BG Reads | News You Need to Know (October 22, 2021)
[BINGHAM GROUP]
EVENTS // Thursday, October 28 (6PM - 10PM0, A Night In Verde Presented by St. David’s Healthcare - benefiting the 4ATX Foundation (Austin FC’s non-profit arm).
[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]
City sees details of homelessness strategy, with push to raise $115M (Austin Monitor)
City Council learned in detail Thursday how its $210 million in federal aid, bond funds and other allocations will be used to address and possibly end homelessness over the next three years.
The presentation by Homeless Strategy Officer Dianna Grey focused largely on how the nearly $107 million the city received from the American Rescue Plan Act will be used to accomplish the goal of finding housing for 3,000 individuals and stabilizing another 2,300 households.
The plan details came on the same day a collective of local political leaders and representatives from social services groups and charitable foundations announced that $400 million has been raised toward the estimated $515 million cost of permanently ending homelessness in Austin. That figure was revealed at a spring summit of local leaders looking at how to use one-time federal aid on housing and social services for the homeless.
Since then the city has committed $210 million, with Travis County contributing $57 million and the state offering $92 million. Thursday’s announcement also marked the beginning of a push to raise the remaining $115 million from the private sector and philanthropic organizations.
Grey’s plan breaks the federal spending into five categories: crisis services ($10 million), core housing programs ($55 million), other services ($7 million), system capacity building ($9.2 million), and capital investment ($25.5 million).
Mayor Steve Adler said the plan will let the city take advantage of the “once in a generation” pool of funding to make significant improvements in housing and services for the homeless that for years have seemed out of reach… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
How can Austin build enough housing? Commissioners debate solutions for $11B dilemma (Austin Business Journal)
Austin's swift population growth and affordability concerns were put under a microscope at a recent Austin Zoning and Platting Commission meeting, which sparked debate over what to do as the region's ascent is only expected to continue.
The discussion revolved around how the city can make it easier to create housing, especially at varying levels of affordability, which could include making code changes and rethinking how developer incentive programs like density bonuses work. The group discussed the topics at its Oct. 19 meeting, and no action plans or recommendations to Austin City Council were nailed down.
The city has attempted to bring the land development code — which determines what can be built where in Austin — up to date for many years, though the latest attempt was halted by a lawsuit from a group of homeowners. A judge ruled in favor of the homeowners in 2020 but the city appealed and the suit could be resolved early next year.
Council members have expressed interest in moving forward with a piecemeal approach to code updates in the meantime, though those discussions haven't kicked into full gear yet on the dais. City leaders are also working updating a popular density bonus program.
In a nutshell, from 2010 to 2020 the city of Austin population shot up 171,465 to 961,855, or 21.7%. The raw population increase of more than 171,000 trailed only major cities such as New York, Houston and Fort Worth, according to U.S. Census data. Affordability and housing supply concerns are at an all-time high, having been exacerbated over the course of the pandemic. Developers are scurrying to get more units on the ground amid labor and material shortages.
As a result, the city is far behind its goal to create a massive number of affordable housing units through the latter part of this decade.
The city adopted the Strategic Housing Blueprint in 2017, which aims to significantly increase the city’s affordable housing stock by 2028. It called for 135,000 housing units to be built in Austin over 10 years at all income levels, which city staffer Erica Leak told commissioners could cost roughly $11 billion… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Austin community group analyzes possible Prop A effects on communities of color (KXAN)
As Austinites head to the polls this November, one local community organization is working to raise awareness on Proposition A and possible impacts it could have on city funding.
Communities of Color United for Racial Justice will host a roundtable discussion this Saturday at 12 p.m. at the Texas Empowerment Gym. The roundtable will feature panelists from No Way to Prop A, 10,000 Fearless and Black Women in Business.
Political action committee Save Austin Now collected more than 25,600 signatures in July to solidify the proposition’s place on the November ballot.
If approved by voters, Prop. A would increase police staffing in Austin to a minimum of two officers per 1,000 people. It would also mandate doubling the required training for officers, increase minority hiring and require 35% of officer shifts be spent on community policing.
Prop. A is estimated to cost Austin between $271.5 million and $598.8 million over the next five years, according to Austin’s chief financial officer.
“Prop. A fixes this by requiring the city to hire and maintain more officers and to rapidly catch up to the number of officers we have lost or fired when city council defunded the police in 2019. We’re 320 officers short of where we were then, and we’re already seeing the impact,” SAN’s website reads.
Ashleigh Hamilton, community organizer for CCU, said this Saturday’s event will include a breakdown of the proposition and time for questions and community discussions. She added she felt it was important to analyze conversations around safety in Austin and critique the impacts Prop A has on communities of color.
“Protests against police brutality and police violence against protesters in the summer of 2020 have been followed by efforts at the state and local level to mandate and increase police funding,” she said. “This actual roundtable came about just for the simple fact of — we’re going to call it what it is — this is a direct backlash from all the efforts that we did over this summer with ‘Reimagining Public Safety’ and trying to reallocate and defund the police.”… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[TEXAS NEWS]
Gov. Greg Abbott’s pick for top Texas election post worked with Trump to fight 2020 results (Texas Tribune)
Gov. Greg Abbott on Thursday appointed John Scott — a Fort Worth attorney who briefly represented former President Donald Trump in a lawsuit challenging the 2020 election results in Pennsylvania — as Texas' new secretary of state.
As secretary of state, Scott would oversee election administration in Texas — a task complicated in recent years by baseless claims of election fraud from Republicans in the highest levels of government, fueled by Trump. The former president has filed a flurry of lawsuits nationwide and called for audits in Texas and elsewhere to review the results of the 2020 presidential elections. Trump’s own attorney general, Bill Barr, said there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud nationwide, and in Texas, an official with the secretary of state’s office said the 2020 election was “smooth and secure.”
Scott could not immediately be reached for comment.. (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has paid his first voter fraud bounty. It went to an unexpected recipient (Dallas Morning News)
Nearly a year after offering up a hefty bounty for evidence of voter fraud in the wake of Donald Trump’s loss, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has handed out his first reward. But instead of going to an informant who smoked out fraud by Democrats, Patrick’s five-figure payout went to a progressive poll worker in Pennsylvania whose tip led to a single conviction of illegal voting by a registered Republican. The unexpected outcome reveals the political dangers of cash bounties. With few strings attached, and more cases of alleged GOP voting fraud still in Pennsylvania courts, Patrick may be asked to shell out even more cash to his opponents. This case also undercuts unsubstantiated GOP concerns that widespread voter fraud helped hand the White House to Joe Biden, political experts said.
In Pennsylvania, a state that was central in Trump’s attempts to overthrow the election, around five cases of voter fraud from last year’s election have been prosecuted, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer — four involved Republicans. In an interview with The Dallas Morning News, tipster Eric Frank said he would have turned in anyone he saw voting illegally regardless of party. But as the scion of a family of Democratic operatives, he also acknowledged the irony of the situation. This week, Frank deposited $25,000 of Patrick’s campaign cash into his bank account. “It’s my belief that they were trying to get cases of Democrats doing voter fraud. And that just wasn’t the case,” Frank said. “This kind of blew up in their face.” Patrick’s spokesman Allen Blakemore declined to comment…(LINK TO FULL STORY)
Republicans slam Rodney Ellis' proposal to redistrict Harris County, claim it will create 'chaos' (Houston Chronicle)
The two Republican Harris County commissioners say a proposal by Democrats to re-draw commissioner precinct boundaries will cut services and dilute the influence of conservative residents. The proposed map by Precinct 1 Commissioner Rodney Ellis would significantly alter the shapes of precincts 3 and 4, the two represented by Republicans. Precinct 4 would arch along the county’s northern edge from Katy to Baytown, while Precinct 3 would be entirely west of Loop 610. Commissioners Court will take input from the public on redistricting at a hearing Thursday at 4 p.m. Precinct 3 Commissioner Tom Ramsey called Ellis’s map “the most corrupt plan I have ever seen my 45 years in doing work in Harris County.”
“The objective is control,” Ramsey said Thursday on the Michael Berry Show. “The objective is to create the most chaos as possible, because (the Democrats) cannot stand the fact that 3 and 4 function very well. … It drives them crazy, so they want to blow it up.” He said he is particularly concerned that Precinct 4 would by far have the largest share of residents living in unincorporated areas, who rely on the county for services like parks and community centers. Ramsey predicted a strain on that precinct would lead to cutbacks. Precinct 4 Commissioner Jack Cagle said the Ellis map, if approved, could allow Democrats to finally capture a fourth seat on Commissioners Court, which would allow them to set tax rates without any input from Republicans. In an email to constituents, Cagle predicted that would lead to future tax increases. Cagle has proposed a map of his own. It largely keeps the current shapes of the precincts intact, while ceding parts of precincts 3 and 4 to precincts 1 and 2… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[NATIONAL NEWS]
They refused to pay rent and stole the fridge. Landlords deal with pandemic squatters (NPR)
Just before the pandemic, Nitin Bajaj and his wife Nimisha Lotia rented an apartment they own in Los Angeles to two young women.
"They were really nice to talk to," Lotia says.
But as soon as the pandemic hit, the new renters, both in their late 20s, stopped paying the rent. Lotia says the young women sent them an email saying that COVID-19 had created a financial hardship and that the city had just imposed an eviction ban — so the renters couldn't be evicted.
"No further explanation," she says. "No calls or nothing, just an email, and I think a snapshot of what the city rule was."
Around the country more than 20 million Americans lost their jobs as the pandemic took hold. Many fell behind on rent. Eviction moratoriums at the local, state, and federal level clearly helped millions of people keep a roof over their heads as they struggled financially. But some other renters took advantage of the protections… (LINK TO FULL STORY)