Decibel
‘If We Wouldn't Have Been There, Would They Have Kept Their Electricity?’: Navigators Keep Neighbors In Their Homes
Clip | 4m 31sVideo has Closed Captions
They took the job to help neighbors find housing resources. They're helping with more.
Even with rents decreasing in Austin, more and more families find themselves struggling with the city’s high rent costs. The Dove Springs displacement prevention program assists community members with rental assistance including rent, utilities, food and repairs. Read more about the role of displacement prevention navigators in the Dove Springs community at decibelatx.org.
Decibel is a local public television program presented by Austin PBS
Funding for Decibel is provided in part by Texas Mutual and Roxanne Elder & Scott Borders
Decibel
‘If We Wouldn't Have Been There, Would They Have Kept Their Electricity?’: Navigators Keep Neighbors In Their Homes
Clip | 4m 31sVideo has Closed Captions
Even with rents decreasing in Austin, more and more families find themselves struggling with the city’s high rent costs. The Dove Springs displacement prevention program assists community members with rental assistance including rent, utilities, food and repairs. Read more about the role of displacement prevention navigators in the Dove Springs community at decibelatx.org.
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[Amy] A lot of the people that we talk to, they're usually kind of like, 'Oh, what are you guys doing here?'
'What do you do?'
And so then we kind of tell them what we do, they're like, 'Oh, I didn't even know that was a thing.'
[upbeat music plays] [Silvia] We're with the anti-displacement navigators, so we help people stay in their homes... [Alejandra] Hi, my name is Alejandra.
My name is Sylvia Zuvieta-Rodriguez.
My name's Nancy.
My name is Amy Perez.
I'm one of the displacement program navigators here for the city of Austin.
[Nancy] We're a pilot program currently in Dove Springs and Colony Park.
And what our objective is to help connect people with resources to help them stay in their homes.
[Amy] Dove Springs is my home.
And so I realized a lot of like families that were there were gone.
And I was like, what?
Like where do they go?
[Silvia] My own extended family has had to leave They worked here, they were renting here.
They just couldn't afford here.
They couldn't afford a home.
[Alejandra] I'm constantly talking to my family about Austin being gentrified and the housing issues.
My sister saw a posting about this job and she sent it to me.
She's like, 'You're always talking about this.'
'So I thought, you will enjoy this.'
[crowd noises] [Alejandra] So we refer people to resources within the community.
And then, that has our location and hours, if you know anyone that needs help.
[Amy] Our job mainly consists of two parts.
So the first one is going to outreach events and we talk to them about the program.
The other part of that would be more like following up.
and see what we can help them with.
[Alejandra] A lot of the older families have moved because they can't afford to stay here in Austin.
At the beginning we were focusing on housing our resources, but we figured out that housing includes food, shelter, repairs.
[Nancy] there's also utility bills that need to be paid.
[Sylvia] But the primary need is rental assistance, [Nancy] rental assistance, [Amy] rental assistance, [Alejandra] We constantly get people that need help with rent.
[Silvia] And that's been a little bit harder to come by.
[tense music plays] [Sylvia] Rental assistance gets taken up pretty quickly because of the just vast amount of need.
[Amy] I'm a renter myself, so I feel those price increases as well.
And it's hard.
Ever since the pandemic, a lot of people have had to work two or three jobs just to put food on the table and pay the bills.
[Silvia] Porque hay mas cosas en Inglés, que en Español... [Amy] Something I encounter is helping our Spanish-speaking families.
[Silvia] They don't want to ask for assistance.
They don't know what type of assistance they can get.
A one of the reasons they're not asking for help is because of how anti-immigrant Texas has gotten [crowd noises] [Amy] I know lately there's been a lot of fear.
You know.
'Oh, maybe I may not be eligible.'
'Or maybe I'm in a change or immigration status' 'that might affect me.'
[Silvia] So there are programs specifically that they can apply to, just not the federal government.
But they don't know that.
So they're like barely scraping by because they know that Austin's a lot safer than, let's say, like Hutto.
[Nancy] To me, the most important thing is awareness.
[soft music plays] You know, I always say, take a couple fliers.
Do you have any neighbors that might need some assistance or help?
[Amy] I want to keep families that have been there for generations in the neighborhoods that they really helped create.
[Silvia] I just want to make sure my community, my people stay safe, as well as the immigrant community.
[Nancy] I want to feel like I'm making a difference.
Somehow.
[laughs] [Alejandra] I think what keeps me going is the families.
When I think about the frustrations, about the lack of funding and all that stability issues that need to be addressed, I just think about the few families that we have talked to like at 7 p.m., and I wonder if we wouldn't have been there.
would they have kept their electricity?
Would they have had food for another week?
So that's what keeps me wanting to...
It's what keeps me going.
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Decibel is a local public television program presented by Austin PBS
Funding for Decibel is provided in part by Texas Mutual and Roxanne Elder & Scott Borders