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WHY IS HOUSING IMPORTANT?
The housing issue in Travis County is interwoven and interconnected with a number of issues that impact this community. The purpose of this section is to clearly identify why safe and affordable housing is so important for our community and how the lack of housing creates serious problems.
Currently, Travis County is experiencing a tremendous economic boom. Unfortunately, not all of our residents are reaping the benefits - in fact it is further jeopardizing already marginalized populations. Austin/Travis County continues to experience unprecedented growth, which has put a strain on available housing stock. The result is a chain reaction of events that creates additional problems:
RISING HOUSING COSTS
- Rising housing costs drive up property taxes. According to the Travis County Appraisal District, the average property tax appraisal increased 5.2 percent in 1998, continuing a long-standing trend. This is causing many homeowners to vote against property tax increases. For example, in November 1999, voters rejected Austin Community College's proposed a property tax increase to meet the community's workforce development needs. Additionally, low income residents may be forced to sell due to inability to pay taxes.
- Once employees have been hired, payrolls increase to accommodate their housing expenses. Cost of living increases are critical in the Travis County area as housing costs continue to rise. This places burdens on employers to keep up with the growing economy. Unfortunately, wages in Austin have not kept pace with increases in cost of living. Most of the people moving into the Austin area are in the service industry, making less than $10/hour (Through the Roof, July 1999).
- Lower-income residents are displaced from their communities as neighborhoods are gentrified. Skyrocketing housing costs, often a result of gentrification, contribute to the shortage of affordable housing (Karen Schneider, December 1991). One example of a neighborhood in Austin that has undergone gentrification is Clarksville, which was once an affordable neighborhood (Susan S. Richardson, September 1995).
SUBURBAN SPRAWL
- Traffic congestion and pollution are increasing due to the vast majority of new housing being built in the suburbs, and growing numbers of people are moving out of central Austin. Sprawl is considered to be the fastest growing threat to the environment. The Sierra Club ranked Austin as the second-most sprawl-threatened mid-sized city in the United States, behind Orlando. Austin has also been ranked as the worst. In order to accommodate the explosive growth projected for Austin over the next 20 years, IH-35 would need 12 to 16 lanes. In order to address this issue, the City of Austin has instituted a Smart Growth policy "to rein in development along its fringes." (Chuck Lindell, Oct, 1999)
- Children in lower-income neighborhoods are not performing as well in school as children in higher-income areas, and teachers often cannot afford to live in the neighborhoods where they work. A study recently conducted by LULAC Council 85 for the Austin Latino Alliance showed that lower-income elementary school students in AISD received TAAS scores that ranged from 30 to 60, while higher-income AISD elementary schools received scores that ranged from 90 to 100.
- Segregation of the population is continuing because many higher income neighborhoods do not have affordable houses or apartments. The majority of low-income residents in Travis County live on the East side of IH-35. This is due in part to historic discrimination practices (see Barriers section of this assessment), but also in part to continuing protests by neighborhoods to build affordable housing nearby. Because higher-proportions of minorities and persons with disabilities are low-income, this perpetuates racial segregation in the community, and concentrates poverty in certain pockets of the community.
LACK OF SAFE AND AFFORDABLE HOUSING
- Residents are forced to live in substandard housing, which poses significant health risks to the community. Thousands of Travis County residents are living in unsafe housing conditions. Because of a recent court decision (Elgin Bank vs. Travis County), developers are not required to provide utility hook-ups, proper road access, or drainage systems (Through the Roof, July 1999). There are numerous septic system problems in rural areas, in addition to unsafe conditions presented by infestations of rodents and pests.
- In Travis County there are numerous boarding homes, privately operated, that are not licensed or regulated. These boarding homes house a significant number of persons with disabilities and generate a number of client abuse and or neglect complaints (Austin/Travis County MHMR, 1999).
- The community's tax base will decline as more mobile homes are purchased, which tend to decrease in value over time. For mobile homes, less property taxes will be collected as housing values decline, which means that the community will have less money to build roads, schools, or provide other public services.
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