On Friday, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed Senate Bill 267, officially banning any local ordinances that protect people with housing vouchers from discrimination. The bill was a response to a new source of income protection law in Austin, which will become unenforceable when SB 267 goes into effect on September 1. SB 267 does include an amendment to allow local ordinances protecting veterans from source of income discrimination.
Housing advocates and civil rights groups are meeting to determine the next steps in combating discrimination against voucher holders. We sent Gov. Abbott a letter urging him to veto the bill, as SB 267 violates Texas’ obligations to affirmatively further fair housing, outlined in federal law and in the landmark conciliation agreement that we and our partners at Texas Appleseed reached with the state of Texas in 2010. In order to meet fair housing requirements, the state must address barriers to mobility and housing choice for voucher holders, not construct new ones.
Signing SB 267 has risked the state’s compliance with the conciliation agreement and with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The law runs counter to the state’s own fair housing plan and imperils HUD funding dependent on the state’s progress in affirmatively furthering fair housing. When the state applies for its annual federal allocation for something like the Community Development Block Grant program, which provided Texas with more than $3 billion for hurricane relief efforts and continues to support projects all around the state, HUD will examine how closely Texas is meeting its fair housing obligations.
SB 267 threatens more than Austin’s ability to govern itself as a home rule city. It threatens more than the families with vouchers facing widespread discrimination. The bill, now enshrined into law, threatens crucial housing funding, and necessary fair housing obligations, for the entire state.
Having property in Galveston, one can see the end result of public housing. It is a jobs program for people with marginal abilities, a subsidy for people not inclined to work, a perpetuation of the myth of human compassion (i.e. they can’t help themselves but I can help them), and a drain on me and my children who pay taxes for inactivity, low ambition, and aberrant behavior. To Mr. Henneberger and his bureaucratic ilk, you don’t help anyone in this situation except yourself. You get a pay check and they kill time…….and the taxpayer.
[…] opposition emerged from the Austin Apartment Association. This is the same group that just succeeded this month in passing a bill in the Texas Legislature to strike down another Austin fair housing protection. […]
the amendment i read says that any ordinances passed before Jan 1 2015 are exempt (grandfathered), so Austin’s ordinance still stands and is not nullified.
Unfortunately, the amendment to exempt Austin via a grandfather clause was approved by the Senate in the initial version of the bill, but was stripped out on the House floor. The final version of the bill that passed and was signed by the governor includes Austin in the statewide ban.
[…] in an unsuccessful attempt to continue segregating low income apartments in minority neighborhoods. The legislature voided an Austin ordinance meant to protect families with housing vouchers from […]
[…] Texas Legislature, on the other hand, recently did the opposite. A bill passed earlier this year stops any city or county from adopting a source of income protection ordinance, in response to the […]
[…] recall that, at the behest of the Austin Apartment Association, the Texas Legislature passed and Governor Abbott signed into law a bill that prohibits Texas cities from enacting anti-discrimination protections for citizens who […]
[…] a landlord registration program enacted back in March. It is reasonable to expect more litigation. Austin, Texas provides one example of how landlords can fight back against local SOI ordinances. Following passage of an SOI ordinance, the Austin Apartment […]
[…] a landlord registration program enacted back in March. It is reasonable to expect more litigation. Austin, Texas provides one example of how landlords can fight back against local SOI ordinances. Following passage of an SOI ordinance, the Austin Apartment […]