Housing as a Human Right in Houston

Houston is my Home. I moved here in May of 2006. These past 13 years are the longest I have ever lived anywhere. The longest time I’ve lived in one place before moving to Houston was 6 years. In the 13 years I’ve lived here, I have moved multiple times. Always with the intention to set my roots and create stability for my family.
This intention was something I learned and inherited from my parents hard work and dedication. As I grew into adulthood and began interacting with the process of finding housing, to set those roots, I began to connect what I saw my parents go through with what I noticed happening all around me.
Throughout my childhood there where many move-in days for our family. Too many to truly create stability and generational wealth. My parents’ undocumented status always meant that they were destined to be renters and not buyers. Always at the mercy of a new landlord who could be a hit or miss for a safe and stable environment for our family.
The American Dream of owning a home and sending your children to school to reach further than you can was all my parents strive for. Even though it wasn’t until I was 19 years old that we would reach our goal of owning a home for our family, we would lose that home within 5 years due to the 2008 recession caused by deregulated Wall St. practices and predatory lending practices by the real estate industry. My family, like many families in Black and Brown communities, were targeted by these institutions to swell their bottom line numbers in order to enrich themselves, while almost costing our country its economic future.
That didn’t stop us though, my family banded together. We all came under one roof and set roots again. Securing a future for my niece and nephew. I consider myself one of the fortunate ones. It took a family-team-effort to get it accomplished, and from this experience I learned many new lessons to add to my childhood experiences.
Today, I live in Third Ward. Down the block from my Alma Mater, Texas Southern University. From my time as a student at TSU, during my community organizing, and until this moment as I drive through my neighborhood, the growth in both gentrification and homelessness all over Houston has been astounding.
Learning about the gentrification industry and how it operates all over the country has given me the latest lessons to what it means and what it will take to have a place to call home in the United States of America.
The fight to come is going to require much needed community organizing, mobilizing, and action.
My decision to run Houston’s 18th U.S. Congressional District is based on the lessons and experiences that I have received throughout my life. Now that I can build coalitions with dedicated people who want the best future for all communities, I can begin to share with you not just my story, but OUR plan for a better, safer, and more stable Houston for our families.
Our Vision: Housing as a Human Right
Safe and affordable housing is the foundation of healthy communities. Studies have shown that poor housing conditions can lead to chronic diseases and environmental hazards that affect families for generations. People without working kitchens rely on easy-to-make unhealthy foods. One study found that children that are affected by unaffordable housing experience more childhood health problems, more behavior problems, and lower school performance.
We should be proud that Houston is becoming the 3rd largest city in the country, but our growth has come at a cost. That cost looks like the current rise of people moving into the city with higher incomes, and the construction of newer high-rises. This growth has been driven by developers with deep pockets and their actions have shown no interest in how they affect current Houston residents.
Housing experts recommend that people spend no more than 30% of their income on housing costs, but Houston renters are spending more than that. This means less money for things like groceries, medical care, air conditioning, heating, childcare or just saving money in case of emergencies. This is especially hard on black, brown, and immigrant communities where developers are coming into our neighborhoods and pushing us out.
Renting in Texas for communities of color
Texas — and Houston in particular — has a reputation for being affordable. And based on HUD and U.S. Census data, Texas has a surplus of affordable housing for the middle class. But in 2017, Texas tied as the 7th worst state for affordable housing for households earning 30% and below the poverty line. Houston is the 3rd worst city in the country for affordable low-income households.
We need to take back control from wealthy and corrupt developers and their real estate deals that don’t help Houston. With our middle class shrinking faster every year, the gap between the wealthy and surviving class are getting deeper. This is hitting our black and brown communities the hardest, with expensive high-rises popping up in 2nd, 3rd, 5th ward, East End, Acres Homes, and Near Northside; as developers target land owned by families who have lived there for generations and can no longer afford to maintain with the costs of owning a home.
We need to RESTORE, NOT REMOVE our neighborhoods. We plan to work with local organizers to address problems caused by affordable housing while keeping communities intact.
· We will fight for a federal grant program where local coalitions and professionals can buy abandoned lots and dilapidated houses to put the power back into the people’s hands.
The fight for safe affordable housing begins with fair housing. We will push to approve the 21st Century Homestead Act that will wholesale transfer vacant lots and houses to residents or coalitions with a commitment from city governments to revitalize the community’s surrounding infrastructure. Learn more about Mehrsa Baradaran’s inspired plan.
The City of Houston has an Economic Development Program that provides grants to organizations to boost our economy with local public, private, and nonprofit organizations. We hope to work with the city to expand the outreach of the program for local civil societies to purchase land in their own neighborhoods specifically for new affordable housing units.
We will fight to expand the Healthy Homes Program that awards grants to housing nonprofits to assess and help fix homes for health hazards. This is not an enforcement program, but a way to publicly educate and support families on ways to stay healthy. This program will help facilitate bad housing between tenant and landlord or homeowners by looking at lead, mold, carbon monoxide, radon, and other hazards that affect childhood diseases.
· We will fight for education funding to support local-area schools in struggling communities to stabilize property taxes.
The 2019 Texas Legislature created innovative change to school finance, with direct implications on property tax that opens doors for affordable housing and home ownership. House Bill 3 increases compensation for school staff and low-income students by tapping into revenue from existing taxes, while reducing 8 cents per $100 of a value’s home by 2020, and 13 cents by 2021. Neighborhoods will have a 2.5% per year cap increase on property taxes.
We need to support long-standing institutions like Jack Yates High School with resources, materials, and quality staff so we can keep our student-aged residents building within their own neighborhoods while increasing the value of properties internally and keeping homes affordable.
· We will fight for federal funds for the Houston Land Bank for residents (not developers) to enroll in land subsidies to own their own homes with government help on down payments.
The Houston Land Bank is an innovative idea that has the potential to make a real impact in District 18. They are currently in charge of 400 reduced-price homes built specifically for low-income home buyers. But like most government programs, they are overworked with limited resources. Real estate investors have infiltrated the program by buying and renting these homes for profit. We want to increase federal funding to ensure the oversight committee stays independent of developer money, hold the Houston’s Housing and Community Development Department accountable, enforce rules that make sure these homes are going to the people they were built for, and keep building homes on vacant lots in our district.
· We endorse the Houston Community Land Trust that will give homes to families at low purchase price and lower property tax.
A new Acres Homes house with 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, at 1,400 sq feet built under the Houston Community Land Trust in 2019.
This program will allow the Land Trust to own and maintain land, while they sell houses at a reduced price. The Land Trust will cap the home’s value at 1.25% and give home ownership classes to new buyers. This will make sure that even if the surrounding area is rising in property taxes, the houses themselves will stay affordable for generations.
This is radical to the current system that gives government subsidies to developers in exchange for them not raising rents for a specific time, but once that time is over they hike up prices and long-time residents are forced to move. Trust Funds are the future of affordable housing, with so much success in Vermont that Bernie Sanders introduced the National Affordable Housing Trust Fund in 2001.
· We will fight for federal funding for supportive housing nonprofits. We need to stop policing the homeless. We want to increase resources to local leaders and organizations to make them more effective.
We will advocate for increased funding to the State Community Development Block Grant program, which awards grants to increase services to the homeless, develop and maintain affordable housing, and create new jobs and job training.
We will increase oversight for the Continuum of Care Program whose sole mission is to end homelessness. We will ensure our money goes to the people, by creating local oversight for nonprofits who rehouse families, make sure people stayed enrolled in their education programs, and promote self-sufficiency.
· We will fight for emergency relief funds and strict oversight to make sure Houstonians affected by flooding are actually rebuilding and weatherizing homes.
Harvey hit us hard. But so did flooding from Memorial Day in 2015 and Tax Day in 2016. The families currently in neighborhoods that flood after a few days of rain know the costs of rebuilding year after year with little help. After Harvey, FEMA spent $1.5 billion on shelter, food, and medical care that went far but were temporary answers without real solutions. The FEMA National Flood Insurance Program states it’s paid more than $8.2 billion in claims across Texas. The City of Houston has been awarded $1.18 billion on federal housing with $1.12 billion going to Harris County. HUD announced it will give Texas $5 billion for flooding infrastructure. But where is the money?
We will fight for federal funds not just being awarded, but RECEIVED to our city. We will fight to expedite the federal requirement that federal agencies have to accept public comment on funding before dispersing money. This is a bureaucratic requirement that is used to slow down and DELAY the money we desperately need.
We will fight for oversight to make sure that federal funds are being put to good use, demanding that subcontractors submit timely reports to city and state officials on how their supporting Houston flood victims. We will prioritize rebuilding neighborhoods that have historically been hit hardest and vulnerable populations.
· We will fight for anti-corruption measures on developers, mandate that real estate deals look out for Houstonians, and make sure property companies stay out of politicians’ wallets.
Currently in Texas, a state official has influence in whether a new housing development can receive low-income housing federal tax credits. As we have seen in Dallas, San Antonio, and Houston this has caused developers to wine, dine, and bribe their way into our politicians’ pockets to name expensive new highrises as “low-income housing”. We support a change in the Low-Incoming Housing Tax Credit program to ban any elected official’s authority to influence, and will fight for an independent committee with rigorous standards to prove new developments will only get tax breaks for low-income housing ONLY IF THEY BUILD low-income housing.
We will fight the ludicrous 2017 Tax and Jobs Cut Act enacted by a corrupt administration that have shredded any progress made to affordable housing. We fight to bring back restrictions on housing developers and give more power to affordable housing organizations. Read more about this here.
We want to expand the long-standing Fair Housing Act to include discrimination against low-income families by corporate developers using intimidation tactics to buy their land. We fight to bring more resources to the Department of Justice to look into claims of discrimination by mortgage or home improvement loans to bring justice on families targeted by the the greedy real estate industry.
· We endorse current legislation from presidential candidates on a national rent increase cap to prevent tenant exploitation by greedy corporations, new eviction laws, the creation of a National Fair Housing Agency to investigate mortgage discrimination, and decarbonizing homes.
The fight for equality is very diverse in areas of need. Housing is just one battle for the working class who everyday feels more like a surviving class under current economic conditions.
This is why our hope is to show you how hard we are working to build the vision and plan to PUSH FORWARD to a Houston we all can call home and feel secure in. Secure in our neighborhoods. Secure in the roots that we set for our children. Secure in our futures, the elderly and the youth alike.
As this campaign pivots towards the last 4 months of the primary stage, I hope to continue to share more of my story with you. I hope that these lessons and experiences that I hold on to can connect with your own personal story. Most of all, that this connection motivates you to join our fight.
Let us be the first truly loud voice in the 3rd largest city, the most diverse in the country, and declare proudly: Housing is a Human Right in Houston.
