Advocates Say Texas Needs $5 Billion For Affordable Housing. SB8 Allocates $0 For Housing Efforts.

With homelessness on the rise and evictions looming, David Wheaton of Texas Housers sees both a crisis and an opportunity in the coming years.

The crisis is already underway: According to the latest data from the US Census Bureau, around 727,000 Texans do not dare to pay their rent for the coming month. Another million have “little confidence” that they will be renting next month. About $ 217 million remains in the coffers of the Texas Rent Relief Program, enough to fund about 36,000 homes a month.

Even before the pandemic, the course was set for a housing crisis. The Dallas area housing market has been booming in recent years, but wages have not kept up. As a result, more and more low and middle income people were forced into precarious rental situations and used up between 30 and 70% of their monthly income on rent. There are now more than 4,000 people living on the streets in Dallas County.

When the COVID-19 pandemic broke out early last year, unemployment and homelessness rose in Texas. Both federal and state efforts were aimed at increasing the monthly income of the unemployed. But state officials ended Texas’ added financial benefits last month, and the Supreme Court recently lifted the statewide eviction ban.

I support

Local

Community

journalism

Support the independent voice of Dallas and help keep the future of Dallas Observer clear.

Keep the Dallas Observer Free.

Still, Wheaton sees a unique opportunity to come.

Texas is slated to receive nearly $ 16 billion in federal funding for coronavirus response in the coming weeks under the American Rescue Plan Act. Texas Housers, along with Southern Dallas Progress CDC, Texas Tenants’ Union, and several other housing advocacy groups, say the state must allocate $ 5 billion to housing stability projects.

“We have a real chance to use our federal funds to solve a huge government problem immediately,” said Wheaton.

Last week, Texas Housers and the other groups released a proposal detailing how the $ 5 billion could be spent. The proposal outlines a multi-pronged strategy for using the federal dollars to both mitigate the immediate housing dangers of the homeless and poor, and to build permanent, affordable housing solutions.

“This is money to stop evictions now, but it’s also programs that will have long-term positive effects for generations,” said Dena Jackson, chief operations officer at the Texas Women’s Foundation. “We ask how we can build up wealth in these families and build up wealth that they can then give to their children.”

But some state lawmakers have different plans for ARPA funds. Last week, Senator Jane Nelson, the senior Republican woman in the Senate and chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, suggested spending exactly zero dollars on housing initiatives.

Senate Bill 8, which Nelson tabled late last week, provides more than $ 7 billion in ARPA funding to replenish the state’s Unemployment Compensation Fund. This fund protects companies from increased unemployment taxes, which depend on the number of workers applying for such benefits.

“COVID-19 has affected Texas on many fronts, and this bill takes a holistic approach to addressing a wide variety of needs that emerged during the pandemic,” Nelson said in a press release.

The bill aims to assist companies following pandemic-related layoffs, provide medical care to teachers, expand access to mental health care, expand resources for crime victims, and increase support for medical staff.

“These are strategic one-off investments that will bolster our continued recovery from the pandemic,” added Nelson.

“Let’s be one step ahead of this curve. Let’s make it easier for low and middle income people to rent and make it easier for low and middle income people to buy houses now. ”- David Wheaton

tweet that

Wheaton said providing more than $ 7 billion in ARPA dollars to the Unemployment Compensation Fund while housing initiatives remain high and dry reveals ARPA’s core mission to alleviate the worst conditions affecting the hardest hit.

In Dallas County, black and Latino households are three times more likely to be evicted than white households, according to Princeton University’s Eviction Lab and Child Poverty Action Lab.

James McGee, president of the Southern Dallas Progress CDC, said the absence of any spending on housing initiatives in Senator Nelson’s proposal shows who is prioritizing the GOP in Texas.

“The truth is, they don’t give a damn about these people,” said James McGee, president of the Southern Dallas Progress CDC, another member of the coalition.

Senator Nelson’s office did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

Aside from the $ 7.3 billion earmarked for corporate unemployment benefits, McGee attributes the distribution of funds proposed in SB 8 to a simple motivator: greed.

“This is how you set it up perfectly for investors,” McGee explained. “If you don’t invest money in housing, you create a wave of evictions and thus empty houses and apartments. Then developers can step in, tear it all down, remodel and get 30-40% profit, ”said McGee.

The coalition is trying to avoid this by building new affordable housing units, increasing rental support opportunities, and providing tenants with tools to navigate the housing market – efforts that McGee says are all aimed at making “housing” available for low and low renters stabilize middle income.

Texas Housers’ Wheaton warned that without intervention like what the coalition is proposing, “we will have another affordable housing crisis in the next five to ten years.”

The incoming heap of federal funding provides a rare opportunity to address a long-standing nationwide problem, he argued.

“Let’s get one step ahead of that curve,” said Wheaton. “Let’s make it easier for low and middle income people to rent, and make it easier for low and middle income people to buy houses now.”

[ad_1]