New Houston Housing Report Tells a Story of Under-Investment

The Rice Kinder Institute for Urban Research published a report, 2020 State of Housing in Houston and Harris County, detailing the state of housing supply, affordability, and impact of recent events in the Houston area, publishing new housing data to the Houston Community Data Connections website.

In a blog post published by the Kinder Institute, Luis Guajardo provides context to the report's findings, focusing on the historically Black neighborhood of Settegast in northeast Houston. "Recent events have drawn a much-needed critical eye to the racist housing outcomes that have been perpetuated by public policy. These outcomes not only are evidence of 'racial inequity' but also products of discrete political decisions made at all levels of government — by both policymakers and residents," writes Guajardo. 

Guajardo says that current issues in Settegast are rooted in a history of under-investment and choices related to housing and land policy. Settegast is a neighborhood flanked by two major highways, a railroad terminal, and two landfills where black families moved in hopes of escaping predatory lending practices and buttressing opportunity for homeownership and the development of intergenerational wealth for their families. When the neighborhood was annexed in 1949, chronic neglect left the neighborhood with the least sanitary conditions in the Hoston area. In recent decades, in light of increasing rents and decreasing incomes in the neighborhood, planners have ended the legacy of racist under-investment, revising policy to create greater community resilience and reshape the neighborhood.