It was a beautiful, sunny Friday afternoon, perfect for enjoying happy hour with friends. On April 4, many people did just that while eleven city council candidates gathered at Scholz Beer Garten to discuss affordable housing. There were select Austin community members attendance to query the city council hopefuls during this forum. Only in Austin can you combine drinking and politics and have it seem like a natural fit.
Affordable housing in Austin has been a hot topic as of late, and a sizeable group of people gathered to hear what the candidates had to say on the subject. Currently, our city council is bending over backward to accommodate the whims of private developers who want to penetrate the Austin market and are flooding our urban core with unaffordable "luxury" condos. These condo developers have, in many instances, been allowed to buy out centrally located properties where low-income individuals on fixed incomes currently live, such as Sunnymeade and Shady Grove. The developers are replacing the affordable housing with units that the newly-displaced families simply cannot afford to live in. Current city council member Jennifer Kim stated that the hands of the city council are tied in terms of being able to intervene because of a lack of legal jurisdiction to restrict the actions of real estate developers. Yet it seems that the city council merely used this as an excuse to cover up their lack of advocacy on behalf of the use of valuable land.
We found most of the candidates' proposals contradictory to significant economic research on the topic of affordable housing. The solutions du jour of the candidates were that Austin should build new housing units or convert unused publicly owned buildings to public housing. This is known as "project-based" housing aid and eligibility is determined when availability occurs. In addition to this proposal, individuals lose their housing if circumstances necessitate a move locally or otherwise.
A viable alternative to the suggested "project-based" housing solution is "tenant-based" housing. This housing aid grants vouchers to individuals to use for any apartment or housing unit that meets certain quality and costs standards. They then have the flexibility to pick a place that best meets their needs - namely near work opportunities, good schools, access to public transportation or low-crime areas. With vouchers, individuals are not tied to taking the first available unit. Rather, they are allowed the opportunity to take their vouchers with them and obtain affordable housing wherever they need to live. More importantly, this solution allows for low-income individuals and families to spread out into the community where the social economic statuses vary, thus allowing mixed-income families to engage and mutually benefit each other.
A significant number of research studies point to the fact that "tenant-based" solutions, like vouchers, are significantly more cost-effective and are a better use of the taxpayer's money. Additionally, because they are more cost effective, vouchers increase the number of individuals and families who can receive housing subsidies without any changes to the already expansive $28 billion HUD budget. Although well-meaning, the proposed solutions of the majority of the hopeful council members failed to consider the very real and compelling economic research on this topic.
However, the city council candidates did not entirely fail the community in their proposals. They were significantly aware of the social and economic implications of providing housing solutions in centrally located areas of town. They mostly maintained the importance of providing affordable housing where low-income constituents could have access to public transportation, work opportunities and access to the community resources that would enhance their chances of obtaining financial stability and ensuring their family's well-being.
Despite the aforementioned attempts, the candidates missed their opportunity to take a stance on addressing larger systemic issues responsible for the loss of current affordable housing and instead focused on proposing an increase in the less efficient "project-based" solutions.
Unfortunately, Austin's affordable housing crisis needs more than a Friday happy hour to remedy it.
Tostado and Tidwell are social work graduate students.
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