With 25 years of service, the Girls Empowerment Network's focus on listening and being responsive to its clients drove home a key lesson: For any nonprofit to be effective, it needs to continually make its services accessible to people.
Here’s where rent relief is helping Harris County residents at risk of eviction
The new CDC moratorium on evictions will expire on Oct. 3, but renters who are in jeopardy of losing their homes — and landlords who are owed money — can still apply for federally funded assistance.
Houston isn’t the best, but it’s one of the greatest, according to the rankings
Posts about where Houston and other Texas metros are ranked on lists of best and worst places for you-name-it routinely perform well on this blog. These lists range from happiest and safest cities to best cities for staycations, foodies and working from home. Today, we’re kicking off a new feature focused on rankings and Houston’s place on them.
Urban flood buyouts are fracturing some Houston neighborhoods more than others
Since the 1980s, the federally backed home buyout program has been used to move more than 40,000 households out of flood-prone areas. What began as an effort to help farmers weather the devastating impacts of flooding has become a tool for urban and suburban homeowners to escape worsening climate risks. Yet as logical as this policy sounds, a new study from sociologists at Rice and Temple finds it may also be eroding the social fabric of some communities more than others—especially those with lower home values and higher proportions of Black and Hispanic residents.
As affordability wanes, Houston and Harris County renters face crowding, cost burdens
The Kinder Institute’s second annual “State of Housing” report comes as Houston—and much of the country—remains in the midst of a residential real estate bonanza. A yearlong buying spree, fueled by a combination of factors, is driving the country to historically low inventory levels and propelling prices ever higher.
Concentrated poverty in schools is redlining’s legacy. Undoing it should be ours.
As the school year ends, the relief is palpable. Let’s acknowledge what we went through during the pandemic. Many of us are feeling burnt out, but this is not the time to stop paying attention. Now is the moment to think big about the future of education.
Maternal deaths are public health and health equity problems. They’re also preventable.
The maternal mortality rate in the U.S. is rising, and Black women have the highest risk. Extending access to postpartum health care would prevent deaths.
The killing of George Floyd altered views of racial discrimination in Houston
The 2021 Kinder Houston Area Survey shows a striking uptick among white and Hispanic residents in their acknowledgment of racial injustice and the discrimination that Black Americans face.
How inequalities made Harvey recovery harder for many nonwhite Houstonians
When Stephen Klineberg was conducting the Kinder Houston Area Survey in February 2017, he asked Houston-area residents to name the biggest problem facing the region. At the time, only 1% of participants thought flooding and storms were the most important issue.
Black community, the moment to value ourselves is now
“One callous white police officer convicted does not signal the demise of anti-Blackness. Her talons are embedded deeply in this nation’s flesh. It is like putting a $100 down payment on a $100 million house. It is progress, but you might want to hold off on scheduling the housewarming party.”
Coming out of the pandemic, how can cities counter 2020’s sharp rise in homicides?
Among 34 large cities studied, homicide rates increased almost 30% last year, compared to 2019. Reasons for the shocking spike relate in large part to the pandemic and its societal impacts, but the killing of George Floyd may have been a contributing factor as well. Evidence-based approaches and committed elected officials will be key to reducing violent crime in American cities going forward.
These 3 Houston-area cities have the highest minority homeownership rates in the US
A new study shows large, small and midsize cities with the highest — and lowest — minority homeownership rates. The No. 1 city in the U.S. is a Houston suburb.
Repairing the urban fabric torn apart by highways in America
How rebuilding freeways has helped heal mid-20th-century transportation scars in cities like San Francisco, Dallas, Syracuse and Washington, D.C., along with a cautionary tale from Houston.
Mapping inequity in Houston’s COVID-19 vaccination rollout
Like many resources in Houston, access to the COVID-19 vaccine is concentrated on the west side of the city, while the greatest need and impact of the disease is concentrated among the residents on the east side.
A data-driven approach to combating food insecurity worsened by COVID-19
In August, Urban Harvest launched its mobile market to bring healthy and affordable food options to underserved areas with limited access to fresh fruits and vegetables. The nonprofit collaborated with the Kinder Institute’s Houston Community Data Connections to create a data-based decision support tool that helps ensure the mobile market is being dispatched to areas of Houston where residents need it the most.
Rice University
Kraft Hall
6100 Main Street, Suite 305
Houston, TX 77005-1892
