BG Reads | News You Need to Know (May 17, 2022)
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[AUSTIN METRO]
County, nonprofits gear up to administer supportive housing resolution (Austin Monitor)
The Travis County Commissioners Court met for a work session Thursday to review the ongoing, federally funded affordable housing initiatives in the Austin area.
Multiple nonprofits are preparing to build supportive housing in Travis County using federal American Rescue Plan Act funds, earmarked for use by commissioners last year. The nine groups – the Other Ones Foundation, Mobile Loaves and Fishes, Foundation Communities, Austin Area Urban League, Caritas of Austin, Family Eldercare, Integral Care, LifeWorks and the SAFE Alliance – presented their progress and goals to the commissioners, including the number of affordable housing units slated for the area and timelines of construction.
The county’s overarching goal is to create 2,892 total units, 1,101 of which will be dedicated solely to the homelessness response. Of those, 2,049 are slated to be affordable – geared toward those making 80 percent of the the area median income or less – while 849 of the new units, or 29 percent, will be market-rate.
“We are doing our best to move as quickly as we can to keep these projects moving,” Lawrence Lyman, division director of county Health and Human Services, said. “I apologize for being a broken record on this, but this is complicated. We’re just trying to learn the interaction of multiple funding streams.”… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
TSA lines are out the door again at Austin's airport (KUT)
The lines for security screenings spilled out of the Barbara Jordan Terminal and onto the sidewalk Saturday morning at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport. The wait was so long that some people who showed up well in advance missed their flights.
"It was pretty crazy," said Arjun Kannan, a New York City resident who was visiting Austin for the first time. "Airports have bad days, but I haven't seen something this bad."
Kannan said he showed up at 4:45 a.m. and didn't get through the line until almost three hours later, missing his 7 a.m. JetBlue flight. The airline rebooked him on a later flight free of charge… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
How rising mortgage rates are impacting the Austin housing market (KXAN)
As Austin home prices continue to soar, property taxes increase and mortgage rates keep ticking up, prospective buyers are asking, “is something finally going to give?”
The short answer is no.
“Truly, we haven’t seen that impact our market,” said Austin Board of Realtors President Cord Shiflet. “We’re a demand-based market, we’ve got buyers coming in here by the droves, and everybody needs a place to go.”
ABoR’s latest housing report from March shows the median sale price of homes, townhomes and condos in the Austin-Round Rock MSA was $521,100. That price is up 22% year over year.
While those buyers keep coming in from outside of Austin, Shiflet said local buyers, particularly first-time homebuyers, are the ones getting priced out.
“It’s going to be people that are in the lower price range,” Shiflet said.” A half-million [dollars] and under is where we’re going to really feel that pressure. People that are scraping together to get their first home bought, and that are a lot more price-sensitive. Obviously, a higher rate means a higher payment.”
The 30-year fixed mortgage rate was 5.11% on Monday, according to Zillow.
While Shiflet said you shouldn’t expect home prices to drop, there may be some hope for falling mortgage rates later this year… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Project Connect bridge, tunnel plans could move Waller Creek Boathouse to south shore hostel site (Community Impact)
As designs for the Project Connect transit system move closer to completion, the city and other stakeholders are also planning for related moves needed to accommodate the new rail lines—including the Waller Creek Boathouse's likely move away from downtown.
The relocation has been under consideration for months as transportation staff continue to evaluate how Project Connect's Blue Line will make its way between Austin-Bergstrom International Airport and downtown Austin. That path includes a crossing of Lady Bird Lake, and the exact scope of the proposed bridge carrying the Blue Line between Riverside Drive and the north shore has yet to be determined. However, officials said that connection will likely wipe out the boathouse's footprint at 74 Trinity St., requiring the facility's move elsewhere.
During a May 16 community meeting on the boathouse's future, planners said a probable landing spot for the community water sports facility is the old hostel building at 2200 S. Lakeshore Blvd., on the lake's south side. The city-owned site is part of Town Lake Metropolitan Park with links to the Ann and Roy Butler Hike and Bike Trail and is adjacent to a paddleboard and kayak rental service.
The focus on the site comes several months after officials announced six possible locations, including the hostel property, which was identified in January as a leading option…(LINK TO FULL STORY)
[TEXAS]
Personal information of 1.8 million Texans with Department of Insurance claims was exposed for years, audit says (Texas Tribune)
The personal information of almost 2 million Texans who filed claims with the Texas Department of Insurance was exposed and publicly available for nearly three years, according to a state audit released last week.
The department said the personal information of 1.8 million workers who have filed compensation claims — including Social Security numbers, addresses, dates of birth, phone numbers and information about workers’ injuries — was accessible online to members of the public from March 2019 to January 2022.
TDI officials said the department was in the midst of a regularly scheduled data management audit when the department discovered the unauthorized disclosure and reported it to auditors. On March 24, after the state’s audit was completed, TDI posted a public notice acknowledging it became aware of the issue in January, the auditor’s office said… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Long-planned changes to Texas foster care system have ‘sputtered,’ senators say (Dallas Morning News)
Texas senators on Monday complained that an expanded privatization of foster care is going too slowly. Bureaucrats don’t share lawmakers’ urgency for a faster statewide rollout of “community-based care,” in which a single contractor takes charge of foster care placements and services in an entire region, they said. That’s even though over much of the time since 2010, as the new approach was debated, the Legislature itself was cautious about a quick adoption. Since 2017, Texas has failed to thrust community-based care into full operation, border to border, said GOP Sens. Lois Kolkhorst of Brenham and Charles Perry of Lubbock. “It has really dragged on,” said Kolkhorst, who heads a special panel on Child Protective Services that Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick created in March after disturbing revelations about a Bastrop County facility for girls who are victims of sex trafficking. “You read these reports and you say, ‘Oh my gosh, we’re in the same place we were,’” she said.
Perry, the panel’s vice chairman, noted that the Department of Family and Protective Services has hired a “single source continuum contractor” in just four of 16 regions. Only three of them have entered “stage two,” a full handoff of the duties of CPS conservatorship caseworkers to private workers. And “stage three” — the envisioned series of financial incentives and penalties — hasn’t started in any of them, Perry observed. The department hopes to choose a single source continuum contractor and award a contract by Aug. 1 in Dallas, Collin and seven other counties in what’s called “Metroplex East.” The contractor is usually a private nonprofit but could be a public entity, such as a local government. The winning bidder is charged with lining up all of the homes and therapies in a particular region for the maltreated children whom CPS has removed from birth families. “It’s typical state agency stuff. We do a bill and then there’s this ‘rules propagation’ process,” Perry said. “I don’t know what we got to do to get the attention of the personnel involved in these agencies to implement what we say we need to do.”… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Austin beefing up security at former Candlewood Suites after break-ins, burglaries (Austin American-Statesman)
City officials say the vacant Candlewood Suites hotel in Northwest Austin will soon be under a more careful watch after Council Member Mackenzie Kelly said a series of break-ins at the site created an unsafe environment for the community.
The Austin City Council purchased the Northwest Austin hotel, now known as Pecan Gardens, to house people experiencing homelessness, despite opposition from some neighbors and area business owners. Next week, the city is expected to approve a contract to fund six months of renovations at the hotel that would allow people to move in.
Kelly, who represents the area, said she learned about break-ins and other activity at the property, such as people sleeping at the hotel without permission. But what was also concerning, she said, was that the entire hotel had been vandalized and trashed.
“Damage spans all three floors of the building and in nearly every room,” she said after visiting the property this week. “Nearly all the doors were bashed in; clothing, belongings and trash were strewn throughout the hotel; and several televisions had been ripped from the drywall and stolen. The entire hotel was stripped of copper, and washers, dryers, air conditioners and electrical wiring were destroyed.”… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[BG PODCAST]
Episode 158: Managing Growth in the City of Kyle - A Discussion with Council Member Dex Ellison
Today’s episode (158) features City of Kyle Council Member Dex Ellison. He and Bingham Group CEO A.J. discuss the growth and associated challenges with one the fastest growing cities in Texas.
According to the U.S. Census, the city grew from a populations of 5,000 in 2000, to just over 52,300 (and growing) in 2020.
First elected to Kyle City Council in November 2019, Council Member Ellison was re-elected in November 2019. -> EPISODE LINK
[HEARINGS]
Tuesday (5/17)