Choosing where to live has profound impacts on the family and local communities. For those who have access to loans and wealth, staking out a preferred neighborhood or single-family house has become a source of great pride. At its core, homeownership is a building block of civic life.
America’s heightened acknowledgment and attention to discriminating policies force us to acknowledge this has not been the case for every American, especially African Americans and Latinx Americans who have faced a history of housing segregation. To be sure, owning a home is all but an impossible dream for an increasing number of low-income families. More likely, finding safe and affordable housing is an existential aspiration: a costly struggle of making daily ends meet rather than a joyous reflection of belonging to a community.
Matthew Desmond, an assistant professor of sociology and social studies at Harvard University and affiliate of the Institute for Research on Poverty, recently outlined the severity of the housing challenge that poor Americans face. He noted that rising housing costs, stagnant or falling incomes among the poor, and a shortfall of federal housing assistance means that the poorest households now spend more than half of their income on housing. Specifically, he wrote:
Between 1991 and 2013, the percentage of renter households in America dedicating under 30% of their income to housing costs fell from 54% to 43%. During that same time, the percentage of renter households paying at least half of their income to housing costs rose from 21 percent to 30 percent. African American and Hispanic American families, the majority of whom rent their housing, were disproportionately affected by these trends. In 2013, 23% of black renting families and 25% of Hispanic renting families spent at least half of their income on housing.
When I served on the city council 13 years ago, many San Marcos residents faced the challenges mentioned above. As I watch the San Marcos community grow, I have also watched the price for single-family homes increase. I must admit I was excited by the diverse group of citizens the City Council pulled together to create a Housing Taskforce to study San Marcos’ housing challenges but disappointed by the Council’s refusal to hear these citizens and their recommendations. As of today, the Strategic Housing Action Plan has yet to be adopted by this Council.
In the report produced by the Housing Taskforce, we find Owner-occupied housing to be primarily made up of single-family detached homes (86%); and, consequently, despite the rate of growth for multifamily housing, development of non-student product has not kept up with the demand based on population growth. San Marcos is home to more renters (72%) than homeowners (28%). Even with students removed from the calculation, owner-occupancy only increases to 40 percent. Between 2017 and 2018, the median home sale price in San Marcos was approximately $256,000. The median home sale price of attached products such as townhomes, duplexes, triplexes, and small condos was significantly lower than detached products, but there is a low supply of attached homes, and they sell quickly.
I was also pleased to read about the adoption of Code SMTX, which in my opinion, begins to address the cries of those struggling citizens by allowing these diverse housing types that are also aligned with the City’s comprehensive plan. For the struggling San Marcos resident, Code SMTX enables the more affordable housing options that our old code prevented. Code SMTX has only been in place for a few years, but sadly there are now already efforts to adopt amendments to it that again implement barriers to diverse housing options in our City. We must continually remind ourselves that these types of systemic barriers have an outsized impact on people of color, as well as those that are economically disadvantaged.
The urgent need for equitable, affordable housing options is why I am taking the time to write this letter. The San Marcos workforce does not consist of citizens who can afford to live in the ”single-family home with a white picket fence dream” that we, as Americans, are conditioned to believe is the only respectable form of housing. To this end, it is essential that we allow Code SMTX to do what so many citizens who were involved in the comprehensive plan envisioned: provide diverse and affordable options.
Considering the long history of housing discrimination people of color have faced, I want to go on record and say many of the proposed amendments to Code SMTX that the Council is expected to consider in August would continue this discrimination. Specifically, items 14, 26, 27, 30, 32, 33, 35, 36, 37, and 38 urge discriminatory practices ranging from affordability to negative environmental impact on historic communities of color. While on the topic of the development code, let me highlight the existing occupancy restrictions as a racist and classist policy, which I pointed out thirteen years ago. We shroud these restrictions as a means of controlling students, while their impact on the struggling San Marcos resident is just as real (Item 26).
When I served on the Council, I hated when citizens griped but failed to provide options, so here are some other paths Council could take on this issue.
Option 1. Table these amendments and form a standing Council Committee called The Diversity and Inclusion Policy Review Committee and have them investigate the real impacts these changes have on the poor and people of color.
Option 2. Adopt the Strategic Housing Action Plan, table these amendments, and request the Housing Taskforce review these amendments to ensure they support the goals of affordability and equity.
Option 3. Reach out to Texas State University and ask the Diversity and Inclusion Director to provide an assessment of the impact of these policies changes related to the poor and people of color in the community.
Option 4. Make a motion to deny amendments 14, 26, 27, 30, 32, 33, 35, 36, 37, and 38 and remove the existing occupancy restrictions from Code SMTX.
Option 5. Table the proposed changes to Code SMTX for a year and analyze three years of San Marcos specific data to determine the real impact these amendments have on the poor and San Marcos’s citizens of color.
