Julia Orduña is Texas Housers’ Community Navigator in the greater Houston area. She is sharing her initial impressions of working…
Category: Local issues
Local issues consist of housing topics faced by city and county governments that are of interest to local organizers and community groups.
Episode 21: The Stink Of Unequal Sewage
Housing inequality can often manifest in ways that many do not think of and some take for granted. For example,…
Texas’ Health Department study officially confirms cancer cluster exists in Fifth Ward and Kashmere Gardens
In August 2019, the Texas Department of State Health Services discovered what many residents of Fifth Ward and Kashmere Gardens in…
Episode 20: A Look At RAD Conversion
In 2012, Congress authorized some public housing agencies to convert units from their original federally-funded public housing developments to project-based Section 8…
Episode 18: The Power of Renters
More than one-third of households in Texas are renters, and in Austin, more than half of residents rent their homes.…
Texas Housers presents the Tenant view of Houston’s segregation of Project Based Section 8 Housing in latest report
Texas Housers is exploring the issues of HUD-subsidized housing from the perspective of the tenants. In Part 1 of a…
Podcast Episode 17: When Highways Threaten Our Legacy
In 1915, Independence Heights was the first town incorporated by African Americans in the state of Texas. For more than…
Houston’s I-45 expansion deeply damages life for low-income residents. Upholding the Four Rights could help them.
In 2015, partners of Texas Housers developed the Four Rights as a framework to discuss and practice fair housing. Those…
Houston’s downtown Opportunity Zone is a prime example why the program desperately needs reform
Since its creation in 2017, the Opportunity Zones program was touted by the Trump Administration as a measure to revitalize…
Lubbock’s zoning has a history of Jim Crow. City officials refuse to reckon with it.
Untangling a century of discrimination takes hard, dedicated work. For nearly two years, neighborhoods in Lubbock’s East and North Side have…
San Antonio Could Pilot the State’s First Right to Counsel Initiative To Help Renters Facing Eviction
San Antonio could be the first city in Texas to pilot a Right to Counsel initiative to guarantee renters in…
HUD is giving Fort Worth an Envision Center when its at-risk neighborhoods need a clear vision for their fraught future
“Housing assistance should be more than just putting a roof over someone’s head,” HUD Secretary Ben Carson told a Fort…
Two years of disaster recovery: we are holding our fire for now as we listen to survivors and ask government for a honest accounting
In the two years since Hurricane Harvey made landfall, so much has changed. There has even been some encouraging movement…
Podcast episode 15: Sonido del Agua Part 2
If you want to change law and policy, you have to change people’s minds. And to change people’s minds, you…
Harris County steps into a future of equitable recovery by passing the #HarrisThrives Resolution
Two years ago this week, Hurricane Harvey made landfall over Southeast Texas. The storm’s strength didn’t just punish with its heavy…
Texas Housers explores Houston’s segregation of Project Based Section 8 Housing in a new report
The politics of who is in charge may shift through the years, but our commitment as a nation to providing…
Podcast Episode 14: El Sonido del Agua Part I
Season 2 of our podcast is live, and it starts with a deep dive into a multi-year drainage campaign in…
The city of Houston says it wants to end impediments to Fair Housing using the Four Rights. It should lead by example.
Fair housing was signed into law to root out segregation and individual acts of discrimination. But it means so much…
Report details the cumulative trauma of family violence and natural disaster during Hurricane Harvey
In a natural disaster, it is vital to act as quickly as possible to help those most vulnerable first. Some…
The expansion of Interstate 45 is harming low-income communities in Houston. Here’s what can be done to fix that.
For the past several months, Texas Housers and our partners have been tracking the public concern around the expansion of…
TxDOT’S Historical Resources Report Omits Houston’s Independence Heights
For more than 14 years, Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) has been planning the North Houston Highway Improvement Project (NHHIP),…
Colonia leaders debut advocacy tutorial video to expand access to public street lighting
For more than a decade, colonia leaders, organizers and Texas Housers have been pushing Hidalgo County to target program funds…
Disaster survivors often faced double the financial toll when rebuilding their homes. A new law now ensures that won’t happen.
Following a natural disaster, a survivor’s road back to normal can be long and difficult. If they are lucky enough…
Opportunity Zones were supposed to aid struggling areas. This luxury high rise using the program yet again only serves the wealthy.
Since the haphazard rollout of the Opportunity Zone program in the Tax Cut and Jobs Act of 2017, advocates across…
Poor living conditions in a Galveston subsidized apartment complex add to the island’s affordable housing crisis
In episode 9 of our podcast, A Little Louder, we talk about how a subsidized apartment complex in Galveston is…
Gentrification can’t explain all of a neighborhood’s failures. The racial wealth gap allows us to examine deeper.
Across the country, there are numerous underserved and disinvested communities fighting for the ownership and legacy of their neighborhoods. Gentrification…
Colonia residents of Hidalgo County celebrate their language justice victory
Yesterday, Texas Housers joined community leaders in the Rio Grande Valley at a press conference to celebrate a major victory…
Communities facing displacement in San Antonio have a strong message for the city: “Step it up”
Without setting foot in one home or even talking to a single resident, a simple walk through the streets of…
Late fees can destabilize renters struggling to get by. These punishing bills empowering landlords endanger them further.
Long-established Texas laws that have protected tenants for years from paying punitive and unreasonable late fees for overdue rent are…
Lessons learned from a rapid response to the ITC Disaster
Following the breaking news of the ITC disaster, SE Texas Co-Director Zoe Middleton joined a rapid response team of advocates…