(bright music) - [Announcer] Support for this program comes from Roxanne Elder and Scott Borders.

(bright music continues) (no audio) (traffic whirring) (radio static crackling) - [Reporter] Why many people are struggling to afford housing in a boom town.

(radio static crackles) Low income minorities pushed out of their homes because of gentrification.

- [Reporter] Yeah, it's an ongoing problem and- (engine rumbling) (radio static crackling) - [Reporter] As a new report from the Austin Board of REALTORS shows which parts of Austin are seeing the worst shortages in housing supply.

(gentle music) (boxes rustling) - We know that there are residents who are feeling the burden of displacement pressures.

Our goal is to help them remain in their homes and communities.

I'm pleased to be here today to announce a new pilot program.

(box thuds) The Displacement Prevention Navigator pilot program works to help renters and homeowners stay in their homes by connecting residents with housing resources.

- (sighs) Fuck it.

I'll come back for the box.

(panting) - It's not always easy for households to know all about the tons of city programs that we have available.

(hammer thudding) (dog barking) So that's why these navigators are key, because they're gonna have those in-person conversations directing folks to our housing programs.

- Good.

Yeah, this morning I was trying to find- - Just for clarification, that means that as of now this program would only be in effect until June of 2024.

Depending on how it goes and how much there is of a need, that's when you guys will determine whether or not to extend it.

- That is correct.

(soft somber music) (birds chirping) (tense music) (birds chirping) (tense music continues) (birds continue chirping) (tense music continues) - [Interviewer] Perfect.

So, um, first question, what is Dove Springs and where is it?

- Yeah, that's a great question, and it's not as simple as it sounds.

(upbeat music) - [Bystander] A flare.

And they were like a, we also- - Good boy.

Good boy.

- Good morning, Maria.

- Morning.

How are you?

- Doin' okay.

How are you?

- [Maria] I'm fine.

- Did you feel out- - My name is Lila Valencia and I'm the demographer at the City of Austin.

Oftentimes people will define Dove Springs, the neighborhood, sort of as the zip code 78744.

Around Ben White at the north, over to about Frederick Lane, Pleasant Valley, down to William Cannon, and then over to I-35 in the west.

(map rustling) Around 1970, portions of what we now call Dove Springs were annexed.

The closer you were to the northern part of Dove Springs, more often you were white, had higher wages, and as you moved farther out, then we saw a lot of increases in especially the share of African Americans, the share of immigrant population.

(Bertha speaking Spanish) - [Lila] Now we know that about 77% of residents are of Hispanic background.

- I came in '97.

Everything reminded me of Mexico.

Everything was green.

- I remember on Sunday mornings, I would walk the street, the neighborhood, early in the morning.

(griddle sizzling) And you would smell the tortillas or the chorizo and eggs, and the food just cooking.

And you're like, "Oh man, they're cookin' it up today."

- And in the hot summers, we would put Dawn soap on the sidewalk, I kid you not, and we would do slip and slides.

It was amazing!

(player speaks Spanish) (shoes squeaking) - Eh!

- If you go outside, you see all of us out there playing sports for sure.

If you go around the corner, and you see a little gang activity.

I think we're the first neighborhood in Austin to have a curfew.

- I feel like there was areas or parts of town that they'd be like, "Oh, don't go there.

That's dangerous."

And believe it or not, Dove Springs was, like, one of them for a while.

Like, when people are like, "Oh, you grew up there."

It's like, mm.

(dramatic orchestral music) (opera singer singing in foreign language) - [Erik] In like '95, it was a Stop-N-Go.

- The Stop-N-Go was open 24-7.

So, gang members would hang out.

- They put big old speakers on the light poles and they would play opera music so nobody would wanna hang out.

(opera singer vocalizing) And they'll do it.

They'll turn it up.

Be like, "Man!"

and everybody would burn off.

Like, "Man, we don't wanna be there."

(dramatic orchestral music) (water sloshing) (swimmers chattering) - I've always felt safe.

Like, in the street where my parents live in, it's all mainly families.

Like, everybody knows each other.

- You pass by, "Hi, buenos dias.

How are you doing?"

You know, everything was very friendly.

- It was very family oriented, it still is family oriented, and that's what keeps you going about Dove Springs.

It's all about people, it's all about the community, it's all about family.

- Even today, it's still more affordable to find places to live there than in the rest of Austin, but because of that, we're really seeing some pressures into that area.

(somber music) - It was a little bit of a change little by little, but when it really hit me was when there was a bus picking up a dog for obedience school.

I was like, are you serious?

(chuckles) There's actually a school bus for dogs.

I'm like, if this is not gentrification, what is?

- I realized a lot of like families that were there were gone.

And I was like, "What?

Like, where did they go?"

- My parents bought the home pretty early, like in the early 2010s.

But my family that was renting, it was just outside of their budget.

They had to leave the area.

(box thuds) They just couldn't afford here.

They couldn't afford a home.

(somber music continues) - A friend of mine said this was the last hood in Austin, the last real hood.

And you think about that, it's like he's right because we're the last ones.

Montopolis in East Austin, I mean, gentrification went crazy there.

(somber music continues) - There's a lot of culture in these neighborhoods, and for many people these were sort of the last options.

These were places where people could afford, and in some cases they are still today, but the housing costs in these neighborhoods have gone up astronomically as they have across the city.

(keys clacking) - Thank you so much.

- [Reporter] Keeping touch with me throughout the day, and then secondly- - My name is Audrey McGlinchey.

I'm the housing reporter here at KUT.

Really since about 2010, housing prices in Austin have been steadily rising.

And then when we hit the pandemic 2020, 2021, things really took off.

(bright music) We saw prices for homes for sale and also apartments for rent rise by about 25, 30% in one year, which is pretty incredible.

Before that, it was about 5 to 10% every year.

(bright music continues) Places don't grow the way that Austin has, I will say.

About every two decades, Austin almost doubles its population, which you really don't find in other cities.

(traffic whirring) (bright music continues) So, if a ton of people move to a city, then you need housing for those people.

We have not built quite enough housing to keep up with that.

It takes more time to build housing, right?

I can easily move to a new city, you know, tomorrow if I want to, but I can't build an apartment building in one day.

And so what you see and what we have seen are price increases.

(birds chirping) Hey Robbie, this is Audrey with KUT.

I was just calling to see if I could get an updated list of- So I just recently did a story about people who spend more than 30% of their income on rent.

That's really how many housing experts.

It's how the federal government defines what they call cost burden, which basically means you are living in housing you cannot afford.

(somber music) But for many people, that's just the reality.

If they want housing, they have to pay a large chunk of their income towards it, which in the Austin area is about half of all renters.

(somber music continues) We see this play out in really every city.

When one part of town gets more expensive, people generally move to lower income neighborhoods, and that increases the population demand in those neighborhoods, that increases the need for more housing.

In the case where more housing is not built, we can sometimes see the effect of that, of pushing out the people already living there.

(traffic whirring) (somber music continues) The City Council has tried to pass some changes.

- Today is an exciting day.

We are here to launch the Displacement Prevention Navigator program and we certainly need your help.

- [Audrey] In 2023, the city of Austin started a pilot program where it paid people to help inform their neighbors about various housing programs.

- The Displacement Prevention Navigator program will focus initially on two neighborhoods, Colony Park and Dove Springs.

- Starting in five minutes if you wanna head down to the field!

Egg hunt starting in five minutes!

- Baby.

(crowd chattering) - [Officer Jackmon] Compared to the rest of Austin, Colony Park and Dove Springs have higher shares of cost burden residents and residents who have also lived in their homes for more than 20 years.

(crowd chattering) - Oh, we get ears.

- Look, we get ears.

- [Navigator] The deposit if she has to break the lease.

- I'm constantly talking to my family about Austin being gentrified and the housing issues, not only in Austin but in the nation.

My sister saw a posting about this job and she sent it to me.

She was like, "You're always talking about this, so I thought you would enjoy this."

When are they here?

Let me go look.

- I think they're with- I was born and raised in Dove Springs, and I've seen how much displacement has happened.

So, I heard about the program, and I was like, okay, this is maybe something that I can do in my spare time to kind of just help my community stay in their homes.

(group chattering) - [Rachel] I heard about the program through a job posting.

- I was telling her, I was trying to decipher- - It talked about displacement, it talked about advocating for individuals, and I have a passion for that because I have a background in that area, and I have a passion for Dove Springs.

I grew up in that area.

(group chattering) - [Amy] I wanna keep families that have been there for generations in the neighborhoods that they really help create.

- Gracias.

- To me, it seemed really unfair for them to have to leave or move somewhere else when that's all they've known.

Dove Springs is my home.

I was born and raised and grew up here, so I was like, "Yes, I wanna sign up for that immediately."

(upbeat music) He looks like a little rabbit.

- [Alejandra] Hi, my name is Alejandra.

- So, my name is Amy Perez.

- So, my name is Silvia Zuvieta-Rodriguez and I am a displacement navigator, or no... - What am I?

I just said a displacement... - Displacement Prevention Navigator.

I'm so sorry.

It's a long title.

(chuckles) - I work for the Displacement Prevention program for the City of Austin.

- I'm one of the Displacement Program Navigators here for the city of Austin.

- All right, I could do this!

- You got it!

- Hi, I'm Rachel Salgado.

I am a navigator and I work towards helping people from becoming displaced.

(upbeat music continues) (children chattering) - We refer people to resources within the community, and then that has our locations and hours if you know anyone that needs help.

- 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 following up and see what we can help them with.

- So, that's kind of like our main goal is just to keep people in the areas that are their homes.

(camera clicks) - Aww.

I love it!

- Suck in my stomach, y'all- - (chuckles) Okay.

At the beginning we were focusing on housing resources, but we figured out that housing includes food, shelter, repairs.

- We can help anybody from food stamps, create a budget, advocacy.

We've helped many people go to the Texas Workforce and teach 'em how to apply for unemployment.

We've helped many people apply for jobs.

We did everything because the goal is to keep 'em from being displaced.

(group chattering) (gentle music) (group chattering) - No, no, no, I'm talking about the new 'cause they had to go to a new apartment or a new duplex that only had two rooms for six people.

- Oh.

- Yeah.

- [Rachel] Now, keep in mind once she breaks that lease- - The primary need is rental assistance.

- Rental assistance.

- We constantly get people that need help with rent.

- And that's been a little bit harder to come by.

(group chattering) Rental assistance gets taken up pretty quickly 'cause of the just vast amount of need.

(group chattering) - Sometimes they just didn't have the rent, and it's not because they weren't trying, it was because their money wasn't covering everything.

Sometimes it jumps like 50 bucks, sometimes it jumps like 20, sometimes it jumps like a hundred.

And who's prepared for that?

- I'm a renter myself, so I feel those price increases as well.

And it's hard.

(tense music) - There are a lot of different programs, but they don't meet the need.

(tools whirring) We have many nonprofits in the Austin area that build income-restricted housing, right?

But again, according to some counts, we're missing tens of thousands of these kinds of apartments.

(tense music continues) We have, you know, federally funded programs, things like housing vouchers where basically you can go to a landlord and say, "I have this ticket, if you will, that says I only have to pay 30% of my income towards rent and the government will pay the rest.

Can I live here?"

One of the biggest challenges is even getting that voucher.

- The Section 8 wait list hardly opens.

When people do get vouchers, it's harder for them to find housing because not everyone takes Section 8.

(tense music continues) (water hissing) - I've been here for a week.

A week!

(sponge scraping) I backdoored three days straight till five in the morning putting my house together.

I did it for my kids, I did it for my sanity.

I wanted to feel home.

I wanted to feel at home, and if I woulda let the depression get to me and all of the things that I had to go through to get here, I'd probably be still sitting in boxes.

(tense music) So this moving process has not been fun.

I've been quite depressed, actually.

At one point, my speech when I was looking for apartment was, "Hi, my name is Jessica Vasquez.

I'm on Section 8.

I'm a single mother of three kids, I'm a non-smoker, no pets, I'm very clean, been at my job for two years.

That sucks that I had to sell myself to be able to get a place to stay, but I had to do it.

There's not a lotta apartments or places that wanna take Section 8.

Wow.

(wind whirring) (boxes rustling) I did not wanna move.

This fucking box is annoying.

I don't know how to get into it.

I've been a resident for eight years at my apartment homes.

- [Mover] Maybe sit the... - I considered it my home, not just a place to rent, and this year I was told that they would not be renewing my lease.

There was no specific reason given.

It's just, "We're not gonna renew," and in the state of Texas, they have that option.

If I did not find a place, I would have lost my voucher.

No more Section 8.

You would be homeless.

(tense music) (boxes rustling) It's not like I can walk into anywhere and be like, "Oh hey, I like that apartment.

Can I sign?"

you know, like a normal person.

Say that again.

You call and you call and you call, and about 50% of them tell you "No, we're not taking it," and then the other 20% have a waiting list.

Meet me at the house.

We'll all meet at the house.

(box thuds) You have to meet certain requirements in certain apartments.

(hand truck thudding) Some apartments tell you that you still have to make the two times the rent or the three times the rent.

Now, how does that work for a person on Section 8?

(hand truck clicks) If I send them back, that's another hour of loading and an hour of unloading.

That's $200 more.

Oh my God.

And I was just trying to hustle my time.

Section 8 doesn't pay for your light, your water, your gas.

They pay specifically only the rent.

(bag rustles) Taking this box back.

We still have a rent portion to be responsible for.

You gotta have the deposit.

Section 8 doesn't pay that for you.

Plus your movers.

That's a lot right there.

(box thuds) Kitchen (indistinct).

I do work.

I just can't make all of the ends meet right now because Austin is just ridiculously expensive.

(tense music) (wind whirring) (birds chirping) (tense music) - Other cities have laws that prohibit landlords from discriminating based on income.

And that's in part to stop landlords from discriminating against people who have housing vouchers.

(gavel thuds) - Good morning, I'm Austin Mayor Lee Leffingwell.

We'll begin with the invocation.

- About a decade ago, Austin City Council did pass that law, but it was later overturned.

(tense music continues) And so, landlords have the right to say, I don't want to rent to someone who has a voucher.

(wood clattering) I should also say one of the biggest challenges is even getting that voucher.

People spend years on these wait lists.

So, you finally get that voucher, and then you struggle to find someone who will accept it.

(wind whirring) (objects clattering) - With Travis County Section 8, you can only stay in Travis County, which is super hard because, again, it's super expensive.

I need my shoe.

You don't have nothing to hold the door with 'cause I need my shoe.

I probably had more options in Buda and College, but I woulda had to transfer my entire case to a new caseworker and to a new county, which I don't know how that flow goes.

And to be quite frank, I was scared that in the mix of that some paperwork got lost or "No, you can't transfer," and then before you know it, you're in limbo.

Nobody's helping you.

That's me.

I'm her.

(broom scraping) Once you find a place, they have 15 days to approve it.

(box thuds) I couldn't have two inspection packets out.

This I can take.

If it's not approved, there's no backup plan.

They inspected my unit, I believe the 28th, (chuckles) and I moved in on the 31st.

I'll unload it.

Just fuckin' push it over there.

Those were the most stressful three days of my life.

I did not know where I was gonna go, what my options were gonna be, or what I was gonna do.

(objects clattering) (Jessica panting) I'm exhausted.

Like, I'm literally about to wanna cry and give up, but that is not an option.

What is in here?

It sounds all broken.

Oh, (indistinct) we can have the parking situation.

If you're not strong enough, mental health will break you.

(tense music) Houses are almost at 400,000.

I can't afford that.

I don't have a career.

I'm not a doctor.

(tense music continues) (sobs) Oh, fuck, man.

I'm just a normal person.

(tense music continues) (wind whirring) (leaves rustling) (pool balls thud) (group chattering) - You already have your ID, you already did basically the hard work.

I'm just gonna go behind you and be like, "Hey, we need to fix this."

And then food services.

So, what he's applying for is electricity assistance and gas assistance.

So, that's for that.

And then this...

I know how it feels not to have lights.

I know how it feels not to have food 'cause I was unhoused.

It was just an unsafe situation, so I decided to leave home at the age of 12 or 13.

That also.

So we'll do that.

They can tell I know how they feel and they can see the realness.

You have the lights number?

- Uh-huh, absolutely.

- Okay.

He's gonna get in- Everything's gone up.

You know, electricity has risen.

The gas in the house has risen.

He's a social worker.

A lotta people are in survival mode.

So just by keeping them with their electricity is making a huge difference, and they depend on that.

All right.

I'm a hugger, so is that against the rules?

- Thank you.

- Okay.

If you can't pay your light bill, that causes a lot of stress.

I'll see you later.

Thank you for coming.

- Bye.

- [Rachel] It's a lot.

(mellow music) (traffic whirring) (gas burner clicking) (pan sizzles) (pan rattling) (Bertha speaking Spanish) (Bertha continues speaking Spanish) (pan sizzling) (Bertha speaking Spanish) (Bertha continues speaking Spanish) (Bertha continues speaking Spanish) (fan whirring) (Bertha speaking Spanish) (Bertha continues speaking Spanish) (pan sizzling) (tense music) - What scientists talk about is a positive feedback loop.

So it gets warmer, so we cool more, so we use more energy.

I am Zoltan Nagy, I'm a assistant professor here at the University of Texas.

So we study how buildings respond to energy, particularly under climate change.

We try to understand who is impacted and how much.

(tense music continues) What heat does is it wants to get into your house.

Older homes are particularly vulnerable to this.

Plus, of course, over time you deteriorate.

So anything built before the '80s is probably not even insulated at this point.

(Bertha speaking Spanish) (equipment rumbling and hissing) - [Zoltan] The only thing you can do is have a better AC and better insulation.

(tense music continues) The problem is that it's very expensive.

(hands smacking) - You got people making anywheres average of $47,000 a year to $55,000 a year.

(exhales) Can't afford that.

(pan sizzling) (pan rattles) (Bertha speaking Spanish) (water sloshing) (Bertha speaking Spanish) (foil rustling) (bags rustling) (Bertha speaking Spanish) (door creaks and thuds) (Bertha speaks Spanish) (tense music) (traffic whirring) (Bertha speaking Spanish) (wheels rattle) (Bertha speaking Spanish) (foil rustling) (group chattering) (Bertha speaking Spanish) Okay.

(Bertha speaking Spanish) (Bertha continues speaking Spanish) (tense music continues) (group chattering) - [Navigator] I wanna see if we can advocate for her.

(group chattering) - Even though it's one viable, the potential risk- (group chattering) - It's very stressful, especially if you're a single mom or single dad, and then you have to figure out how to pay your rent and then you have to figure out how to pay that light bill.

So, on top of making sure you have food, making sure you gotta pick up the kids, making sure the laundry's done.

So it's extremely stressful for an individual, but we relieve the stress.

Oh, but she's gonna work around you, right?

When they come talk to us, you can just tell by their features, they just sit down and the first thing they do is (sighs), "Okay," because they know we're gonna do the work for them, as we should because that's what we're doing, and we want them to relax.

We want to take that stress away from them.

- Maybe we'll help you tomorrow, eight in the morning.

- This first year was just laying the foundation, you know, just getting people to get to know us, to trust us.

We're heading towards the end of the funding cycle.

They've talked to us about going to the second phase, so we're just waiting for confirmation in regards to that.

I do feel optimistic because we were told that there was funding set aside.

However, now I'm feeling a little uncertain, but I still have faith in the program.

(chuckles) I would recommend a different program.

That's my concern, that no one's gonna be there to guide the people that do come in when they're ready because it's about trust.

(group chattering) (Silvia speaking Spanish) - This community is primarily Hispanic.

Something I encounter is helping our Spanish speaking families.

(somber music) I know lately there's been a lot of fear, you know.

"Oh, maybe I may not be eligible," or, "Maybe if I'm in a change of immigration status that might affect me."

(Silvia speaking Spanish) - One of the biggest things that I advocate for is immigrant rights.

A lot of things that I see is that they don't wanna ask for assistance, they don't know what type of assistance they can get.

A lot of the assistance is limited for them, so a lot of the things that we would refer citizens to, we cannot refer to undocumented immigrants or mixed status families.

(group chattering) There are a lot of programs out there that they can have, but they're scared to apply.

(group chattering) - (speaking Spanish) Look, this is the Mendez.

The Mendez.

- [Silvia] One of the great things about Austin is that it is more immigrant friendly.

- [Carmen] Oh, look at this, Silvia.

- One of the reasons Austin's a lot safer for immigrants is because of work that my mom or other people in the immigrant community have done.

- My literally name is Maria del Carmen Rodriguez, but I want it say Carmen Zuvieta because is the way the community know me.

I was enrolled with immigrant community to know our rights.

(chuckles) This is for a good day.

I live for 30 years in this area.

A lot of Latino community in here.

So it was very family, very friendly.

We feel in, you know, in our space.

So it was very nice.

So, all these- So what happened?

The original people, so the peoples who wasn't here before, they kick out the more of us they wanted to make this city bigger and expensive.

(somber music) When we moved into this house, the renting, in some places it was 900.

Now it's 2,500 or even more.

It's difficult.

(somber music continues) (mother chattering) Normally the Latinos, our house is passed for the next generations.

Now, no, (child chattering) because the peoples can't afford it.

You know, peoples like my husband and I, we still here because we still have a child who's going to school in here, but I hope we can wait to moved until he went to college because the taxes went too high.

Nobody can afford it.

(somber music ends) - What attracts immigrant populations to areas like that is the same thing that attracts people who need affordable housing, right?

There's gonna be more affordable housing there.

And so I think when immigrants first arrived there, you know, many of them were able to stay there for generations.

- We live in a country where really home ownership is one of the fastest and most secure ways to accumulate generational wealth, right?

We don't have a lot of social safety nets here in the U.S., and so many people, you know, that is their largest asset.

(bright music) So, when a lotta people move to a city, housing prices go up in a response to that.

That also generally means the valuation of a homeowner's property goes up.

That can mean that your property taxes go up as well.

Depending on the homeowner's situation, that can have a really dire impact.

(boxes rustling) If someone is not able to pay that, you know, that could mean eventually losing their home.

- All this pushing the peoples to live in the very bad areas.

The persecution is a lot with the police.

(tense music) - [Silvia] It's extremely dangerous for immigrants of mixed status families.

One of the reasons they're not asking for help is because of how anti-immigrant Texas has gotten.

(tense music continues) - [Reporter 1] The Texas-Mexico border is making national headlines on multiple fronts today.

- [Reporter 2] The law would allow local and state law enforcement to arrest people who they believe crossed into Texas illegally.

- [Reporter 3] Sheriff says a weekend operation that resulted in deportations has nothing to do with immigration.

(tense music continues) - Right outside of Austin it's extremely dangerous for immigrants of mixed status families.

So they're, like, renting apartments that are outside of their budget because they fear leaving Austin.

So, for them, it's particularly difficult.

(dramatic music) - We don't feel our community like it was.

It's not friendly like it was.

The community never be the same, the same love, the same family.

Never be the same.

Never be the same because our city sell us and pushing us like disposal, like trash.

(wind whirring) (children chattering) - The ones that are ready to go, they're gone.

But the ones that do wanna stay, they have to fight.

And that's what's going on in Dove Springs type stuff.

Like, my grandma needs to sell her house and she's getting phone calls.

They're offering her a hundred grand or 95,000, so she take it.

Like, no, that house is worth 275,000.

(doors thudding) My name is Erik Vega.

I'm a Realtor, but I mean, I don't call myself Realtor Erik.

(both laugh) (upbeat music) (hammer thudding) I sell a lotta houses in Dove Springs or to people from Dove Springs that are moving out.

(hammer thudding) I had no plans ever of being in real estate.

I didn't even know I could do that.

We gotta put my phone number on there.

Oh, it's on there.

- It's on there.

- 'Cause we didn't see people coming telling us you got job opportunities, you got this.

And if they did, we can't relate to 'em.

Like, "Man, what are you talkin' about?

We know you don't live here.

You don't look like us.

You fixin' to go back to Westlake when you're done with this speech, and we know that."

- Oh yeah?

- (whistles) And this person right here that's selling this home, I've known him since I was 12.

I played baseball with him.

His dad used to coach me.

That's kinda my thing.

People can relate to me out there.

Even if we don't know each other, just the fact that I grew up here, that's why my phone rings so much.

(somber music) Then I started seeing the ugly part of the game.

I see 'em getting taken advantage of.

(somber music continues) Homes are getting upgraded, you know, but then that brings up property value on the house next door that can't afford to upgrades.

There goes their property value.

(somber music continues) They're like lost and stressed because they're starting to see, like, "Man, I cannot afford to stay here no more."

(somber music continues) The realtors, they're representing buyers that are gonna be the ones that you know, "Hey, this person here has been there for 30 years and you know, they might take a hundred grand.

Let's offer 'em a hundred grand."

- [Interviewer] Have you had people come up and like leave flyers and knock on the door?

- Oh!

(interviewer laughs) Yes.

Yes.

"I buy you house cash."

"I buy you house, we are develop."

"We wanna buy you house.

We have interest to buy you house."

Really?

Why you don't went far away in Bastrop and buy lawn and make houses over there?

Why coming to push us out?

Leave me alone.

(somber music fades) (birds chirping) - If it starts with a one, it's completely unrealistic.

There's nothing in Austin that starts with a one.

It's gotta have a two in front of it.

But a hundred grand to a 65-year-old person.

They bought these houses for 30 grand back in '85.

You know, they'll take it.

They'll take it.

But in reality, you're missing out on another 150.

And it blows their mind.

Like, "What do you mean?"

I'm like, "Yeah, that's what your house is worth."

And then they get away with this because people are uneducated.

Uneducated, they're intimidated.

One thing I know about the older Hispanics, like 60, 70, they don't want no smoke.

They don't want no confrontation with nobody.

Like, they feel everybody is the police.

You can go over there just with a nice looking suit, bring you a tablet and a computer and you start talking big words, you can make these people think they don't have no choice when they have all the choices in the world.

And people do that, and they do it with a smile on their face.

Like, man, I don't know.

I couldn't do it.

(chuckles) I couldn't do it.

(soft music) Man, this is slow.

If I had had a house out there in Dove Springs six years ago and somebody come, "Hey man, I give you 120 grand for it."

Man, "Sold.

Get it right now."

I would've sold it.

They would've got me.

I just wish there was more education.

No one told us about home ownership back then.

No one told us about equity.

(mellow music) So, I found that as kinda my little niche.

Like, man, I can help these people that I've known my whole life.

Like, make sure y'all get top dollar, you don't get bamboozled at your house, 'cause they'll do it.

They'll do it.

(group chattering) - [Person] And like noon.

It's noon, 12:30.

- Noon?

Okay.

(group chattering) - I guess we should scoot up 'cause we're number two.

(group chattering) - [Navigator] Oh, come on.

Let's go.

Go.

You lead the way.

- Oh, oh, I don't know where I'm leadin' to.

Okay.

(group chattering) Okay good, 'cause I was like... - Nelson.

(group chattering) - Oh my gosh.

- Good morning, everyone.

My name is Vanessa Fuentes, Austin City Council, and I'm here today to present a very special proclamation for our Displacement Prevention Community Navigators and to also provide certificates of recognition.

These community navigators are a dedicated and passionate group who know the effects of displacement in our communities firsthand.

And so, it is my privilege to be able to thank them in person for their work and to celebrate all of the contributions that they've made in our community and to continue to publicly commit to my support for this program so that we can have this program continue on.

Let's give a round of applause for them.

(group applauding) - Yeah, I don't know what Blue Bonnet does.

That one's in Kyle, right?

'Cause a lotta people with like housing vouchers are going out there now.

It's cheaper, but then when they need utilities, I'm like, "Oh."

The Navigator team, we attended a proclamation where we were awarded a city award.

I wasn't sure what to expect and I was just up like, "Okay, sure I'll attend."

(chuckles) (group chattering) So we're actually close to the end of the pilot program.

It looks like the program has support to continue, but we're not really sure on the timeline.

(soft music) I don't have the best feelings about it.

It makes me nervous for the people that, you know, maybe heard about the program and they finally wanna give it a chance, or maybe they need assistance and then no one's gonna be here.

(ominous music) - Bye, y'all.

- Bye.

Thank you, guys.

(traffic whirring) - You can think about the affordability of housing in two ways.

It's either bringing the cost of housing down or increasing people's income or access to money.

(bright music) - I'll call to order the meeting of the Austin City Council.

We will hear speakers, both virtual and in-person on our agenda items.

I will read- - The city is trying a couple things to get at both of those.

(upbeat music) The city of Austin now has a guaranteed income program.

It's relatively small.

It helps about a hundred families.

Rents are actually coming down.

They're down about 6 to 8% depending on what numbers you look at.

The City Council has made some zoning changes recently with the intent of allowing builders to build more.

Historically because of the zoning regulations, you could really only build a single family home on one piece of land, generally a relatively large piece of land.

They have made those changes again with the hope that people will build more, and then hopefully prices will continue to go down.

So, it's really about how can we ensure that people are earning more, especially lower income folks.

How can they get access to capital?

And then, how can we continue to bring down the cost of housing and ensure that people aren't spending half of their monthly paycheck on rent.

- Oftentimes we think about, you know, demography as destiny, but really it really depends on what we do today because it can have really long-term impacts on our communities in the future.

- It requires people to get involved to speak about advocating for their homes.

We cannot do it one person at a time.

It has to be a unity between residents, organizations, including getting involved with the city.

(tense music) (group chattering) (group chattering) (upbeat music) - I don't know where we're gonna be in 10 years.

Hopefully we're in the fight.

You know, there's community groups in Montopolis, community groups in East Austin.

They're in the fight and they're swingin'.

Almost seems like nobody's listening.

(tense music) I really feel like our area is a target.

It's difficult.

- Housing is so personal.

Not only is there the stress of the financial side of housing, but potentially losing your housing or having to move can be so much more traumatic because you could be losing much more than just a home, right?

And for many people it's a community, it's a neighborhood, it's history.

And that's something I think a lot about in housing reporting.

- Si.

(speaking Spanish) - Okay, thank you, ma'am.

(Bertha speaking Spanish) - Bye!

- Gracias, gracias, gracias.

- Adios.

- Bye.

(Bertha speaking Spanish) (Bertha continues speaking Spanish) (wheels rattling) (Bertha speaking Spanish) (traffic whirring) (Bertha speaking Spanish) (Bertha continues speaking Spanish) (soft somber music) - It is strange to see people leave.

Like, "Man, why you leavin'?"

But at the same time, I understand that we're grown.

It's not only the money part, it's just the surroundings.

Like, it's not the same no more.

I was like, "Nah, just take 'em outside."

She said, "It's gone."

I just wish there was more education.

If you're ready to sell, this is what you look out for, you know, because you're gonna get got, and it happens so often.

(associate chattering) (door thuds) You've been here 30 years.

Oh, I gotta see some things tomorrow.

You've fought hard for this house and you're sittin' here tellin' me you're okay with this other guy makin' some money off it?

Ain't no way.

If he wants to make money, he's gotta do it on the bones that we leave because this is your house.

(traffic whirring) (soft music) - I was blessed to have a place and that we weren't left on the street.

'Cause he's driving from Buda.

And I'm thankful for Section 8.

I just wanna bring awareness how hard it is with this program to move.

A lot of it is them trying to get, you know, higher rent.

We can't do that, so we gotta go.

Where do we keep going?

We're kinda just thrown away Austinites.

(soft music continues) My dream house is to have a really nice backyard.

(chuckles) I love to do art.

I want a little art studio.

I wanna be able to, like, get up, have my coffee, and go do my art.

I like to be like the community mom where the kids come over and they have snacks and to just have something that I can call mine that nobody can come and say, "Hey, we don't want you here this year.

You gotta go."

Or you know something that you can know that it's permanent and it's yours.

(sniffs) (soft music continues) (birds chirping) (basketballs thudding) (shoes squeaking) (players chattering) - [Navigator] Well, should I just tell the rec if they want any of the... - I don't know if they want this.

So we are at the end of our pilot program.

Today is actually the last day, mm-hmm.

Okay, so then let's take half of these.

I think next week I'm still probably gonna be in my mind like, "Oh, I need to get ready to go to my shift there."

But there's not gonna be a shift there anymore.

(mellow music) I think they've made a plan and they would like for us to come back, but nothing's really yet set in stone.

- Raina is like one of the best- - I definitely think there's gonna be a huge gap there.

You know, all of a sudden we were here, we were in their communities, we were trying to get the word out, and now we're gone.

(mellow music continues) (singers vocalizing) What really keeps me going is my families.

Whenever I think about these families, I think of my own parents who came here in the '80s, fairly limited English.

They built a life for themself, raised myself and my siblings, and they've hit a lot of milestones with hard work.

I just wish somebody was around when they were here to help them out and navigate the system, because yes, there's a lot of resources here in Austin, but the system is very hard to navigate if you don't know.

So I really wanna keep that family-friendly neighborhood feeling alive.

- [Silvia] The writing just started getting really crazy.

- Yeah.

- I think what keeps me going is the families.

When I think about all the frustrations about the lack of funding and all the accessibility issues that need to be addressed, I just think about the few families that we have talked to, like at seven 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, that's what keeps me going.

- No, it's great.

It's great.

I will say it will get you mad 'cause- This has been my home and it's very unfortunate that I'm seeing it change because of developers very quickly.

One of the biggest things that I advocate for is immigrant rights and immigrant people, so I wanna make sure those people stay safe.

So that's what I continue to do, 'cause I know Austin has a lot to work for, or a lot of work to do to be able to make it safe for communities.

But it's a lot better than a lot of places in Texas.

So that's kind of why I just wanna make sure my community, my people stay safe as well as the immigrant community.

- [Parent] (indistinct) I'll meet you right back here, okay?

- The work of the navigators is really important because we bridge the gap in a lot of places that people didn't know that needed to be filled.

(mellow music continues) I've always been an underdog and I've always come out fighting, right?

So I love when I work with an individual who's also considered an underdog.

I see 'em walk out with self-confidence, self-worth, and I'm like, "All right, you go," because that's what I was, I feel I was put on this Earth for a purpose, and that's my purpose is to serve people.

(mellow music continues) (group chattering) - It is, I feel like bittersweet.

Families are struggling and I think that that's something that we know, but until you see it, you don't really, like, see what that means, you know.

(mellow music continues) (singers vocalizing) (mellow music continues) (singers vocalizing) (mellow music continues) (singers vocalizing) (mellow music continues) ♪ Oh, oh, oh ♪ ♪ Dove Springs, Texas you get lost in ♪ ♪ 78744, 4-4 ♪ ♪ Dove Springs, Texas, you get la-la-la ♪ ♪ We swingin' no votes through the south side of Austin ♪ ♪ Dove Springs, Texas you get lost in ♪ ♪ We swingin' no votes through the south side of ♪ (bright music) - [Announcer] Support for this program comes from Roxanne Elder and Scott Borders.

(bright music continues)