Texas Organizing Project (TOP), West Street Recovery, Texas Housers, Northeast Action Collaborative (NAC), and the Coalition for the Environment, Equity and Resilience (CEER) are demanding that Mayor Whitmire and council members increase the allocation for housing in the City’s Community Development Block Grant – Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) funds.
The community groups are calling for a total housing investment of at least $115 million in the $314.6 million relief funds package, claiming Mayor Whitmire’s recent $50 million allocation is inadequate. This demand comes as Mayor Whitmire welcomes HUD Secretary Turner while the Trump administration angles to slash housing investments and upends disaster forecasting and response through his attacks on FEMA and NOAA.
Houston’s housing crisis is made worse by increasingly extreme weather. Tens of thousands of Houston families are still living with damage from Hurricane Beryl and the 2024 derecho, with several facing leaking roofs, structural hazards, and mold. For many, the next severe storm could bring even more destruction — because repairs and weatherization haven’t happened.
The community groups urged the Whitmire administration to allocate funding for housing in its initial disaster recovery proposal, where $0 in funding was dedicated to housing at the start.
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About Texas Organizing Project:
TOP organizes Black and Latino communities in Dallas, Harris, Bexar, and Fort Bend counties with the goal of transforming Texas into a state where working people of color have the power and representation they deserve. For more information, visit organizetexas.org.