What will it take for Houston to put affordable housing where it should be—high on the list of strategies for making all areas of the city as vibrant and economically vital as they can be? According to Houston LISC director Amanda Timm, in an incisive op-ed for the Houston Chronicle, the Near Northside neighborhood offers a model for how to nurture a diverse, high-opportunity community without displacing longtime residents: it has required an intelligent, far-reaching housing plan, a good influx of capital through public-private partnerships and bona fide cooperation among housing and community advocates.
The article below was originally published as:
"Timm: Can low-income housing build high-opportunity neighborhoods?"
Houston Chronicle (Note: This article may require a digital subscription to access.)
This fall when the city council adopted Plan Houston it advanced an historic opportunity to energize neighborhood economies—in part by ramping up our response to the city’s severe shortage of affordable housing.
Let’s hope that as the real work of putting ideas into action gets underway, that optimism holds true. The debate over where new housing should be built and how best to fund it remains a significant hurdle. Failure to clear it could endanger some of the Plan’s most important tenets and limit opportunities for families and communities across the city.
Affordable housing is about much more than reasonable rents and enough space for the kids. It is critical to preserving our labor pool by ensuring workers can afford to live in Houston. It strengthens businesses so that residents can afford to shop at local merchants. It connects people to transit and services. And it contributes to safe, vibrant streetscapes, giving neighbors the confidence to invest in their communities. Housing investments often have a multiplying effect, attracting more capital, spurring more development and creating jobs.
Right now, Houston isn’t enjoying those gains in the way it could and should. Tens of thousands of residents spend the majority of their incomes on rent—and even then typically are only able to afford aging, substandard apartments, often in areas battling blight and crime. And, the problem is getting worse as developers raze affordable developments to make way for luxury apartments. Gentrification can be helpful in reviving neighborhood economies—but not when it destroys affordability for long-time residents. Displacing poverty is not the same as alleviating it.
So, why haven’t we aggressively moved to better balance our housing stock and protect our local economy? As someone who has been knee-deep in this work for 20 years, I think it boils down to three things: our historical lack of a comprehensive city housing plan; insufficient access to the right kind of capital; and competing visions—even among housing and community advocates—as to what kind of development activity belongs in which communities.
Plan Houston will help us take on the first. And, with the right incentives, it also points a way toward answering the second. The city could leverage funds tied to Tax Increment Reinvestment Zones to expand affordable housing, especially targeting places where affordable apartments are rapidly disappearing. Housing bonds could complement that and help move projects forward—and do it all in keeping with the kind of quality-of-life priorities laid out in the Plan.
That leaves the third issue—the “where” related to development. Should we build affordable housing in affluent areas so low-income residents have better access to the advantages those communities offer? Should we invest heavily in distressed areas, leveraging housing gains to make them more attractive with access to public transportation, new businesses, improved safety, and expanded educational and employment opportunities?
Of course, we should be doing all of that. That’s the simple answer. But with an ever-shrinking pool of federal funding to seed these efforts, we have to make choices. How can we reach the broadest number of people and, as a city, make the largest possible gains?
The Near Northside community is a good example what can happen when we prioritize the needs of low-income communities. Housing investments laid the groundwork for a range of new economic activity there, with revitalized commercial corridors and less crime, new athletic fields and recreational activities, better educational opportunities and new services to help residents upgrade job skills and stabilize their family incomes. Access to more transit options, including Metro’s Red Line, provides access to opportunity for Near Northside residents.
Together, all of that has helped make the area more prosperous. Local leaders are working hard to make sure long-time residents benefit —by building and preserving affordable housing so they can afford to stay in the neighborhood. The goal is for Near Northside to emerge as a diverse, dynamic, high-opportunity neighborhood where people of various income levels can thrive.
None of that means we should shy away from complicated conversations about developing projects in upscale communities. Houston families need better choices so they can live near where they work and raise their children in places that make sense for them. Decades-old biases tied to race and class should not be allowed to hijack important housing and economic policy decisions.
Still, if we want to have a lasting impact—if we want to realize the hopeful ambitions of Plan Houston—we need to build public-private partnerships that prioritize our urban core. Quality affordable housing is the foundation on which that is built.