LULAC Document Offers Suggestions Toward Ensuring East Austin Housing Affordability

EAST AUSTIN, TX -- A newly released report by the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) is being viewed as something of a potential blueprint in addressing economic forces that are leaving Latinos behind in a wave of gentrification.

The radio station KUOW addressed the issue in a segment broadcast on Memorial Day. The report focused on Gilbert Rivera specifically and the Rosewood Neighborhood Contact Team he oversees generally. Rivera expressed his fears of an rapidly disappearing diversity in East Austin, which some time ago emerged as something of a Ground Zero in the gentrification skirmishes given the rapid pace of commercial development.

“The diversity is disappearing rapidly, because with every McMansion, every condo, every one of those things that you see, every bar that’s gone up on East Cesar Chavez and Sixth Street, people of color are moving out,” he told the radio station.

The disappearance is not just of the brick-and-mortar variety as older structures are increasingly demolished for new ones, but a human one as well. The quickened pace of commercial development toward appealing to a upwardly mobile crowd descending on now-trendy East Austin has yielded higher property rates to those who've called the place home long before the real estate speculators descended on the scene.

Rivera uses himself as an example to illustrate the point: “We bought our house in 1983 for $39,000, right here on 12th and Pleasant Valley, central city. Today my house is worth close to a half a million dollars. So is that affordability? Give me a break.”

The hope offered by the LULAC document is some of its proposed solutions, such as fast-tracking affordable housing development. Austin City Council Member Delia Garza said the analysis offers insights other reports might miss.

“Our demographer gives reports about how our poverty rate is declining, and you would think that’s a good thing, but it’s notm," Garza said. "It’s because they’re moving away. They can’t afford to live here anymore."

As a result, the Latino population embarks on an exodus to outlying communities that are more affordable. Austin recently acquired a dubious distinction of being the only major metro area to be losing, rather than gaining, African Americans into its diversity mix due to the same affordability issues.

"So our poverty families are just moving to Pflugerville and Kyle and Buda," Garza said. "It’s not that we’re doing better to help these families, it’s that we haven’t done enough.”

Garza said she hopes to see these issues addressed by the city’s new Equity Office, which is set to begin operating this summer.

Read and hear the full story at KUOW >>