Housing

Rising costs and affordable housing challenges threaten urban areas in Texas

Cities in Texas are in the midst of an escalating housing crisis. Affordability is slipping even in Houston, one of the least expensive large cities in the U.S., said Caroline Cheong, Kinder Institute for Urban Research associate director of housing and neighborhoods.

Public housing is effectively over in Houston. What comes next?

In September, the Houston Housing Authority announced it is ending public housing, following a national trend, as cities such as Chicago and Atlanta have also done so, with previously government-run developments being converted to federally subsidized but privately owned mixed-income communities with fewer affordable units.

To build a better housing system in Houston, let’s start here

Houston has long been hailed as one of the country’s most affordable big cities, bucking national trends. But as the Kinder Institute and others have found, our affordability — and the economic opportunity that comes with it — could be slipping away.

In ‘A Good Reputation,’ Houston’s Northside offers diverging views on neighborhood change

In an April 2014 Houstonia Magazine article, “Where to Live Now: The 25 Hottest Neighborhoods of 2014,” the authors claimed that gentrification had “leapt beyond the Heights and into Lindale Park and Brooke Smith,” which meant that “Northside Village” was the “the next play for urban pioneers.”

Advocates for the homeless set for Houston’s annual count with funding, plan of action in flux

Next week, over 400 volunteers with the Coalition for the Homeless of Houston/Harris County will conduct the annual point-in-time count to determine if homelessness is increasing or decreasing in the area.