand-made signs that read "We need better laws" and "Don't displace us" and "Stop gentrification" and "Shame." We were surrounded by units that have been boarded up, including entrances missing doors that were long ago yanked off by squatters who lived among families just trying to stay afloat.

Residents shared their desperate, heartbreaking tales. They spoke of not having heat, not feeling safe. They demanded more time, more rights. The showing was maybe too little, likely too late. But the tenants aren't leaving without first making some noise about being forced out of the lousy complex that took them in, and away from the people who made it home.

"I will miss some of the tenants, my neighbors," Odette Edwards said in an interview. "But I will not miss this place."

In one ramshackle unit, where rat droppings decorate the top of the refrigerator, a Cambodian woman who uses an electric wheelchair lives alone. She speaks only Khmer. But she can barely communicate at all: Residents say she was injured in a motorcycle accident — they do not know when — and that she has only gotten worse.

"She doesn't know what the hell is going on," said 60-year-old Gerald Miller, bearded and bespectacled. I can't even tell you the woman's name. Miller, who has spent a decade keeping watch over residents who cannot fend for themselves, only calls her "Mama." Miller has found a new place; he could leave without looking back. But he will not.

"I love 'em to death," he said of the tenants. "I do this for God."

But God cannot help these people. Neither can the city.

Bryan Song, built in the mid-1950s, has a new owner: Blackwood Developments, which is building in north Oak Cliff and near Lower Greenville and last month purchased Bryan Song from an owner in Mesquite. Blackwood's CEO and co-founder, David Eitches, told me Monday they have a handful of other properties in the area and intend to redevelop Bryan Song in the spring.

"Updating its interior and exterior," is how he put it, which will bring the complex "up to the standard of the rest of that immediate sub-market."

1 / 3Odette Edwards, center, speaks at Bryan Song Apartments on Tuesday. Edwards, like all of the other residents of the complex, received an eviction notice to be out of her apartment by February 10. (Ryan Michalesko / Staff Photographer) 2 / 3Marjorie McLin looks out the door of her home at Bryan Song Apartments, which she will have to leave within the month. Her apartment has no heat.(Ryan Michalesko / Staff Photographer) 3 / 3Vacant apartments are boarded up, long after squatters were booted out of Bryan Song Apartments.(Ryan Michalesko / Staff Photographer)

By which Eitches means this ramshackle complex will soon look like all the other high-end, high-priced housing surrounding it, springing from the ground like weeds over the last few years. For a peek at its future, look no further than the bright white building across the street.

For more than a decade Bryan Song sat across Grigsby Avenue from a lot thick with trees. But in early February 2017, that neighboring lot was scraped clean for a new development: The Collective Residential and Eko Construction's Bryan Heights condos, where two-bedroom units go for upwards of $340,000 with the promise of "walking to Jimmy's and new retail coming to the community soon."

The second part of that development is "coming soon" across Bryan. The sign promises units beginning in the "low $400,000s."

I called Eitches on Monday to ask him about displacing the residents. He said that was handled by the property manager. Eitches said he'd try to be as "accommodating to the best I can," giving residents a small extension if possible. But long-term relief is unlikely: He said construction is set to begin in March.

Blackshire called that "just so unfortunate." She and the other tenants are having a hard time finding new places because the city cannot force landlords to take housing vouchers. That is because the state refuses to punish landlords who turn away would-be tenants.

The Texas Tenants' Union wants the city to at least consider an ordinance that gives tenants at least 120 days to find new homes if their apartments are sold to developers. Organizers also want landlords to pay relocation fees in situations like this one.

1 / 3The Bryan Song Apartments, at left, in the shadow of the $340,000 condos across Grigsby Avenue.(Ryan Michalesko / Staff Photographer) 2 / 3Bryan Song Apartments residents gathered for a press conference on Tuesday.(Ryan Michalesko / Staff Photographer) 3 / 3Alfred Lee, 3, right, stands by his grandmother Dionne Lee during a press conference at Bryan Song Apartments on Tuesday.(Ryan Michalesko / Staff Photographer)

"The reality is 30 or 60 days is not sufficient notice, particularly when you're working with people who have limited incomes, who have Section 8 vouchers," said Texas Tenants' Union executive director Sandy Rollins. "You can't just get up and move with a voucher."

The Dallas Housing Authority told me it is providing "relocation support" to the Bryan Song tenants who contacted them. That's the only way the housing authority even knew something was up. Because there are no rules requiring property owners to tell housing authorities when they're giving residents the boot.

"It's just like: 'Y'all gotta move,'" Blackshire said. "They didn't say, 'We're going to give you 60 days and fund your move,' or something. It's nothing. We're basically being put out with nothing. Don't get me wrong. I understand they bought the place. But at the same time it's like they don't care about the people who live here."

City Hall might have a comprehensive housing policy, but right now it's just a nice sentiment.

David Noguera, the city's housing director, had no idea this was happening until I called Monday with some questions. He was sympathetic to the tenants' plight, the very reason investigators with the city's department of Fair Housing and Human Rights were dispatched Tuesday to Bryan Song.

But "overall, in any area where the market is booming," he said, "the city typically cannot move fast enough to address the displacement challenges."

Displacement challenges. What a nice way to describe such a horrible thing.