Issues Facing Texas Renters

Issues Facing Texas Renters

Lesson Objectives

• Learners will understand the challenges faced by renters in Texas
• Learners will be able to connect the underlying causes of these issues
• Learners will be able to relate these issues and their causes to their organizing

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• In this course we will briefly discuss five challenges confronting renters in Texas:
• 1) Scarcity
• 2) Unaffordability
• 3) Substandard conditions
• 4) Poor location
• 5) Bad management

Scarcity

• Rental housing has become increasingly scarce in the US, and Texas is one of the most afflicted states
• Scarcity gives power to landlords, who benefit when renters have fewer options

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Scarcity

• In the private sector, a combination of factors has made it unprofitable for developers to build affordable units at a large enough scale to meet the need
• At the same time, housing authorities have been prevented from public housing expansion through inadequate federal funding

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Unaffordability

• The issue that most directly affects tenants – and is closely tied to every issue tenants face – is unaffordability
• Fewer and fewer units are feasible options to families who are identified as “extremely low income,” as the market appeals instead to the higher income levels
• Texas has an extreme shortage of housing affordable to the lowest income levels

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Unaffordability

• The result of this, as poor families are left with fewer and fewer options, is that homelessness has increased, cramped living conditions have become more common, and a large majority of low-income Texans spend 3/4ths of their paycheck on rent

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Substandard conditions

• Scarcity and unaffordability help create the conditions for poorly maintained housing
• Not only is it hard for low-income families to find housing – the housing they find tends to be substandard and often dangerous to their health

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Substandard housing

• Landlords have little financial incentive to properly maintain units rented by low-income families
• The government has frequently failed to properly enforce living condition standards for this segment of the housing market, allowing landlords to get away with this negligence

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Poor location

• Decades of systemic discrimination has resulted in a disproportionate amount of affordable housing being located in the least desirable areas of cities
• These areas are historically underserved, meaning that they suffer from poor infrastructure, poor health outcomes, underfunded schools, and are at increased risk of natural disasters

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Bad Management

• Landlords’ position of power over tenants naturally leads to exploitation
• Landlords are further empowered by the lack of options for renters
• This balance of power could easily be tilted more towards tenants through regulatory actions taken by the government; instead, the trend in Texas has been for political leaders to push the laws even further in favor of landlords

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Summary

• Understanding these issues, the role of tenant advocates then is to think strategically about actions they can take to fight against these problems and their causes

• 1) Scarcity
• 2) Unaffordability
• 3) Substandard conditions
• 4) Poor location
• 5) Bad management