Public Policy – Housing Stability
Before anyone had heard of COVID-19, Texas already had a housing affordability problem. The cost of housing has risen steady over the past three decades while wages for low-skill and unskilled workers have been largely stagnant. When the coronavirus pandemic derailed the economy in March, 2020, many Texans found themselves out of work, especially service workers in nail salons, restaurants, bars, hotels and other “non-essential” businesses that were forced to close or greatly cut back on their operations. Many Texans, living paycheck-to-paycheck already, quickly found themselves unable to pay rent.
To help renters, Texas established the Texas Rent Relief (Links to an external site.) program while local cities and counties created various rental assistance programs such as the Houston/Harris Rent Help (Links to an external site.) program. The Texas Supreme Court quickly imposed a brief moratorium on residential evictions. Congress passed the CARES Act (Links to an external site.), which suspended evictions on “covered properties” through the end of last summer. When the CARES Act mostly expired, the Centers for Disease Control issued a nationwide eviction moratorium (Links to an external site.).
The CDC moratorium was declared unconstitutional (Links to an external site.). The Texas Rent Relief program stopped accepting new applications (Links to an external site.) as its funding has run out. While COVID numbers continue to improve, many citizens are still struggling to pay rent.
Last year, Houston and Harris County appointed a Housing Stability Task Force (Links to an external site.) to make policy recommendations.
Write a standard essay as if you were serving on the Housing Policy Task Force. What would you recommend and why? If your recommendation costs money, make sure your recommendation includes a source for the funding.
Submit in Word. Cite your sources.
Additional Resources
The Texas Supreme Court imposes an eviction moratorium: https://www.texastribune.org/2020/03/19/coronavirus-updates-texas-economy-government-employees-telemedicine/ (Links to an external site.)
And extends it: https://www.texastribune.org/2020/04/28/Texas-evictions-moratorium-extended/ (Links to an external site.)
This Kinder Institute report outlines the problem: https://kinder.rice.edu/urbanedge/2020/06/23/rents-and-home-prices-go-once-affordable-houston-housing-grows-less-accessible (Links to an external site.)
January Advisors has an “Eviction Dashboard” that tracks eviction cases across the county: https://www.januaryadvisors.com/evictions/ (Links to an external site.)
