Affordable Housing

Students may be eligible for up to $1,800 for on-campus rent in one academic year. Some say that's not enough in the state's most expensive big city.

Several bills at the state Legislature aim to make it easier to build housing in cities across Texas. It's a goal Austin had when it attempted to rewrite its land development code several years ago — a process ultimately upended by a legal challenge.

Hotelier Liz Lambert says she has tentative plans to relocate the popular campground hotel to a larger site in the Marfa area, and to use the hotel’s existing property for affordable housing.

The district sent the survey out to its more than 10,000 employees earlier this year. Many said high housing costs were pushing them to move farther away from Austin.

Residents who live in public housing pay roughly a third of their income toward rent.

Rosewood Courts was built in 1939 as the first public housing for Black residents in the country. But more than half a century later, residents complained of poor living conditions.

Those competing to represent District 9, which has some of Austin’s most unaffordable neighborhoods, don’t agree on how to solve the skyrocketing cost of staying housed — or what to blame.

Applicants, who need to prove they make less than the median family income, have struggled to obtain mortgages.

While the city has general leeway in how the loan is spent, it says it plans to use this money to build and preserve housing that someone earning roughly less than $61,800 a year can afford.

The city estimates the bond would be paid off by taxpayers over the next two decades. Homeowners living in a median-priced house could expect to pay about $50 more a year in property taxes to pay down the debt.