News Stories

As Austin voters head to the polls this week and next, they'll decide whether to approve $925 million worth of bonds. One of those bonds is for affordable housing.

During early voting and on November 6, Austin taxpayers are casting ballots on a historic $250 million affordable housing bond. The proposition, known as 'Prop A', is more than twice the amount approved in the last two affordable housing propositions in 2006 and 2013 combined.

This election season, there is a lot at stake — including the future of housing affordability in Austin. Austin is in a housing crisis. We’ve reached a point where 37 percent of residents spend almost half of their income on housing. We’ve become one of the most economically segregated cities in America. We are on the brink of the proverbial tipping point.

Austin’s prosperity has come at a steep price for longtime residents and working families who are financially squeezed — or pushed out altogether — by rising housing costs.

We wholeheartedly support the city's $250 million affordable housing bond. The largest bond of its kind in city history tops ballot propositions for a reason: Austin needs more affordable housing – approximately $4 billion worth of it – for both low-income families fighting displacement, and middle-class households working to keep their heads above water.

Austin voters have a lot of consider this election season and one of the biggest items is the nearly $1 billion bond proposal. Proposition A, which was just recently approved by Austin City Council, is split across seven different categories with the largest bond on the ballot dedicated to affordable housing.

The coalition of “Keep Austin Affordable” is rallying support for a historic affordable housing bond set to be voted on this November. The coalition of nonprofits and businesses held a community conversation about Austin's affordability crisis. Part of their solution is a $250 million bond, the largest of its kind in Austin's history. It is only a part of a $925 million bond City Council is proposing for different developments around the city.

If approved by voters in November, the $250 million bond for affordable housing would set the record as the largest affordable housing bond in the city's history.

Behind the abandoned Home Depot at I-35 and St. Johns sits a small "pocket park" – two picnic tables and a few small shade trees in a grassy field. The city has owned the lot, as well as the abandoned building and a neighboring property, since 2008, when it was purchased with the intent to build a new courthouse on the site. Today, it's one of several properties being eyed by residents and City Council members for possible affordable housing.