In a supersized episode, we leave 2024 with a bang. Michael Depland speaks with the staff of Texas Housers to reflect on this past year, to talk about what we were most proud of this year, and a brief look forward into the new year. Here are a few stories we spoke about on this episode.
Our third year of the Houser Academy is in the books.
Our Houser Academy, the program where we find and connect community groups, organizers, and budding activists across the state to effect change for housing justice just concluded its third class in December 2024. Each cohort of this class had a different goal that they worked toward in cities like San Antonio, Houston, San Marcos, and Lubbock, but they all centered around similar goals of tenant rights, fair housing, and the creation of more affordable housing.
Now that class is over, the work still continues, as the new graduates will connect with alumni from our previous classes to further grow a network of activism and organizing throughout Texas. We are so excited for what they are working toward and look forward to building this network out even wider in the next year. Our next class starts in Fall 2025.
‘Razing Liberty Square’ screenings across the state connect disaster recovery, public housing, and the fight to make tenant voices heard.
We had the privilege of partnering with the producers of a powerful documentary, distributed in partnership with PBS, called Razing Liberty Square. This film touched on so many issues that Texas Housers works on directly – disaster recovery, public housing, elevating tenant voices – and it made perfect sense for us to host local screening across the state with Q&A sessions following the movie. Austin, Laredo, and San Antonio were our first screenings in 2024 with more to come soon! Stay posted to our website for more information.
Eviction Protection Plans are now a major factor in Tax Credit Housing in Texas.
The Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) is the largest creator of affordable housing in our state, and The state’s housing agency, the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs (TDHCA), recently released the final 2024 Qualified Allocation Plan (QAP) guiding the award of Housing Tax Credits in 2024 and setting priorities for what types of developments receive funds.
And we are proud to say that in this most recent QAP, incentives to include Eviction Prevention Plans are now included. This new addition to the highly competitive QAP process will give applicants 5 points for implementing a program operated by a case manager that identifies households with past due balances and are at risk of eviction. The case manager can offer these households an opportunity to enter into an eviction holdoff agreement for six months, during which the tenant will resolve past due balances through a payment plan and the property will forgive late fees associated with that balance as long as the agreement is fulfilled. Case managers will meet with households regularly and can identify additional resources such as emergency rental assistance to help the tenant.
More than 600 notices to vacate were sent to one San Antonio public housing community. We partnered with community and got them rescinded or diverted.
Earlier in Spring 2024, Opportunity Home, the housing authority operated by the city of San Antonio, issued notices to vacate to more than 600 households living in public housing. Notices were issued to all local housing authority tenants who had been delinquent for 12 months or more, in some cases owing as little as $1 in back rent. Additionally, many residents did not know they owed, because a repair was made but not separately itemized from their monthly rent, so their households were unknowingly delinquent.
Alongside the hard work of groups like Coalition for Tenant Justice and Esperanza Peace and Justice Center, Texas Housers door knocked, got the word out in the press, and met with local leadership in San Antonio to work through ending this injustice. The housing authority announced that it would rescind all Notices To Vacate and accept all households with less than $3,000 in back rent into repayment agreements. While there is still much work to do regarding the future of public housing in San Antonio and installing true tenant stability, this kind of mobilization with community is work we are proud of.
Short Term Rentals have a major effect on affordable housing, often from out of state. This small change in fees for operators could have a big impact.
Texas Housers was invited to join a task force of local stakeholders that was originally convened in December 2023 to develop amendments to San Antonio’s Short Term Rental (STR) Ordinance and address growing concerns about unpermitted STR properties, party houses, and the negative impacts of STRs on San Antonio’s residential neighborhoods. The city was among the cheapest locations to operate an STR – such as AirBNB or VRBO – across the state, allowing for wealthy corporations or out of state operators to purchase housing and rent it at a high profit.
Because San Antonio is experiencing an affordable housing crisis where there is not enough housing to go around for all of the households who need it, this was highly concerning. Thankfully, the voices of local community were included as opposed to just industry voices, and City Council voted to increase San Antonio’s STR permit fee to $300 for operators who live on-site and $450 for operators who live off-site for a three year period.
Texas Housers created so many reports and research tools this year. Here is what we built.
Our research team spent its 2024 creating several reports and tools to create a better understanding of housing justice and the needs that must be met. Here are just a few below:
The Limitations of Land Use Deregulation for Housing Affordability
Keeping Harris County Housed: An Overview of the Eviction Crisis in Harris County
Bexar County eviction mapping tool
San Antonio housing need by income vs. SHIP progress
2024 Harris County Eviction Snapshots
Our Texas Tenant Advisor has been a core part of our resource center. We are now live in English and Spanish.
Texas Housers has its origins as Texas Low Income Housing Information Service. We are a resource for those who are looking for help regarding remaining housed. A major part of this promise has been the Texas Tenant Advisor, which hosts all information a renter might need to know if they encounter an issue in their apartment or rental unit. It has information about finding housing, common problems that occur while living in a rental unit, how to navigate eviction, and also how to activate as a tenant advocate. And in 2024, we can now say that this resource is available in BOTH English and Spanish in full translation.
Texas Housers took our expertise from the Lone Star State and spread the word across the nation.
From Austin to Houston to Washington D.C. to Georgia, Texas Housers was all over the map this year. We were asked to join several panels at conferences, meet with electeds in our Nation’s Capitol, and connected our community partners in these conversations along the way. We want to make sure that we are not only lending our expertise and experience, but elevating the expertise and experiences of affected community as well.
As always, you can listen to “Episode 70: Our biggest stories (and some you might have missed) from 2024” below or wherever you get your podcasts.
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